Report by Mitch Brown
The Dandenong Southern Stingrays’ stellar lead-in to the TAC Cup finals has come to a grinding halt with a disappointing 36-point loss to the Geelong Falcons on Sunday afternoon.
Brimming with confidence after a successful past 6 weeks, the Stingrays were outplayed at every turn by a clever Falcons side, and were never truly in the contest from the beginning.
The Stingrays backline gave their all on the day, with Zachary Rouse, Kieran Collins and Thomas Glen holding their opponents well, however Dandenong were let down by poor decision-making through the midfield and shocking inaccuracy in front of goal.
After the match, coach Craig Black was obviously disappointed with the loss, but saw it as an opportunity for his charges to step up their game.
“It was a final-like game, that’s definitely what it felt like out there. When you play footy, you get challenged at times. But it’s important that you stand up to the challenge, and hopefully next week we’ll come out and show that we’re a strong, united group.”
It was a lacklustre start to the match, with possession from both teams untidy and inefficient. Plenty of tackles were laid in the first quarter, but both Geelong and Dandenong seemed to struggle once inside-50.
Eventually James Freeman broke the stalemate with the first goal of the game after a full 8 minutes of goalless play, but the Stingrays were overusing the footy and the Falcons made them pay.
The Falcons settled better allowing them to boot two quick goals claiming the lead with cooler heads prevailed around the contests, most of them were wearing Geelong Guernseys.
However, despite a poor start from the Stingrays, they only went into quarter time only 5 points down, with only 3 goals kicked for the entire 1st term.
With the start of the second quarter, Geelong managed to claim first blood in the quarter, and quickly chased it with another to take a 15 point lead over the Stingrays, whose poor use with the football the main problem.
The bigger issue, however, was inaccuracy in front of goal, with no goals and 6 behinds added to the Dandenong tally in the second quarter alone, most of those shots were very gettable.
James Freeman, Jake Lovett and Jake Kelly tried their hardest to bring their team back into the contest, but the Falcons were doing a great job of manning up and locking the ball in, creating pressure and resulting in Stingrays’ errors.
Despite having shown very little fight in the first half, the Stingrays came out in the third quarter just 14 points down, and it was still anybody’s game which Craig Black addressed at half time with the playing group
But the start of the next term saw the same thing yet again, it was Geelong who came out firing, slamming on three consecutive goals to push their lead out even further.
Meanwhile, at the other end, the Stingrays still had just one goal to their name, and were struggling to even get the ball into the hands of their forwards. Their defence was standing up, with Kieran Collins and Jacob Weitering leading by example, but the performances around the ground simply weren’t as remarkable.
Finally, in the dying stages of the third term, Luke Davies-Uniacke, James Freeman and Shannon Gladman combined for a goal to the latter – the Stingrays’ first goal since the 8-minute mark of the first quarter – to bring the three-quarter time margin to 25.
The message at three-quarter time was simple: the game was not over, and there was still time for attacking, running Dandenong-brand football to salvage the match.
The first goal was extremely important to either team, the Stingrays’ had their chances though- a comical error led to what was the easiest chances to run into an open goal to Josh Battle, Hitting the Goal post not once, but twice. It ended up the way of the Falcons, making it a 31-point lead, and game over!
Daniel Capiron added a goal to the Dandenong tally from a long-range set shot, but Geelong responded almost immediately with another goal, at this point it was simply too little, too late.
On the day Geelong were allowed far too much leeway as the game ended, with another goal added for good measure before the final siren sounded, bringing to an end possibly Dandenong’s worst performance of the season.
With all available players who were out injured last week, now available for selection it certainly leaves a lot of work for Craig Black and his staff to do in the coming week.
“Next week we’ll really be focusing on our ball movement. We were a little bit safe with the way we played today, so if we can get the footy moving like we have been doing for the last 14 weeks, we’ll see a big improvement.”
Talent Manager Mark Wheeler thought this week was going to be tough, starting Monday night with recovery and review session.
“We believe our strength has been our depth this year, with many players coming in and out of the selected sides over the last 12 weeks. The pressure is purely back on those players who performed poorly, and they know that as we have spoken about it a lot that.”
“Everyone is under the microscope, no matter whom they are- Academy player, Vic Country player or even the Captain. Others are hungry for another opportunity and we have always said you are only judged on your previous game.”
Overall the season has been very successful, with the Stingrays having sown up second spot on the ladder with a game clear of third.
The North Ballarat Rebels must go into the finals are clear favourites after taking minor Premiers, only losing 3 games for the year- two of those to the Geelong Falcons who they will meet on Saturday at 2.00pm for the 1st AFL Victoria’s TAC Cup Qualifying Final.
The Stingrays’ Qualifying Final will be played against the Murray Bushrangers at IKON Park in Carlton on Sunday 2.00pm. Entry is free.
Last Modified on 03/09/2015 21:03