With an unfortunate injury to J. Keys we were down to 19 and we had 9 players walking into the change rooms for their first game on Boss James as their home ground. We could sense a hint of nerves with a dose of confidence after a good win the week before.
Our focus for the first half was to be strong at the contest, strong with our tackles and to make the ground as big as we could to test out our opponents fitness and outside run.
Kicking with the aid of a nice breeze, the first 10 minutes of football was scrappy but played with a high intensity as both teams were hitting each contest and each other hard, as to be expected. Then, led by this weeks captain, Sam Marshall, we started to win the inside ball and feed to the outside players and run and spread. The backline was tight and almost impenetrable, midfield was on top, our feedback handball was splitting our oppo open, our fwds worked hard creating holes and we started to hit the score board. 11 fwd entries to 2.
1/4 time
5.1.31
0.0.0
Kicking into the breeze we started to really take control all over the ground. Our ball security, ball use and tackling was first class but it was our communication that was most impressive. We actually started to use our voices and direct play. Well done boys. Our backline just rejected everything Bentleigh threw at them, the mids kept attacking every contest and laid some big tackles and the fwds did a great job of locking the ball in our fwd 50 when it arrived. Our best 20 mins of football so far. 14 fwd entries to 4.
1/2 time
9.3.57
0.1.1
The 3rd quarter was similar to the first. Bentleigh came out fired up and showed a lot of aggression at the contest, but once again we matched them and then took over the contested ball. Our focus was to try and switch the play sideways and attack from the middle or club room side.
10 fwd entries to 4
3/4 time
13.7.85
1.1.7
With the game all but over, we needed something to focus on, so at the 3/4 time huddle our skipper took control and asked the group for a good defensive effort, stay tight with our oppo, to keep running/spread and his final words, “let’s get to 100 points”. Well done Sam. Bentleigh was still throwing everything at us and were desperate to hit the score board. We were still on top all over the ground but you could see we were starting to slow down just a bit, but we managed to hit the 100 point mark and get through the game without any injuries (um, about that Paul…) Well done to everyone that played in the backline, you all played tight and set up a lot of run and carry that produced goals. Well done mids, strong at the ball, good ball use and tackled/chased all day. Well done fwds, lead by No 4 (Will) 5 goals but we had 9 different goal kickers throughout the day.
Well done Rovers.
11 fwd entries to 9 (46 – 19 for the day)
Final score
15.11.101
2.4.16
Awards went to Zach Bowen, Will Oakley-Kerr, Olli Horigan and
