Round 2 Match Reports:
Reserves
Southern Dragons 12.10 - 82 def. Nothern Blues 11.10 - 76
With a late ground change the night before the match, the Reserves gathered at Namatijira Park to take on the Southern Dragons, who are also new to the VAFA after moving from the Southern Football league last season.
After having a week to discuss and learn from the week before’s loss, the Blue’s came out firing to make amends, running rampant in the first quarter to go into the break with a 20 point lead. Blues debutant Joel Thompson was marking anything that entered the forward 50 and Dusty was his reliable self finding space to run and carry across the wings. The Blues didn’t have it all their own way though with the loss of Corey Altis towards the end of the term.
Quarter two was much of the same for Northern, controlling the play and dominating at both ends of the ground. Mario Diab was backing up his round 1 performance with another solid showing, using his poise and lethal left foot to set-up attacks from the half back line. The Blues went into half time leading by 37 points in what looked like could be a convincing win.
After half time a completely different Northern Blues emerged from the rooms. Looking tired and lethargic, the Southern Dragons began to break the lines with bravado, finding deep forward 50 entries and piling on a flurry of goals. Jayden Mastin showed some resistance in defence and Zan Useinov even whacked the boots on to lend a helping hand but there was little they could do to stem the onslaught, as the Dragons kicked 6 goals to none and came into the last with a two point advantage.
At the final break acting coach Ty Lehmann rallied the Blues, asking them for everything they had to regain the momentum and turn things around. Northern responded to the challenge, taking the lead back and holding it for most of the final term, Sam Clarkson was a catalyst for the turnaround, going down with multiple big hits, each time bouncing up twice as quick. Eventually, the Dragons proved too much for the worn out Blues, taking advantage of a depleted bench by putting on two late goals to take back the lead and win the game with a fantastic comeback effort.
Round 2 Match Reports:
Seniors
Southern Dragons 18.11 - 119 def. Northern Blues 11.9 - 75
After an emotion fuelled round 1 clash against North Brunswick, the Blues would need to lift yet again to win their second game of the season. After receiving three injuries in their first round clash, reserves players Sam Clarkson, Jordan Twaits and under 19 Damon Marcon offered their services to help fill out the bench for the Blues.
Frantic early pressure around the contests saw the Southern Dragons kick the opening two goals of the game early, taking advantage of costly turnovers in the Northern Blue’s back half. The Dragons were able to sustain the early pressure and ferocity for most of the opening term to take a painful 33 point lead into the opening break, leaving the Blues with plenty of work to do.
With time to regroup and assess what was going wrong, Northern began to wrestle back to ascendancy, retaking the majority of possession and running and handballing with intent. McRedmond was looking unstoppable in the forwardline, outclassing his direct opponents every time the ball was pumped in deep and the Blues slowly worked their way back into striking with minutes left to half time. A lack of focus though saw the Dragons neutralize Northern’s efforts, kicking three goals in quick succession to make the quarter a tie at 5 goals 3 behinds a piece.
With a lot of ground to make up, Northern would need a huge second half effort to run over the fast paced Dragons. A big third quarter effort from Jay Phelan and some strong marking from Tim Buckingham and Brady Parke weren’t enough to lift the side back into contention though, as sloppy goal-kicking left Northern constantly out of reach. With the bench nearing the end of their second game and hardly able to lift their legs any longer, the remaining players continued to fight it out until the end but were beaten on the day by a more experienced side who took full advantage of all their chances.
Rd 2 - Northern Blues u/19’s vs AJAX
Northern: 8.12 - 60 def Ajax: 8.8 - 56
Goals: Marcon 2, Damo, Chiodo, Jimmy, Kong, Sanso, Pauly
Best: Chiodo, Hughes, Marcon, King, Dewey, Powell, Burns
The boys kicked with a tricky breeze in the 1st qtr, wasting many opportunies to end the qtr with 2 goals 7 behinds. Some inspiring hardness at the ball from Chiodo in particular set the tone for the day. Unfortunately, Cuz came off 2nd best when he & Chids both went hell for leather for the same footy, breaking his collarbone.
The 2nd quarter the boys managed to contain AJAX with strong defensive efforts by Dewey, Olsen and particularly Hughesy & Kingy working hard around the ground. We went in at half time leading by a couple of goals.
The 3rd quarter we blew our opportunity with the breeze by having a player sent off, leaving us with only 17 on the ground and no interchange. More wasted opportunities in front of goal meant we came into the last quarter with only a 3 goal lead and kicking into a strong breeze. The impact Chiodos’ hardness at the contest had on the game was critical.
The last quarter was a titanic struggle of the defences. Our forwards worked hard to keep the ball in our 50 but we again couldn’t put AJAX away. The last few minutes were extremely tough with AJAX finishing well with some late goals. The majority of play was in our backline and Olsen, Dewey, Burnsy and Kingy competed well, with plenty of run and carry by Marcon & Deez got us over the line in an extremely hard fought victory against the odds.
This was a tough game where our hard working midfield had too much polish in the end for AJAX. It was a tough day for our talls and forwards who struggled to get to th
Last Modified on 25/04/2013 18:11
