Reported by Brent Diamond
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PORT Melbourne's twin towers Adrian Bonaddio and
Adrian Deluca showcased the Borough's new-look forward line during its 78-point
blitzing of reigning premier North Ballarat at TEAC Oval yesterday.
And across town, Collingwood also won its opening match of the season, defeating Geelong by 24 points at Princes Park, with Anthony Rocca looking ready for a recall to the senior line-up after booting three goals and setting up several other forward thrusts.
"It's all part of his program," coach Gavin Brown said. "This is his third game now and it's all about match conditioning for him, and touch. It was just another one and I thought if he had kicked straight, he would have had a really good game."
The Borough, which has lost some talented players over the off-season including David Spriggs and Luke Livingstone, unleashed the lethal forward package of Bonaddio and Deluca, who booted nine goals between them in a match-winning performance, 20.13 (133) to 7.13 (55).
Deluca, the team's boom recruit who played 46 matches for Carlton, snared four goals while Bonaddio, the team's leading goalscorer last season, booted five.
"We'd like to think that our ability over summer has been getting the right options," coach Gary Ayres said.
"The guys worked extremely hard and got on the front foot early and we forced North Ballarat to a lot of errors today."
Sam Dwyer was unrelenting with his pressure and was the genuine play-maker with 20 possessions. The former South Warrnambool young gun said: "We just wanted to focus on what we needed to do to improve … I worked really hard before Christmas and pushed hard for round one and (am) happy with the result."
"Sammy's a quality player," Ayres said. "He had a breakout year last year and we're very confident for him to step up in the absence of (Robin) Nahas getting drafted."
Stephen Brewer, who collected 26 disposals, and Matthew Smith were launching pads from defence along with John Baird, who continued to nullify the Roosters' forward line.
Aaron Edwards and Bill Driscoll aside, North Ballarat's forward line lacked composure and the intimidation for which it was renowned last season.
It took just five minutes for Deluca to have an influence after slotting through the first goal of the match.
Bonaddio also used his strong hands against Shannon Watt to snare Port's second goal and help the Borough to a 14-point lead at the first change.
The accelerator was flat to the floor when Dwyer kicked a penetrating goal from just outside 50 before Deluca snared his second after taking a strong mark over Michael Searle.
Edwards gave the Roosters a glimmer of hope with a goal before the main break.
But Toby Pinwill, who was also brilliant in the stoppages, added another to extend the lead to 35 points.
The alarm bells continued to ring for the reigning premier when Deluca snared his fourth and former Kangaroo Blake Grima had a profound influence on the ball. The Roosters had 16 inside-50 entries in the third term for just two goals.
North Ballarat coach Gerard FitzGerald said there was no need to panic, despite the team not winning a pre-season practice match. "I'm of the view that you always need to have a purpose with what you're doing. If you're not good enough, then there's something that you're not doing right," FitzGerald said.
Playing his third consecutive VFL match, Rocca was once again the star attraction for the Magpies in their 13.21 (99) to 11.9 (75) win over the Cats with 33 AFL-listed players on display between the two teams.
Rocca booted 3.5 and looked dangerous every time the ball went forward, while Tyson Goldsack, Chris Dawes and Chris Bryan all put their hand up for senior selection.
"Last year we fell away and it looks like this year we're going to be more than competitive," Brown said.
Geelong's Ryan Gamble was the shining light for the Cats up forward, while Tom Gillies and former Bell Park player Ben Johnson on debut were terrific in defence.
"There were certainly some signs. I couldn't question their effort today," Cats coach Dale Amos said. "We let ourselves down at different stages with poor execution and decision making which cost us the game. We're disappointed to lose but I guess there's a lot to take out of it."
New skipper James Podsiadly was shut down in defence, but had limited supply. "He played quite well. We didn't have a stack of quality entries into him which made it hard," Amos said.
Today, Coburg Tigers tackle Frankston, Northern Bullants host Bendigo Bombers and Sandringham takes on the Casey Scorpions.
