Rather than taking shots from around the top of the circle they focused on delivering one more pass so that Pontifex had less time to get himself into position and the fact many of the their goals were no more than "tap ins" illustrated how well Dalefield implemented that plan.
"He (Pontifex) is the best keeper in the competition and we wanted to nullify his influence as much as we could," Schaefer said. "And I think we did a pretty decent job of that."
Schaefer was also happy with the sting in the Dalefield attack with many of their most potent movements actually being started from defensive situations.
"I thought we linked really well between defence and attack. We strung a lot of passes together and the strikers were unselfish, the teamwork up front was outstanding."
Hamish Finlayson scored two of the Dalefield goals and along with his brother Nicholas, who also got himself on the scorecard, often had the Victoria University defence struggling to cope with their speed and nifty stickwork.
Rowan Yeo was typically industrious up front and was rewarded with two goals while the other goal scorers were the always reliable skipper Dane Lett and Ben van Woerkom.
Dalefield meet Indians at Clareville next Saturday in the last of the preliminary round games and the following weekend will see them host a semifinal.
Their opponent there will be the fourth seed, either Harbour City or Victoria University, and Schaefer said the Dalefield camp were well aware their dominance of the competition to date will count for absolutely nothing if they happen to lose there.
"We need to peak for that one and I think Saturday was a good step in the right direction," he said.
