A sunny winters morning greeted us at Castlefield Reserve as we faced the top of the ladder side in Waverley Park Hawks – Brown.
Ralph and Tristan were our captains for the match. In the first quarter, Waverley started very well with some direct play that had our mids and defenders struggling to touch the footy which resulted in 3 early goals and a 19 point lead at the first quarter break. Late in the quarter we assigned Bradley onto number 16 who was tearing us apart.
In the second quarter, we started getting first use of the ball with Javier being the dominant ruckman and our mids playing to our team strategy. Superb team goals which started from our defence resulted in Jack C and Campbell reducing the half time margin to 13 points.
In the third quarter, we shut down Waverley’s run and space as our tackling pressure lifted. Every Hampton player was showing enormous effort resulting in a goalless quarter for Waverley. Hampton were rewarded late in the quarter by a long range shot by Javier. We dominated the quarter and should of been closer than being 7 points behind at the final change.
In the final quarter, with only one on the bench for the entire game, the boys ran out of gas. We had multiple players limping around for the last 10 mins due to heavy knocks. Waverley in the end ran out 22 points victors, which was well below the usual 10 goal wins this year. A great sign of how we are tracking is when the opposition coach mentioned after the game that he was struggling to play against our linking up (sharing the ball) game style and he had to make a number of changes in the final quarter.
Great performances this week came from Jade who played a kick behind the contest and had a heap of telling marks, Harry drove himself into every contest, Bradley shut down Waverley’s best player for the last 3 quarters, Theeran was a rock in defence, Harvs was back to his tackling best and Jack Carson providing a focal point up forward. Some of our smaller players in Tristan, Seb, Jack S and Sonny were also solid performers.
Note: As our first quarters are killing us all year and today was another example, I have noticed a number of players attending games with only 15-20 mins before the first bounce. Can we make sure that every player is at the game 45 MINS before the start of this week’s match.
Final Score
Hampton Rovers 3 0 18
Waverley Park Hawks – Brown 6 4 40
Goals: Javier, Campbell, Jack C
Captains for Round: Ralph & Tristan
Game Awards – To be given out at training
Outstanding Contribution: Jade
Guts and Determination: Harry
Team Goals Award: Javier
Coaches Award: Brad H
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