Sandy Rovers 19.17.131 d. S. Melbourne 0.1.1
Headline: Dominate score line. Important to keep perspective – it’s never as good or as bad as it seems!
Goal kickers: Officer 5, O’Driscoll 2, Flockart 2 (and a gazillion assists), White 2, Connor 2 and 1 to Bird, Nolan, Tyrone, Doolan, Goulding, Sardo.
Player performance: Everyone contributed, throughout the game. Some strong ball hunting and courageous attack on the contested ball by Sam Elliott (best game for mine) and Marcus White which along with Matti S, Connor and Ben Allan in the ruck provided plenty of run and drive through the guts. Charlie Officer in for his first game of the year and didn’t take long to trouble the scorers finishing with 5 coming from the 1st and 4th quarter no less. Flockart another impactful game down back and up forward, finding confidence in contested marking efforts. Liam Kenny and Tom McKinley operating with real poise and using the ball effectively, competing strongly. Mitch Hall great forward pressure act with a smother and handball to Flock on the run to O’Driscoll for a sweet goal. Will Nolan and Liam O’Driscoll offering good switch options and attacking marking contests with conviction. Usual sort of in and under and appetite to carry the footy by Coops. Bird dangerous early, pulled up sore, look forward to when you are up and about. Beau taking on the play and trying a few bounces – keep persisting. Great to see Matt Warman getting into some excellent “receive” positions around the midfield and a great lead up forward mark, and Kegan Timms with many “team” acts providing pressure on opposition and protection to our ball carriers. And in the last act of the day after many competitive efforts and impact across half forward, Bassy steadies from the boundary and centres the ball back to the hotspot, Coops marks, and goals…followed an important team rule, could have easily just blazed away.
Play of the Day: Second quarter – literally around 7-8 handballs to players moving to work the ball out of what was a near all player congested situation on the far half back / wing before bring the ball back through the center. The key aspect was to not just cough the ball up under pressure, to retain possession and make the opposition take it off us or to keep at it long enough to clear it.
Tackle of the day: A great run down tackle by Marcus in the first quarter, just pipping out one by Beau also in the first quarter – sent a message of strength and commitment – great stuff.
Game summary: A dominant display for four quarters against decidedly weaker opposition but with a few pretty decent players. Pleased you all played your role in your position as Paul kept bringing lots of rotations to give you all the variety and opportunity to impact around the ground, and to not just hunt kicks which otherwise leads to a break down in manning up structures. That’s a big score on any day and you were relentless to keep pushing the ball forward at all costs. Some of the switch work coming off the half backline was good. However there was not enough of it and too many times we just kicked around our body or blazed away…lots of turnovers…lucky we were not playing a top side or else we would have been crucified on the rebound and improving the use of the footy by foot MUST improve…need a bit more poise under pressure and a LOT more talk and protection of the ball carrier with shepherds from team mates to give us more time to use the footy well.
Three from three is a great start boys. Let’s keep being honest with ourselves to be the best we can as individuals and importantly as we come together as a highly competitive Sandy Rovers team.
Gavin Coote
Coach
