The Dandenong Southern Stingrays took on 8th placed Geelong Falcons last Saturday at Highgate Reserve, Craigeburn in the final Round of the TAC Cup. The Stingrays left the day with a 27 point win in a very entertaining game, finishing the season 3rd on the TAC Cup ladder and gaining a double chance in the upcoming finals.
Kicking against the strong wind (3-4 goal) in a perfect day, the Stingrays jumped out of the box through Jake Calvert who converted deep inside 50 to give them an early upper hand, but over the next 5-6 Geelong pushed hard and used the wind to full advantage opening the game up with a couple of goals in a row before Matt Rennie added another goal against the wind to close the gap once again. It was short lived as it was quickly followed by two Falcons goals in a short period and like last week the day was starting to look bleak for the Stingrays. Just before the siren sounded Jordan Bastinac roved the pack brilliantly to keep the Stingrays in the game with the Falcons holding a 13 point lead. The Stingrays were running at 33% conversion efficiency from scoring shots, as was Geelong, which was something Stingrays Coach Graeme Yeats pointed out to the players. He was upbeat when addressing the players and wanted the young brigade to run more, close down the Falcons outside runners and have the forwards present up at the ball carrier a lot more, as well as taking full advantage of the breeze.
The second term was a great contest with both sides upping the ante and closing the game down. The Stingrays had the first opportunity to score but the ball drifted across the goal and allowed the Falcons to transition the ball back inside their 50 and kick a very important goal against the ever blowing Highgate breeze. Another Stingrays turnover gave the Falcons an easy shot on goal a few minutes later, extend their lead to four goals. Lachie Whitfield added a little grunt around the forward line showing his class by foot converting with a major. Josh Newman took a huge mark and also converted on the scoreboard. The next 15 minutes the ball was played between the arcs with both defences on top. When the siren sounded Geelong slightly extended their quarter time lead by four points, which didn’t impress the Stingrays coaching staff. At the break Yeats and his team readjusted the team and categorically asked the mids for cleaner and more efficient use and for the backs to give more of a contest at the 1 on 1’s.
The third term was one of the best quarters of football the Stingrays have played for sometime lifting their intensity around the contest and closing down the space limiting the Falcons spread and run. The Stingrays back 6 really controlled the Falcons and made them earn every mark or kick, forcing them the wide and on the near impossible scoring side of the ground. Geelong opened up the quarter with the first goal and that would be their only major, it also took some brilliance from Hill and Scott to open up space allowing a very exciting running goal to Billy Hartung at the 24 minute mark. A few seconds later the siren sounded with the Falcons still holding an 11 point lead, but the Stingrays we coming home with the strong wind and had finished off strongly. With both sides limited with rotations due to injuries it would work out who wanted it the most. Yeats asked for something special and emphatically asked for those who could run to run as hard as they possible could and not to leave anything behind when the siren sounded.
The last quarter the Stingrays threw everything at it with some very big hits dished out from both sides they finally ran over the top of the Falcons, keeping them goalless for the quarter. The Stingrays had 6 individual goal kickers with many players out on their feet when the siren sounded, as did Geelong. With both teams finishing in the eight more than likely will meet each other again in the finals which should be another cracking game of TAC Cup football.
Yeats said “when Geelong challenged us in the third I was wrapped on how the group responded, it could have easily gone pear shaped, but the boys wanted to finish the season off in a positive way. We spoke at the start of the week on what we stood for, I think the players showed that today.” He went onto say. “We wanted to control our destiny, we did that and we look forward to the next few weeks and what will be a very tight finals series. To hold a very good running team like Geelong to 1 goal after half time was a huge effort, we had plenty of run from all players after the 6 day turnaround.”
With the final eight now complete the Stingrays finished the season equal with Sandringham Dragons, Oakleigh Chargers and Murray Bushrangers with 10 wins, 7 losses but with a reasonable percentage of 118.35 piped Sandringham for third by .77%. The Stingrays will now take on Gippsland Power on Saturday 1st September in a qualifying round. The game will be played at Visy Park, Carlton starting at 2.30pm. Entry is free.
Last Modified on 27/08/2012 10:07