Hampton Rovers 11.12. (78) def. East Brighton Vampires 2.1. (13)
Game on… Suns out guns out (we had 19 of them)!!!!
Our boys were relentless across all areas on the ground. We lined up with 18 U12s and Hudson stepped in after his U11 game to provide us a rotation.
The team are starting to gel together very nicely with the new boys more than cementing their places and other team mates settling in new/natural positions.
Angus G & Harrison lead the team as captains for the day. The first quarter was all out Rover attack with Fletch who has been an awesome on field leader in all games so far this year sweeping through to kick the team’s first goal of the day. That was soon followed by Tom taking a mark worth being on a footy card and kicking his first of 3 majors for the day. Riley Taylor was a modern day pressure forward and kicked his first ever Rovers goal! The second quarter was extremely tight contest after contest and the team never took a backward step! Angus Gill kicked the only goal for the 2 term and we had no idea with the boys 19 points ahead at half time he was going to finish of the brilliant team work with another 4 goals in the second half!
This year we have realised that all boys (for and against) are getting faster and stronger so the midfield needed to start planning clearances and it worked a treat! The rotations were up this week as a few of the boys had been a bit ragged but we had Josh H & Joe do brilliantly in ruck swapping from Centre Half Forward and providing silver service to Fletch, Harrison, Taro & Josh C. The wings provided awesome support and defended better than they attacked (very mature footy guys). Jonty provided one of the tackles of the day overtaking 2 Vampires and a chasing Rover to drag down a lion and get the reward of a free. If Tom took a mark for a footy card Hudson clutched one that was up there with Gary Ablett snr rising from a pack he took mark of the day on the wing against 2 Vampires and ran on to send the ball into attack before anyone else knew what was happening.
Our backline have been strong all year and the boys were no exception this week, Camdyn had his best game providing run and carry off the backline, Darcy was up for any tackling or bumping challenge, Arthur showed how he has refined his ball reading and won some important clearing contests for the team as did Marco who had a great second half. Zain has been a star this year taking a role in the backline each week against the key mobile forward from the opposition. He has been extremely selfless and is doing a super job!
This week the team did a very good job of calling and creating space particularly in the forward line. Angus Z took a mark of pure strength to kick his first rovers goal (great stuff Angus) while Miles and Refe provided brilliant forward support locking the ball in for team mates and creating chances.
The boys belted out the song after a great team game!
A Special thanks to all the volunteers the team really appreciates it!
Go Rovers!
David
