Ryan Tyrrell's name had been moved around on Launceston's magnet board as the coaching staff tried to find him a way to be coaxed into form this season. After his round eight exploits, it is safe to say he discovered it at a muddy Windsor Park.
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As part of a premiership team in 2020, Tyrrell was stationed in the back pocket opposed to the likes of Tom Bennett and Jack Rushton. Fast forward over a year, Tyrrell found himself commanding the Blues' forward line.
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It may have seemed like a strange switch given the former Launceston vice-captain entered the round with a handful of goals to his name for the season.
Within one quarter, much to North Hobart's dismay, he had doubled the tally and set the Blues on the course to another league win.
Tyrrell notched six majors in the first term before adding four more at regular intervals throughout the match to break double-digits.
"Ryan's been in poor form this year - he was our vice-captain in our first premiership so we know he can play, we'd seen it before but he's had a slow start to the year," Launceston coach Mitch Thorp said.
"We started him forward, we threw him back and we threw him forward again and he was like a magnet."
While Tyrrell returned to Launceston in pre-season after spending last year in Queensland, the celebrations and crowd chant which rang out from the Windsor Park club-house made it look as though he never left.
"To see his teammates really celebrate all his goals was really rewarding and as I said, he wasn't in great form but he said to me after the game that he feels a little bit better about his footy now," Thorp said.
"I've coached in this competition for 10 years and I can't recall a six-goal individual quarter so it was pretty special."
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It will provide an interesting conversation at match committee with the TSL's leading goal-kicker Jake Hinds available for selection despite playing development league last round.
"[Hinds] would be a chance to come back in, obviously dropped last week and played development league and we've got a couple of other key players coming back with Jacob Boyd from North Melbourne and Alec Wright," Thorp said.
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