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A wet weekend welcomed the bulldogs return to the Village Green with Premier Division, Div 1 and Under 19's all playing Pennant Hills on Saturday. The dogs walked away with just the one victory (Under 19's), but were still competitive in defeat against last years Premier Division grand finalists. The Stingrays Div 1 played their first game of the year and had a convincing win over Balmain, whilst the Stingrays Div 2 went down at Trumper Park in a low scoring affair. Unfortunately all three games (Div 2, 4 and 5) scheduled for the VG on Sunday were postponed with dates to be advised over the next few weeks.
Buoyed by two wins against university rivals UTS and Sydney Uni over the first two rounds, Premier Division kept the early season momentum going and jumped out of the blocks against Pennant Hills to skip out to a 32-11 quarter time lead. But the demons are a quality team and were never going to roll over, and had all but overcame the deficit by half time with the dogs only leading 40-38.
The two teams traded goals through the third quarter with demons forward Wray being particularly influential - He would finish the match with six goals and ultimately be the difference between the teams. The dogs still held onto a 61-57 lead at the final break but ran out of the legs in the final quarter with Penno kicking six goals to two to finish off 14.11 (95) to 11.7 (73) winners in a high quality encounter given the slippery conditions. Despite the loss the dogs are still showing good signs, and it took a high quality side to give the boys their first defeat of the year. Ryan Farrelly (3 goals) and Jeremy Daniher (1 goal) kept their good early season form going and were the dogs best on the day.
The Dogs Div 1 grand finalists from 2013 have had a tough start to the year but with some key personnel coming back it was an opportunity to start getting season 2014 headed in the right direction, and hopefully claim their first points of the year. Unfortunately for Gull's boys it was a similar story to the first two weekends with a gutsy performance highlighted by tremendous tackling, but just not quite having the class of the opposition.
As with last weeks match against Illawarra, this week Pennant Hills got on top early and skipped out to a 21 point quarter time lead and left the dogs with too much work to get back into the match. Whilst the dogs where never able to seriously threaten the demons on the scoreboard, the boys kept them honest for the full four quarters, conceding just 2, 2 and 3 goals in the last three quarters. The final score told of an 11.12 (78) - 4.6 (30) loss for the dogs. Andrew Goodieson put in his best performance of the year and was named best on ground, while veteran Troy Luff backed up last weeks three goal game with another strong performance.
The under 19's have been extremely impressive over the first couple of weeks of the year and were nothing but that again last Saturday as they took a out solid 14.11 (95) - 8.8 (56) victory over Pennant Hills. The boys were the first UNSW-ES team to take to the VG in 2014 and were looking to stake their credentials as one of the teams to beat in the Under 19's. In wet conditions, the first quarter was a high quality affair with both teams showing impressive skills. It was the dogs who took the early lead 26-20 at quarter time.
But it was the second quarter were the dogs did the damage. They kicked 5 goals to 2 to blow out the match and take a 59-32 lead. To the young demons players credit they kept coming at our boys and made them work for every goal and kept the final margin to 39 points. Tom Dickson was once again dominant with three goals and has arguably been the best bulldogs over the first three rounds. Zac Collie with two goals was also excellent, while Spencer Krochmal was also impressive.
The Stingrays have had a huge pre-season with massive numbers resulting in a second team for the first in the clubs history. Last Saturday at Blacktown the Div 1 Stingrays started their season against the Balmain Dockers. Fielding a strong team the ladies didn't get off to the start they wanted with some wayward kicking at goal and around the ground allowing the Dockers to head to the first break up 15-11. Knowing a big improvement was required, the Stingers came out firing with a massive 8 goal second quarter blowing the game apart to lead 55-16 at the main break.
Having got on top of the dockers, the girls didn't relent and kicked 7 goals to 1 in the second half to finish up with a massive 82 points win; 15.15 (105) - 3.5 (23). The ever reliable Courtney Gum (3 goals) was one of the best on the ground, while Mai Nyugen (2 goals) also played well. The Div 2 stingrays were unfortunately kept scoreless in very tough conditions against the UTS Shamrocks at Trumper Park. UTS were 2.10 (22) - 0 winners on the day with Shani Sleeman once again in the Stingrays best.
Next weekend is Easter weekend, so the only game will be Div 5 playing a make up game from the weekend against the UTS Bats at Trumper Park at 9am. Following Easter will be Anzac Day at the Donny where our Div 2 boys will once again be running the two up shenanigans. Last year was a cracking day for all involved. There will also be an Anzac ceremony at the Village Green on Saturday April 26. We want to see as many people as possible get down to both events to support the club and our sponsors, have a few beers and share in a great time.
Last Modified on 15/04/2014 15:02