The glaring gulf between the upper and lower echelon sides in the Sydney AFL First Division "competition" was again laid bare on Saturday when a gallant Penrith side hosted Manly at Greygums Oval.
In its last three matches - all against Western Suburbs sides - Manly has kicked 92 goals in senior grade and 93 goals in Reserve grade, a damning statistic and one which should send shivers through those who care about the health and development of senior football in the Greater West.
Let's hope that the unique difficulties of trying to promote the game in this region are finally recognized and appropriate action taken before it is too late.
For the record:
Final scores were: Visitors 26.17 (173) d Penrith 3.8 (26).
Reserve Grade battled on magnificently but could not recover from an eleven goal opening onslaught from the visitors.
Final scores were: Visitors 33.27 (225) d Penrith 2.3 (15).
Congratulations to each and every Penrith player who fought out both games, especially those who doubled up after playing earlier.
Senior Coach Jason Bradley's match report follows:
This was a match that was going to test our ability to perform on our home ground against possibly the form side of the competition at the moment. We needed to come out and prove to not only opposition, but more importantly ourselves that we can play good football if we apply ourselves.
We started off very well, and while letting in a couple of easy goals, we made the opposition work very hard for their goals. Our backline stood up immensely throughout the match and never gave up. Our midfield, with the inclusion of Ashley Brown in the ruck, put in possibly their best performance of the year to date.
By half time we had played very well and had a belief that anything could happen if we continued to play the second half the same way that we played the first half. Someone must have annoyed a witch doctor or something as we started to have a bad run of injuries with up to six or seven players succumbing to different degrees of injury. This enabled the opposition to run over the top of us with their fit and injury free players while we had to battle on with some injured having to stay on the field. I cannot fault the enthusiasm and endeavor that we showed particularly to play out the game.
I would like to thank the young guys for again backing up and doing well for us. Also, to Ashley Brown for making a return to football and playing very well first up. There were two standout players on the day being Ashley Brown and Jay Edwards. Others to do well were Dale Chivas, Lachlan Smith, Steve McWilliam & Gerard Leslie.
We have Holroyd-Parramatta next week and welcome back some of our regular first graders so hopefully we can turn around our recent performances and come away with a win.
See you all at training!
Jabba
Last Modified on 21/04/2010 22:03