Though the Saints headed into the fixture on a high after locking in one for the winners’ column against Shepparton United the weekend prior, injuries aplenty hindered the side as they fell to the reigning premier by 96-points at Victoria Park.
Benalla Saints co-coach Will Martiniello touched on the host of outs, but noted there were takeaways from the tough round six hit out.
“There’s no denying that they’re the benchmark of the competition, Echuca, coming off last year and the form this year as well,” he said.
“And obviously going in with a few out, Waitey (Jarrad Waite) unfortunately not playing, myself and Nick Mellington to name a few, losing a bit of experience – Brody Webster was another one out which hurt us a bit.
“One thing that me and Macca (co-coach Mark Mackenzie) always ask for is effort and they really brought that all bar one quarter at the end.
“There’s still positives to take from it, I think the bye has come at a good time for us to really freshen up — here a good block of winnable games coming up so we’ll focus on that.”
Echuca defender Logan Prout led the way with an eye-popping 31 disposals, 15 contested possessions and 15 marks, supported by Corbin Anderson (18 disposals) and Will Monahan who booted three goals each.
Prout was instrumental with 17 intercept possessions — six of those coming from marks — contributed to 10 score involvements and went at 90 per cent disposal efficiency.
The Murray Bombers won the tackle count 46-24 and dominated possession with plus-98 disposals, while Benalla struggled with disposal efficiency and went at 57 per cent for the match.
Benalla found itself under siege down back for most of the game despite the best efforts of David Mennen and Chris Welsh, but it was the back half of Echuca that drew the praise of co-coach Sam Reid.
“They had a couple of dangerous forwards including (Josh) Mellington, who Curt (Townrow) was all over,” Reid said.
“Logan Prout, Curt, Cam Valentine, they all did their job intercept marking everything. Jack McHale’s getting back to his best and Riley Smith had a fair bit of the ball.”
While Josh Marchbank won the aerial battle for the Saints in the middle — with 49 hit-outs — Echuca’s avenues to goal again totalled in the double digits with 12 individual goal-kickers.
The Saints also won the clearance count 35-22, with Tom Bennett leading the way with 10 during the 19.9 (123) to 4.3 (27) loss.
Martiniello praised the work of Marchbank, also lauding the effort of a number of fellow Saints.
“Nick Brazil really stood up — he went forward with Josh Mellington getting injured,” he said.
“He really presented well I thought, him and his twin brother Fintan, they have that never die attitude and really fight for the ball every time they go near it.
“I also thought Chris Welsh in the midfield with Marchy had a good game, he does a lot of good things which don’t get rewarded at times, he does the contested football stuff that not every player or team sees.”
With the interleague bye looming this weekend, Benalla now eyes off the following block of fixtures as a chance to return to the winners’ list.
“We have two homes games in a row against Mooroopna and Rochy, there should be at least four or five available after the bye to come back in so we start to strengthen that side a bit more,” Martiniello said.
“I said to the boys to not just forget about the game against Echuca, there are negatives and positives to take from it, but let’s take this bye as a bit of a restart, freshen up again — there’s a few guys with sore bodies and a few who need a little bit of fitness, so we’ll focus on those areas this week.”