NORTH Launceston claimed bragging rights as the best TSL club in town after dominating a lacklustre Launceston to win their cross-town derby by 51 points at Windsor Park.
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Despite losing Zach Burt and Lochie Young as late withdrawals, the reigning premiers were up and about from the opening bounce booting three goals inside the first five minutes to Stephen Heppel, Brad Cox-Goodyer and Stephen Witkowski to set the tone for the encounter and stun the Blues.
Launceston settled after the initial onslaught but struggled to find avenues to goal or gain scoreboard reward for most of the day in the face of a good defensive effort from North.
The Northern Bombers kicked five goals to one in the opening quarter to lead by 25 points at the first break, three goals to one in the second to extend it to 39 points at half-time and managed six goals to four in the second half to record a convincing victory 14.11 (95) to 6.8 (44).
North’s leaders stood up with captain Taylor Whitford winning plenty of the ball, Cox-Goodyer another of North’s best players finishing with four goals, Witkowski playing forward combined well with Heppel and small forward Will Loone inside 50 to finish with three goals while Marcus Haley and Daniel Roozendaal booted two each.
Corey Nankervis was outstanding in his defensive role on Sonny Whiting, Jack Avent another standout for his run-with role on Launceston’s Jay Blackberry and Jay Foon his usual reliable self down back.
Whiting finished with three goals for the Blues and Daniel Sellers kicked two to be two of Launceston’s best but better players were hard to find with Jake Rice, Sam Rundle, Jordan Harris and Joe Groenewegen battling hard.
“We ran hard and we back our work rate in pretty well but we freshened the group up this week to be mentally right and know their legs are fresh – there are still areas of our game we want to improve but to kick nearly 100 points and keep a side to six goals is really pleasing,’’ North coach Zane Littlejohn said.
“Our defensive efforts were a lot better - we’ve worked on it a little bit and put some new things in place to help the guys understand how we want to defend and I was really impressed with our mindset and ability to put that into action.”
Launceston coach Chris Hills was disappointed with his side’s poor performance.
“51 points and we couldn’t play much worse – that is probably the only positive that comes out of it.
“We didn’t really come to play and I don’t think our prep was right through the week and I don’t think our heads were switched on from Wednesday. You can’t turn up against a team like North and go half-hearted - we got a bit ahead of ourselves and thought it was just going to happen.”