Round one Hampden footy stats: Vintage Barlow leads way with 42 touches

Ex-Fremantle and Gold Coast ball-winner Michael Barlow racked up a competition-high 42 disposals in North Warnnambool Eagles' 23-point round one loss to South Warrnambool.

The vintage midfield performance consisted of 19 kicks and 23 handballs, alongside a whopping 13 clearances, seven tackles and a goal.

Returning Eagles ruckman Jordan Dillon, who registered 35 hit-outs in his first game for the club since 2019, enjoyed combining with the 36-year-old again.

"He knows where to be and he makes the big blokes look pretty good," he told The Standard.

Barlow, playing his first game for the Eagles since the 2019 decider, will turn out for the Hampden league outfit when his commitments with North Melbourne AFL head of development allow.

Dillon hopes the veteran's presence can aid the development of some of the side's younger players.

"Hopefully as he comes back throughout the year he'll continue to play well and the younger blokes in beside him will grow in confidence and they'll be the ones leading the way for us and he can just slot in nicely and do his thing," he said.

Dillon's ruck partner, Eagles playing-coach Nathan Vardy, recorded 43 hit-outs to help them win the hit-out battle 78-33.

The former Eagles skipper relished sharing the ruck workload with his coach.

"It's awesome to have someone like him," he said.

"We've always had a pretty good couple of ruckmen in there with Ben Mugavin beforehand too.

"Especially with him (Vardy) there, we should be able to get a bit of ascendancy so hopefully we can put it on the scoreboard and improve our clearance game because South were pretty good around the stoppages on the weekend."

Dillon, who returned to the Eagles after a two-year stint playing in Queensland, is loving being back at Bushfield.

He saw promising signs in the round-one loss.

"We all had a crack and probably the third quarter cost us a bit in the end, we just let South get on top of us and do what they do best," he said.

"I think they're going to be the benchmark again so to be four goals off them with plenty of improvement (means) it should be an exciting year."

Dillon has high expectations for the year ahead.

"I think we'd want to go pretty deep in the year but I think every team below us from last year has picked up players too so we're under no illusions it's going to be difficult to do but I think we should be setting our sights pretty high to go deep into September," he said.

Other notable performers from round one included South Warrnambool's Shannon Beks (21 disposals, five goals), Cobden's Patty Smith (32 disposals, nine clearances, eight tackles) and Terang Mortlake's Ryley Hutchins (33 disposals, five clearances, three goals).