Apologies to the mothers that didn’t get a sleep in or breakfast in bed as we had the early game with an 8am arrival time at Mentone.
Our opponents, St Bedes/Mentone were undefeated after 2 rounds and they were keen to try and stop our unbeaten start to the year. Our focus pre game was tackling pressure, ball security, keeping an open forward line and trying to look sideways or backwards to open the ground up.
We kicked with a nice breeze for the first quarter again, 3 from 3, but unfortunately our forward line wasn’t moving and creating holes for players to lead into. As a result we were trying to kick goals from just inside the 40m mark and we just kept missing the 6 pointers. Our midfield was on top again early with Luke N-S giving us first use of the ball and the backline just returning everything the Tigers sent at them. 13 forward entries to 2
3.4.22 to 0.0.0
Just like the previous 2 weeks, we kicked into the breeze in the 2nd quarter and produced some great football. The backline and mids were working well together and the forward line opened up and then the holes developed. Goal, goal, goal. 7 straight. Luke N-S, Toby & Ryan were winning the ruck contests, Hotton, Horigan, Bowen, Riedel, Perkins, Marshall, Parker, Oakley-Kerr, Yates & Blackie all playing parts through our midfield, Hall, J Tuffley & Delaney continually moving up forward and our rocks down back Kilburn, Draheim and for his first game Ethan Liu were once again like the Grinch, very unhappy when the oppo scored. 10 fwd entries to 5
10.5.65 to 2.2.14
Unfortunately we lost Max Blackie late in the 2nd quarter with a broken finger(speedy recovery Max), so we were down to 18 for the second half with a lot of boys backing up from Saturday football. We asked the group to control what we can control and stick with what we talked about pre game. To the boys’ credit, they kept pushing as hard as they could. Once again we were dominating all around the ground, but our ball use into our forward line was a bit messy. 4.7 for the quarter. The boys were beginning to run out of legs.
14.11.95 to 2.4.16
The final quarter was very similar to the previous week. The oppo desperate to hit the scoreboard and ours keen to hit the 100 point mark for the 3rd week in a row. We asked the team to try and switch play at every chance and use our backline as a launching pad for moving the ball forward. Sometimes if it doesn’t work you get scored against, but that’s the way we want to play. Well done to the boys that tried switching it. Keep trying, it will pay off later in the season. Well done team, St Bedes/ Mentone threw everything at you in the last quarter but you all stayed strong. Stay focused and just control what we can control.
12 fwd entries to 7
17.13.115 to 4.4.28
Once again thank you to all the mums that sang the team songs with the boys after the game and I hope you all had a great day.
Cheers
Paul
