AN eight-goal opening term set up the Bathurst Bushrangers Outlaws on Saturday as they posted a 16-10-106 to 8-8-56 win over Central West AFL rivals Dubbo.
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Playing their first game of the season on home turf at George Park 2, the Outlaws were keen to bounce back after falling to the Bathurst Giants seven days earlier.
It proved to be good motivation as the first-quarter blitz saw the Outlaws establish a 31-point buffer over the visiting Demons.
“Not many teams these days go through undefeated and we understand that, but you don’t want to lose games on the trot and we really wanted to rectify that this week. It was good to be able to do that,” Outlaws captain Tim Hunter said.
“It was great to get back on our home ground, bit of a bigger oval, and get a fair bit of run in the legs, which is good.
“It was a fantastic start, we just seemed to have a lot of space in the forward line and things really went to plan. We kicked quite accurately as well, which helps, not just at goal, but around the ground.”
Though that impressive opening 25 minutes ultimately laid the platform for Outlaws’ third win of the season, Hunter pointed out that his side still needs to work on consistency.
Having built such a handy lead, the Outlaws’ intensity dropped off in the second term and the Demons managed to claw back some of the deficit.
At half-time the Outlaws still led 9-4-58 to 5-3-33, but the hosts knew they needed to lift.
“To be honest, I think we became pretty complacent after that with the way we played in the second quarter, we weren’t stoked with how we played. But credit to Dubbo, they really stuck it to us in that quarter and we had to have a bit of a chat about that at half-time,” Hunter said.
“We were stoked at the first quarter, but I think we probably thought it was going to happen again in that second quarter.
“At half-time Dubbo were probably in the contest and if we had another quarter like we did in the second, it would have been a really close game.
“But we came out and played a really good brand of footy again … we played the game out well and had a lot of wins all over the ground.”
In the third stanza the Outlaws booted five majors compared to the Demons’ one, an effort which saw the margin between the rivals out to 44 points.
From there the hosts closed things out to retain second spot on the competition ladder.
