The Dandenong Southern Stingrays came out with guns blazing last Saturday against the Eastern Ranges which was played at Shepley Oval Dandenong. The Stingrays feel away in the second half losing by 10 points.
The first quarter saw one way traffic with the Stingrays catching Eastern off guard with high intensity running and commitment for the ball, which was completely missing last week. Taylor Joyce and Matt Rennie were strong targets and converting goals, whilst Jack Lonie and Jack Soroczynski’s pressure inside the Stingrays 50 made it hard for Eastern to exit. By the time the siren sounded the Stingrays held a 19 point lead and looking like they had redeemed themselves from their past weeks performance. The tackling pressure and intent around the footy in the first 15min as good as it has been so far this season for the Stingrays and this was the reason they had built up a safe buffer.
Stingrays Coach Graeme Yeats said “Backing up from a disappointing week last week we needed to start well.
“We modified things and changed up pre game routine giving us every opportunity to start well, which we did. I could have been happy with our first quarter.”
It certainly seemed like everything was going to plan and that they had Eastern’s measure, but it’s hard to keep a good side down and the Ranges starting pegging the deficit back. The Ranges capitalized on some costly turnovers and managed to put significant pressure on the Stingrays backline in the second quarter. Yeats was confident at the half time break, where the scores were level at 5.5 a piece that the team would be able to match it with Eastern in the second half.
His main focus at half time was to re-iterate to the players how important it was to win the contested ball and to defend well.
Both sides came out firing in the second half with a huge focus on defensive pressure- it was a hot potato with Stingrays Captain Nathan Foote playing his best game for weeks and young Lonie continue with his defensive acts clocking up 5 tackles. The Ranges kicked 4 majors whilst the home team kicked 3 and missed a few opportunities from poor inside 50 entries that were too shallow allowing Eastern to rebound and set up shots on goals. As the game wore on the Stingrays were unable to sustain the pressure they had applied earlier allowing Eastern to put pressure back on them that saw the young Stingrays continually turn the ball over by foot.
The last quarter was a war of attrition and when the siren sounded the Ranges had done enough to record another win, which could have been more than the 10 points but for wasteful goal kicking. Despite recording their third loss in a row Yeats felt there were signs of improvement in the Stingrays form and the younger players who were brought into the team gained valuable experience.
Yeats said “we felt we were in the game right till the end but the better team won on the day.”
“We just have to make sure we are setting a really good standard each week. As last week I said we look forward to next weeks challenge in the Knights, who are always tough to beat at home and coming into the game with confidence after knocking off the Dragons last yesterday.”
Next Saturday 29th June in the TAC Cup Round 11 the Stingrays take on Northern Knights.
The game starts at 2.00pm at Preston Oval, Preston and entry is free.
Last Modified on 15/07/2013 13:17