Despite the dire predictions of the weather forecasters of rain all weekend it was all good for footy on Sunday up at Aspley for Navy 16s. The rain stayed away and it was game on. The ground itself was in reasonable condition, much better than our ground and much better than I had anticipated. One half of the ground was pretty boggy but the other side was actually pretty good, no guessing which side of the ground would be used the most. It was a bit of a homecoming for me, I hadn’t been up at Aspley since our premiership reunion a few years back (yep I was lucky enough to play in a couple of senior premierships at Aspley so I have a bit of a soft spot for them) and in 7 years of coaching had never actually coached a team there. What a set up they have there, no wonder they have so many kids playing for them it is surely one of the best set ups in the league.
Anyway there was no time to get all misty eyed and reminiscent as there was an important game of footy to play. Aspley were impressive in beating Ferny Grove the week before, I snuck over and caught the game as it was a bye for us, and I was able to pin point a few areas where we could challenge them. They aren’t a huge side but they are quick and very skilful, they carved Ferny Grove up with their ability to run and hit targets, we couldn’t allow them to do that. I guess the heavier conditions favoured us a bit more as we were a bit bigger physically and that would help us when the footy got caught up in the mud. The pre match talk centred around us using each and every game as a warm up to finals footy, treating every game like a final and not taking any opponents easy. Once finals time comes around we want to be ready to play finals intensity footy. We hadn’t played for a month either so there was a danger of some rustiness, Aspley on the other hand had only the one week off so no doubt they would be a bit sharper. We had some of our strongest players missing too and so it was a good opportunity for blokes to take on different roles than what they are used to and also for others to get a bit more game time.
Despite H’s bad feeling before the game (which is all good by the way he obviously sensed that we weren’t switched on during the warm up) we were able to start really strongly and went in at half time in a very good position, leading 7-7 to the one solitary goal. Our defence as it has all year were all over their forwards and not giving them any opportunities, our forwards were working really hard to present and lock the footy in and our midfielders were winning the footy consistently at the contests. The boys who had specific roles to play were doing their job brilliantly and we were very disciplined in our attack on the footy and our opponents. We won the free kick count in the first quarter 5-1 simply because we were first in at the footy and put our head over it, as you must do in all footy, but especially in heavy stuff when the footy is at ground level a lot more.
The Aspley captain had a word to the umpires at ¼ time, not sure what he said but it must have worked because it was 4-2 against us in the 2nd, 7-2 against in the 3rd and 4-0 against in the last. That’s 16-9 against us, 15-4 from quarter time, by my records. Interesting ploy that, approaching the umpires, that’s the 3rd time in a couple of weeks I have seen that and every time it has had an impact on the game. Mayne v Springwood u18s the Mayne captain approached the umps at ¾ time and in the last quarter on the back of 6-0 free kick count they almost came over the top of the Pumas. Saturday night 18s again and this time the Pumas captain approached the umpires at quarter time after Surfers got off to a flier to lead 31-0 (which was similar to the free kick count). After quarter time the free kicks evened up and the Pumas settled down, played great footy and won the game by 35 points!. Must keep this tactic in the kitbag to use at some stage, it seems to work.
The 3rd quarter saw us lose the plot a bit, we started it well enough and had some opportunities but couldn’t convert. For some reason we started to go kick chasing and our set ups fell away completely as a result, all of a sudden there were free Aspley blokes everywhere and they started to gain in confidence as they started to get a few easy kicks out on their own, in space. We started to get sucked in to some niggle too and we subsequently lost focus on the game. Fortunately, they weren’t able to hurt us on the scoreboard thanks to our solid defence but they did win the quarter marginally and they were understandably pretty happy about it. And that’s fair enough too, they should have been as they played some good footy, enough to suggest that they will be a much tougher prospect in a few weeks on a dry day so we will need to have that in the back of our minds. At the final break we still had a commanding lead, 7-10 to 2-3 but we failed to kick a goal for the quarter and that was a bit of a concern. I could tell when they came in to the huddle that they were disappointed in themselves so there was really no need to give them a spray, it was just a matter of pointing out to them where they went wrong and re focussing them on the job at hand. All good, they settled down and went out and played great footy again in the last, outscoring the Hornets pretty well and finishing up with a very good win.
So all in all it was a very good day’s work for the Pumas boys beating a good young top 4 side on their home ground by 53 points in tough conditions. As a coach you would take that every time. Hopefully the 3rd quarter was just a blip and we will learn to concentrate for the whole 80 minutes. Ipswich next week and that will present some new challenges, a 9.00am start at Ipswich for one so we need to be switched on early. As our comp seems to be pretty close all teams are still in the finals hunt and so every week we will have teams really coming hard at us, Ipswich will be no exception as it is a must win game for them. We will welcome back Jack, Mitch and possibly Ben but will lose Jordy to the National schoolboys carnival in Adelaide, all the best from all of us mate, do us all proud, I know you will. And Limestone Park can be a bit tricky to get your bearings on if you have never played there before, definitely home ground advantage there.
I am actually going to bite the bullet and try to nominate some best players on the understanding that it is really tough because every single player contributed to the win:
Our three leaders, Nate, Linc and Jacob were all superb all over the ground all day. Jacob nearly took mark of the year near ¾ time and landed heavily. A bit of concern for him saw him taken off on a stretcher as a precaution but all good no major problems just a bit of a headache. I think everyone knew he was ok as he was stretchered off the ground past our huddle and as we clapped him off a raised hand with a gangsta sign signalled that all was ok, to the amusement of all of the boys (and coach too). Callum dominated the clearances around the ground and Hayden had probably his strongest game for us at CHF. Dan was a good target at full forward all day and even though he finished with just 2 he must have unselfishly given off 3 more and had a great tackle count too. Jordy started a bit slowly but really worked his way into the game well after that and was a constant threat across half forward, despite plenty of attention from his opponent(s). Special mention to Matty Leadbeater for undertaking his role to perfection and having a huge influence on the result, and to Reece Adams who played a new role for the team and bobbed up with 3 goals. Rocket was busy too as was Jared. Well done to everyone it was a great team effort.
Goal kickers: Reece Adams 3, Dan Willaton 2, Callum Eddy 2, Hayden Day 2, Jacob Mitchell 1, Aidan Dipietro 1
Pool session tonight boys, bring a towel and a couple of bucks.
Unfortunately I couldn’t get to Gold’s game as we played at the same time and I don’t have any details other than the score which I will not bother reprinting here. All I can say is boys keep your heads up and hopefully things will turn around, starting with Aspley this week at home. Gold were very undermanned, going up there with just 16 players, thanks very much to the Under 14s boys who stepped up after their own game to try to help out, much appreciated fellas. We will be able to double up some boys from here on in so that will help a bit with numbers and experience, so let’s forget yesterday and look forward to the next 5 games. That was the last Navy/Gold clash so hopefully that might turn things around for us a bit. See you tonight at the pool and we can have a chat about the game.
Thanks again to all our helpers at both games, much appreciated.
Cheers
Steve
Last Modified on 16/07/2012 13:05