The team was already decimated by injury - two late withdrawals led to seven compulsory changes being made to last week's team. This meant raiding a reserves team with only one win to its credit.

As expected, the reserves team was held goal-less and the seniors could easily have trodden the same path.

Instead, the team played above themselves, kicking two of the first five goals and seven of the first 19 to trail by just five goals and have a sniff at three-quarter-time.

With a depleted line-up, this was a fabulous effort and a massive improvement on round one, when the margin was 15 goals at a similar stage.

The last quarter proved to be Springbank's, though that was no surprise.

Footy is the ultimate game and man power is a telling factor over the full 100 minutes.

Creswick's strengthened resilience came from Jake Hepworth, David Blake, Tim Hearn, Matt Baldwin and particularly Brett Hagen, who played fabulous games and clearly are ready to make consistent impact.

It allowed Caleb Hepworth, Jamie Weise, Clint Robinson, Simon Hepworth and Tim Rieniets to be more effective and the team played some great footy.

Alas, a win is still a far cry away, but the effort was all that a club could ask for.