On Friday night, the Bondi Shamrocks hosted the UNSW-Easts Stingrays. With each club contributing five team members to the NSW State team, we were looking for individual contests across the field. The Stingrays with the benefit of having a full team for the first time this year were simply awesome and played their best football of the season with commitment across the field especially from their backline. I thought Sarah Court, Brianna Sterling and Nadine Miller stood out for the Stingrays. The Shamrocks were solid but not spectacular in eking out a 64 point victory with great efforts from co-captain Kate Woodlands and Una McKay. If the Shamrocks had to review the videotape of the match, they fell into the trap of crowding their forward line in their enthusiasm of following their kicks which meant that their free-flowing forwards who were used to space felt restricted. Marie Keating continues to lead the goal-kicking competition with a bag of 6 goals. The score was 10.10.70 to 1.0.6.
On Saturday, after our inaugural SWAFL Newbie Umpires Training Session a player volunteered to be trained in becoming an umpires. We thank them and the umpire coaches for their time especially John Freeland, our trainer and former SWAFL Umpire.
In the next of the big clashes Balmain took on the much-improved Sydney University. Sydney University started off positively to lead at the first change 1.3.9 to no result, in the second quarter Balmain got into the groove to outscore the Bombers but trailed by two points at the halftime break. In the premiership quarter, Sydney University peppered the Balmain forward line to lead 3.7.25 to 2.2.14. In the final quarter Balmain hit back to score 2.2 to the Bombers 2 goals but their momentum was stopped after they gave away a 50m penalty which resulted in Emma Yuen kicking the steadying goal and for Sydney University to record victory. A lot of players stood out from both sides in this great match including in no particular order: Monica Chew, Simone Walsh, Krysten Winkley, Alison Parkin, Kath Kobzan, Karla Spilarewicz and Jackie Buckthought.
In the last game of the round and complete the big clash round the undefeated Newtown Breakaways took on Premiers - the Western Wolves. With both rucks Georgia Woodyard and Natalie Redford both named in the state squad, bagging rights were at stake. Whilst I think Nat and Georgia had a draw in the ruck contest, Georgia positioned herself well to get a lot of ball in marking contests. Talei Owen and Natasha Devlin had a fantastic battle against each other. In the first quarter Wests outscored
Newtown 3.1.19 to 2.1.13 but a revitalised Breakaway kept the Wolves scoreless whilst putting a 2.4 score leading to a half-time score of 4.5.29 to 3.1.19. In the third quarter the Breakaways outscored the Wolves 3.4 to 2.2 and the final quarter was a continuation of the game where Newtown outscored 1.4 to 1.2 leaving the final score 8.13.61 to 6.5.41. Newtown remains undefeated but is joined by Sydney University at the top of the ladder due to the Macquarie University game.
Conclusion: In contrast to last year where the result of most games could be predicted, in 2009 all games are very competitive and any result is possible.
Last Modified on 11/05/2009 01:39