Match-winning young forward Jacob van Rooyen was moments away from being substituted out of the game before he took the first of his three final quarter contested marks, Simon Goodwin says.
The Melbourne coach says he was extremely relieved the decision was not finalised before the 20-year-old produced a stunning 10-minute burst in the final term, booting 3.1 from four disposals to lead the Demons to an 18-point victory over the Tigers.
Goodwin said van Rooyen’s ability to impact the game in such a manner after he had not touched the ball during the third quarter and had only four touches for the game demonstrated a fantastic attitude.
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“At one stage we were thinking about subbing him, so thank god we didn’t do that,” Goodwin said.
“He took one mark, that was enough (to change the decision). He was pretty much coming off at his next rotation and we were about to sub him out and then he took a couple of clunks and we said ‘keep going son, you’re away now’.
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“It’s a great thing for Jacob … we speak about it a lot to be able to stay in the now and stay present in your game, and you’d say at three quarter time he certainly wasn’t having his best night.”
Goodwin said the four-gamer would have more quiet patches in games as he did on Monday night, but his final term would instil him with strong self-belief.
The Demons were still in a phase of experimentation with their talls, but with Ben Brown and Tom McDonald both playing in the VFL and Steven May and Jake Lever back on the park in defence, Goodwin said they were drawing closer to settling on their best mix at either end.
“We wanted to have a good look at van Rooyen and Petty together along with a ruck tonight, we’ve got a good look at that,” he said.
“We’re still experimenting if you want to put in some ways, but we’re also looking for guys that impact aerially, and all those guys that were ahead of the ball tonight impacted aerially for us.
“We haven’t had a lot of continuity with our talls in the early part of the year … we’ve had to be a bit horses for courses in a lot of areas with our talls, but now we’ve got them all back, we can start to really settle down and work out what’s best for us.”
The Demons’ relatively clean bill of health has them in a strong position leading into a run of three games against North Melbourne, Gold Coast and Hawthorn, but small forward Charlie Spargo will miss at least one more week due to lingering concussion symptoms, Goodwin said.
— NCA NewsWire
