Sommerville Inspires Blues to Courageous Victory Over Rivals
In a must win game playing away to North Shore at Gore Hill, Brenton Sommerville inspired the Campbelltown Blues to a courageous win. Playing their long time rivals, with the hope of keeping their finals dreams alive, Sommerville shouldered a massive workload in the Ruck and dominated in the all important midfield battle. Recently coming back from serious injury, he could have been forgiven for easing back into the game but that is not the way that Sommerville plays his football. His team mates all recognised his performance by voting him as 'Players Player' on the day. Coach Brunton called Sommerville a 'Gladiator' after the game and identified him as a key player in the teams prospects for the remainder of this season.
Equally inspiring was the always courageous Taran Etto who continued his outstanding form this season and his combination with Hamish Sherwood and Bryce Joynson helped complete the Blues powerful midfield.
The Blues underrated defence was also vital in securing this hard fought victory. Peni Mahina held Roberts, one of the leagues strongest forwards, to a couple of goals. Nathan Lomas provided great rebound as did Jeconiah Peni, Joshua Van Luenen and Mark Mendola. Mitch Hogan was ever dependable and the Blues ability to push back in numbers, all helped to make goal scoring difficult for their opponents. In the final quarter the opposition frustration levels were apparent as they started to niggle the Blues and try to put them off their game. This served its purpose for a short period of time, but the Blues had set up a match winning lead in the first three quarters and were able to refocus to close out the game.
Before the game the Blues 'Brain's trust' must have been thinking long and hard about how to set up a structure that would generate a winning score, given their growing injury toll to key players. The response by the forwards to the challenge was very encouraging for the Campbelltown coaching group. It was a case of youth and experience with veteran Cameron Desmond (3 goals) providing an imposing target and using his experience to help exciting young prospect Joshua Hickey. Aidan Bell looked dangerous all day also chipping in with 3 goals as did David Linsen. The rest of the goals were shared among a spread of goal scorers as the smaller, mobile forwards proved a handful for their opponents.
This sets up a massive game next week at Monarch Oval on Saturday 19th July where the Campbelltown Blues will be taking on UNSW Bulldogs in a 'must-win' game. Both sides are desperately chasing that elusive spot in the finals at the end of the season and in their last battle the result was a win to the Blues by a single goal.
Last Modified on 16/07/2014 12:28