This week’s game felt like one that got away. After easily accounting for South Melbourne in our first game of the year they turned up much better prepared this time.
The first quarter was a very even affair with our boys controlling the ball but South Melbourne made the most of their opportunities and just managed to outscore us. With Seb, Paddy and Dom tackling hard and Sunny dominating in the ruck we were holding our own throughout the quarter. Paddy and Josh Marshall delivered the 2 goals for us.
For the second and third quarters we managed to hold South Melbourne scoreless and looked like we were cruising (and that was not a Hewitt pun!). Unfortunately, we were not able to capitalise scoring 1.4 in the second quarter. Sunny King was our big target up forward controlling the area, marking everything coming his way and kicking our only goal. After kicking three goals for us last week Will showed us how much more there is to his game with his repeated rebounding off the half back line.
Miles kicked our first goal of the third quarter and then the ever improving Harvey marked and slammed through the second. The ball wasn’t getting past Campbell at half forward who kept it locked in our forward line.
The last quarter it all turned sour with South Melbourne completely overrunning us. Despite some great work from Sonny Gittus, Miles and Dan they just couldn’t resist the pressure in the backline.
Goals: Paddy Wilson, Sunny King, Josh Marshall, Harvey Atchison, Miles Cooper.
The awards today went to Sebastian Caceras who played his best game for the year with the pressure he was putting on the opposition both when they had the ball and were going for the ball and also creating options for our team by getting into good positions when we had it. Alex Cooper provided a lot of run when he was out on the wing picking up plenty of possessions and then was dangerous when up forward keeping the ball in our forward line. Campbell Holtham was again seen cleaning the loose ball up in the backline but today added another dimension to his game by locking the ball in forward line with his defensive work across the half forward line. And Sunny King put in an epic effort while he was in the ruck and then kicking us a goal when going to the forward line. A great game by Sunny, 100% effort all day.
It was a disappointing end to a game that we had played well in for most of the day but acts as a reminder, particularly for the coach, that we can never afford to take anything for granted.
