Hi team,
What an awesome day! After a narrow Round 2 defeat, to see how much our team had listened and improved in a week made us all extremely proud. Even I was surprised at how enthused and hungry our team of all stars was during this game. Awards went to Ben Montgomery, Luke Kollmorgen, Shae Newey and Joe Whelan, but I could have given an award to every single player as everyone did exactly what was asked of them – which is exactly what makes a great team.
We welcomed Boston Hughes for his first game and the team was lead onto the field by captains Tyler Birt and Liam Farr. In the first quarter Josh Bou Diab started the game well with some long kicks out of the middle and Harry Haines had some great forward play which included a run with 3 bounces (not sure if this is allowed?). Tom Strickland also chimed in with a great goal assisted by Henry O’Keefe, and Zac Sunders also had a great start with plenty of possessions.
In the second quarter Liam Farr and James Jebb made some nice clearances to get the ball moving in the middle. Luke Kollmorgen dominated with repeated attacking play sending the ball deep into our forward line on several occasions, giving our forwards plenty of opportunity to score including goals from Henry O’Keefe, Zac Saunders and Hewy Sawatzki. A nice tackle from Hewy also enabled Zac to score a great team goal which was enjoyed by all.
In the 3rd quarter Lachlan Curtis got involved making great clearing play from the centre assisted closely by Harry Haines again. Liam Farr and Luke Kollmorgen took on the opposition with their customary run and bounce approach and both finished this off by kicking ripper goals on the run, while James Jebb also opened his goal kicking account with a quick double. Reilly Vien also got into the action with a great pickup and run towards goal but was caught just short of kicking his first major.
The 4th quarter was dominated by Harry Haines, Zac Saunders, Hewy Sawatzki and Lochie Curtis resulting in a further 2 goals including a second by Tom Strickland. Special mention also goes to Zac Saunders who played a great game getting plenty of touches in all four quarters. It was great to see a solid 11 goals kicked by our team, but more importantly, 7 of our boys – Stricko, Hewy, Henry, Lukey, Jebby, Liam & Harry, all had the experience of kicking their first ever goal in footy (it is one of my aims this year for every one of our boys to experience this moment). It is clear that the team as a whole is listening, learning, improving and having fun. I can already see signs that this group is starting to gel into a nice unit.
Thanks also to Andrew Strickland for taking the photos of our boys in action. Last week at training we focused more on goal kicking (which seems to have paid off!), this week I would like to get back to doing some competitive drills under a little pressure. I have organised with the other coaches to rotate our position on the field at training, this week we will be training along the Ludstone Street wing (l think!).
See you at training Thursday.
Koje & Kurt
Coaches
