ROBINVALE Euston coach Andrew Richardson pulled the right rein in the last two home-and-away rounds of the SFNL senior season by moving rock-solid defender Braidyn Turner into the forward line.
Turner bagged a couple of goals in his side’s comeback win against Ouyen United in round 17, before taking it up a notch with five majors in a best-on-ground performance against Wentworth last Saturday.
A feature of Turner’s game was his hunger for the ball and strong second efforts.
However, he deflected a lot of the praise to his teammates after Saturday’s twilight fixture at Dareton.
“I found myself in some good spots and the delivery to me was really good,” he said.
“I’ve been working myself around the ground more in the past few weeks, and I’ve wanted to hit the scoreboard more and be a good presence inside the forward 50.
“All the boys played really well today. I thought our ball movement from the second quarter to final siren was fantastic.
“Hopefully we that take into our first final against Ouyen.”
The Eagles meet the Kangas at Quandong Park in the elimination final on Sunday.
“It’s going to be weird. I’ve never played footy on a Sunday before. But we’ve just played a 4 o’clock twilight game and we adapted well to that,” Turner said.
Asked when the last time was that he bagged five goals in a game, he said: “I haven’t played forward since ‘Richo’ arrived about five years ago, so yeah, that’s how long it’d be.
“Luckily I remembered how to kick straight again,” he added with a laugh.
He then continued to praise his forward-line teammates.
“I’m very lucky that I’ve got Ethan Gill and Isaiah Johnson alongside me, which makes life a lot easier, especially when ‘Izzy’ is up and about kicking goals,” he said.
“Izzy’s our sparkplug and we feed off all his energy.”
The Eagles have strung together seven wins on the trot heading into finals.
Turner said there was no fluke in the Eagles’ stellar run.
“Blokes have seen that when they do work hard, the rewards come,” he said.
“We’re flying at the moment. You can see in the room here tonight how much everyone is enjoying themselves.
“Hopefully we take all the momentum we’ve built up over the past couple of months into the finals.”
As the Holcroft Lawyers Footballer of the Week, Turner receives $125 from Holcroft Lawyers, 143 Langtree Avenue, Mildura.
