The boys were switched right on this week and they got busy early with Paddy kicking us two goals and threatening to kick a few more also setting up Harvey to take a spectacular mark in the goal square to slot through our third. Kai Hotton, helping us out from the under 9s, set the tone for the day early on with his desperation for the ball and manic tackling that he kept up throughout the whole game. Hugo made the most of the wide ground getting out by himself in the backline and getting plenty of possessions and taking a great overhead mark to boot.
In the second term, our captain for the day, Domenic Todarello, was starting to look dangerous kicking a goal along with Paddy getting his third for the day. St Kilda started to pick their game up putting some pressure on the back line. Whilst they again managed to hold them goalless it took some solid work from Sunny King, Miles Cooper and Jack Carson down there to continually repel them.
In the third quarter we only managed the one goal from Lachie. With some good tackling pressure again from Joe in the midfield and Josh Sill, also playing up from the under 9s, we contained their push.
Although it looked like we were well in control, Will reminded us at three quarter time that we didn’t want a repeat of the South Melbourne game where we dropped a four goal lead. The boys came out and made sure that didn’t happen with some solid defence from the likes of Dom, Sebastian Caceres and Alex Condon holding St Kilda scoreless and then kicking away with another two goals – one each from Sonny Gittus and Will Boyd-Turner.
It was another great, even team performance today making it hard to give out the awards. The first award went to Jack Carson who played consistently picking up possessions in the back half of the ground and providing a link for us throughout the day. The second went to Finn White who played an important role for us playing the first half in the ruck where went unbeaten and regularly tapping the ball straight to our rovers giving us first use at ball ups. The final award went to Paddy Wilson who is consistently in our best couple of players each week. He kicked us three goals in the first half and then was a rock playing centre half back in the second half, closing down St Kilda’s best player.
It was a really good win this week in what I felt was our best display of teamwork through the use of handball and looking for our teammates in space. We now have a short break over the holidays but hopefully we can keep up this great work when we are back with the chance to redeem our last gasp loss to South Melbourne.
Goals: Paddy Wilson 3, Harvey Atchison, Domenic Todarello, Lachie Nolan, Sonny Gittus, Will Boyd Turner
