A fast start and an even contribution across the ground were the hallmarks of the Dandenong Southern Stingrays preliminary final victory over the highly fancied Geelong Falcons by 41 points at Visy Park, Carlton last Saturday.
A focus on high pressure, high intensity football with a strong defensive mind set were Coach Graeme Yeats key performance indicators for the team as they took on the flag favorites. The Falcons went through the home and away season with only 1 loss and that was by a single point and were the team to beat for the TAC Cup premiership whereas the Stingrays had been a little inconsistent with good solid performances splattered with some disappointing losses.
The game started at a frenetic pace with the Stingrays tackle pressure at a season high with 24 effective tackles in the first term. The pressure forced the free flowing Falcons into a lot of uncharacteristic errors which the Stingrays counter attacked to great effect and at the first change led by 25 points. Jim Cottrell was on top of Falcons key play maker Zac Ledin, Riley Heddles controlled Morrish medal runner up Alan Christensen and the Stingrays mid field were well on top dominating the many stoppages created.
The second term was an arm wrestle as the Falcons threw everything at the Stingrays both defences were on top and each team could only score a single goal. The Stingrays backmen were rebounding well with James Hallahan, Dylan Roberton, Jarryd Amalfi, Andrew McInnes, Matt Shaw and Luke Sheppard all running hard and working the ball out of the back 50 to a hard working mid field led by Ryan Bastinac and Madison Andrews. Up forward the goals were shared with 16 year old Luke Parker and Adam Treloar kicking two each and the rest were all singles.
At half time Stingrays coach Graeme Yeats demanded from his players to maintain the pressure on the ball carrier with special attention on the obvious first receiver and to a man they carried out the instructions perfectly. Kicking 3 goals to 2 in the third term and 2 goals to 1 in the last had the Stingrays extend their lead throughout the second half to the final margin of 41 points. The only downer was the number of opportunities missed with the Stingrays kicking 17 behinds and 11 of the misses from set shots. Yeats was extremely pleased with the all round, all ground evenness of the contribution of his whole team and with a clean bill of health, the Stingrays are well poised to win its first TAC Cup premiership. The TAC Cup grand final is at Etihad Stadium at 4.30pm on Friday 25th September against the Calder Cannons.
Last Modified on 23/09/2009 15:32