U18s
First up we need to mention the trip to Melbourne last weekend due to the club having a bye.
With 22 kids and 7 dads, we caught a flight with Tiger from the Gold Coast on Friday morning, arriving in Melbourne at about midday, from there we were bused to Urban Central backpackers in South Melbourne where we would stay for the weekend. Everyone was well behaved with 2-3 AFL games seen and some gambling at the Casino. Massive thanks to everyone who helped to make this possible, particularly the Willaton family and the Menz family, hopefully this can continue on into the future and is something the juniors can look forward when they get to the Under 18's.
An early start to the day with the drive up to Noosa, and up against a side that had only won one game for the year, we got off to a pretty good start. It did still feel like we were in holiday mode.
Noosa came out out in the second quarter and were showing us how to win contested ball and work hard for your team mates. Great first halves for Angus, Nate, Andy, and Rocket Menz.
We came out after the long break with a lift in intensity and started to gain some ascendancy, it felt like it was only a matter of time before we would get on top and finish them off.
The last quarter saw Cherry take over the forward line as things started to go his way, the ball was coming in quick and we began to capitalise on the all the forward entries.
Angus never let up all game, Nate and Rocket continued their fantastic recent form, Raaby, Jared all finished the game strongly.
A bit of a lesson again in that we cannot afford to take any team lightly, or give any team a chance to fight back, we must get better at finishing off sides as early as we can. As we discussed on the day, every team has to be treated with respect and none of them will be easy leading up to the finals. Andy Miklavc continues to impress and looks to have a great future, Matty Wallin probably played his best game for the year. Balmy and Rocket were great and also doubled up for the twos and helped in their great win. Benny Mac just keeps improving and Hayden Day shows glimpses of his natural talent. Sam had some key plays in the back line when we needed him. Some of the boys battled hard for nothing and some were still in Melbourne. Rowie was good but sometimes we didn't know where he was. Big Cherry finished with 6 to keep in the race for the league goal kicking.
A little bit more work to do, and some players to return, then we can start working towards finishing strong for the finals.
Springwood 18's vs Noosa
Final score: 14.12 (96) d 5.4 (34)
Goals: 6 B.Cherry , 2 A.Hubert , 1 J.Rowe , 1 B.Meredith , 1 E.Hackett , 1 N.Murcutt , 1 H.Day , 1 L.Opbroek
Best Players: A.Hubert, N.Murcutt, B.Menz, D.Raabe, B.Cherry, A.Miklavc
The Pumas travelled to Noosa on the weekend for a game that has never been easy for us over the years. The last time we defeated the Noosa seniors was in 2006 when the last quarter went for over 45 minutes and the game was only stopped when we investigated what was going on with the time keeper. Moving forward to 2013 Noosa have not been winning a lot of games but coming off the bye and the long trip to Noosa was going to always prove to be a difficult game.
As normal the ground was heavy with a lot of water lying around which was going to make the day even more difficult. The Under 18's got us off to another great start with a strong victory running away with the game in the last quarter, congratulations to Damian, Dave and the young men for their efforts this year. See Damains report for full details.
The reserves was an all or nothing game with a chance of playing finals footy still a mathematical possibility. It was a hard slog all day with very little between the two teams, Lenny was trying a few new things with Bear moving to the wing to give us some extra drive, Balmy and Ben Menz came into the team after playing great games in the Under 18's to bolster our numbers. Both boys played good strong games and shows that the Pumas are going to be strong for a few years.
The Noosa game plan is to always push numbers across the half back line, turn the ball over and attack with run into the forward line. Although this is an effective technique it does result in a fairly negative game with the forwards normally out numbered making scoring difficult.
It was one of those days where there were not many highlights and the crucial thing was to get the win which the reserves finally did, congratulations to the guys.
Final scores Pumas 10 - 8 - 68 Noosa 9 - 6 -60
Best Players:
Sipple: A great game down forward, along with kicking a few goals himself dished off a couple to others to turn in a Best on the ground performance.
Munyard: Worked hard all day in the midfield and gave us plenty of drive.
Morrow: Controlled one of the wings and was very good, particularly in the first half.
Raudino: Robbie played his normal solid game and turned away a lot of attacks.
Balm: After a full game in the Under 18's came into the team and gave us a lot of run around the wings and finally went into the ruck to get some important touches.
The seniors was again going to be a tough game with the Pumas being targeted for upset wins by some of the bottom sides.
The same game plan was in place, combined with a lack of victories in the clearance area the game was very close through the first half. The Pumas were not playing particularly well with a lot of turnovers happening particularly when moving into the forward line.
Jake King was the stand out forward in the first half with his hard leading a feature.
As mentioned it was a battle of the backlines with Blake Wallis and Matther Preston- Smith being very solid down back for the Pumas, these guys have not been beaten all year so keep it going.
The third quarter saw the game break open a little with great quarters from Jake Furfaro and Greg Friis starting to wrestle the game away from Noosa, although the difference at three quarter time was only 8 points the feeling on the ground was that Noosa had almost spent all their petrol tickets and the Pumas were ready to pounce. The play of the match occurred in this quarter with Brendon Isles running back with the flight of the ball, he did not flinch in taking an outstanding mark. Albert Proud also started to break his tag to get some important touches and with the quality of his touches he can do a lot of damage quickly.
The last quarter saw the Pumas getting on top and despite some inaccuate kicking went on to run away with the game. There was a total of 11 scoring shots to 2 in the final quarter proving the dominance of the Pumas.
Final scores Pumas 15 - 13 - 103 Noosa 9 - 8 - 62.
Best Players:
Jake King: A real hard day for the forwards. Jake kicked 3 goals and by leading hard all day was my best player.
Brendon Isles: Another fantastic game. Brendon was our best clearance player for the day.
Last Modified on 26/12/2013 23:04