Despite the rain we were able to play, Steve having paid a $400 bond with council. Hopefully the ground wasn't too badly affected. North West Sydney were at the ground early and as usual we were showing up in dribs and drabs making organising a team difficult. We welcomed new players Lou, Luke and Hootch to the team.
The wind for the first quarter was quite strong and we were running into it. We were a player short for about the first 10 minutes. Playing in the back pocket and trying to contact a forward pocket to come back to the wing in that wind was pretty useless. Despite the wind our backline held up well and we restricted them to just 3 goals for the quarter. Better than that, some great flank play resulted in us getting one into the wind, so it was a great quarter. Hooch at CHB and Sol on the flank played great football to repel numerous attacks.
Second quarter the wind had subdued some what and was evenly contested all over the ground. Libba and Dawesy roving and "resting" on the wings getting plenty of ball. We won the quarter and at halftime we were just 7 points down. We also no longer had a bench as Lou had to retire with a calf injury. The onballers basically had no respite without a bench and no being able to rest them in positions where they could actually rest away from the action. We still battled on well and again held them to 3 goals for the quarter although we failed to score ourselves. At this stage we were still well in the game at 28 points down with the wind advantage, although it wasn't nearly as strong as it had been.
Unfortunately it wasn't to be. It was a low scoring quarter in which they kicked one and we again failed to score. Kurt at fullback had damaged his knee but bravely played on despite hardly being able to move. He took a position in the goalsquare and did what he could. Josh who had been killing them had a cork that he'd got playing the previous day and went to a forward pocket. Our on ball players were noticeably tiring but kept plugging away. All in all it was a great effort by all which was reflected in the best and fairest votes given by the 3 independent judges with 11 of the 19 guys getting votes. Final score was 8-9-57 to 3-3-21 but with 3 or 4 guys on the bench it would have been much closer.
These guys beat Sydney Rocks, our next game, by 6 goals so a similar effort with a few more players and I reckon we could give them a real shake, and I can say personally that beating them, more than anyone else in the comp, would make me very happy indeed.
Last Modified on 20/06/2012 06:48