The Knights suffered their worst loss of the season after going down to the Oakleigh Chargers by 64 points on Saturday. Despite the Knights holding a high position on the ladder and the Chargers fighting for a finals spot this was always going to be a difficult game as the Knights were decimated by injury and the absence of Vic Metro players, while the Chargers had the contingent of private school footballers that they don't often have access to during the season - not to mention this game being critical to their finals chances.
From the outset the Chargers asserted themselves by kicking the first four goals of the game. The Knights answered with two of their own, but that was essentially the only resistance they displayed as the game quickly slipped away from them when the Chargers put on three more goals to kick a remarkable seven goals straight in the first quarter.
Their deadly accuracy was a trend that continued throughout the day (even more remarkable that they kicked 3.21 in their last game) as they went in to half time having kicked 12.2.74 to the Knights 5.5.35. The disposal and support for one another were severely lacking in the Knights game. Facets of the Knights game that have been so strong this season were almost non-existent - with tackling and blocks particularly low.
Any chance the Knights had of making a fist of the game was snuffed out early in the third quarter when Oakleigh hit them with an onslaught of six unanswered goals. Amazingly, their accuracy was near perfect once again by kicking 7.1. The Knights could only muster 3.1 in reply.
The fourth quarter was a bit of a non-event, with the game well and truly in the bag for Oakleigh, but there were some positive signs for the Knights, particularly with livewire forward Pece Micevski kicking two quick goals early in the term. The Knights began getting a lot more forward 50 entries and this was generating into more scoring shots, but unfortunately the accuracy was low with a 4.6 quarter. The Chargers kept up their accurate ways and finished the game with an outstanding 24.4.
In a rather gloomy outing for the Knights, on baller Adrian Totino could hold his head high. He won his fair share of centre clearances and gave the midfield a spark, but it wasn't really catching on as he was one of the only consistent performers. Michael Brunelli was impressive in his return from injury and exhibited some of his trademark hardness. Jake Spiteri, filling in as Captain this week did all he could, holding down key positions at both ends of the ground, while most of the other notable players flashed in and out during stages of the game, such as Micevski, Nyaburu Kelly and Brad Hanchette.
Region Manager, Peter Kennedy described the loss as "disappointing, especially after a big built up this week."
We knew that this was going to be a big game for them - our players knew that before the game. It was a must win game for Oakleigh as they're sitting tenth on the ladder and needed this to stay in touch with the finals."
That was probably our worst loss in four seasons. We were outscored in every quarter, we lacked intensity and Oakleigh's attack on the ball was much better, a lot better than ours. They were very accurate around goals, but that comes from lack of pressure. They had a lot of time and got to straighten up (for their shots at goal)."
"It's a real reality check for the bottom end of our list. A game like this tells us where some of our players are at, and for some of them their selection in the team is in jeopardy. With so many players out for us this week there was a chance their for players to consolidate their spot in the team and some didn't take their chance."
"But we've got to move forward. We play the Jets next week and that will be a good chance for us to bounce back. We'll have a change of personnel and they beat us last time we played them so it'll be another good challenge."
Oakleigh Chargers 24.4.148 def. Northern Knights 12.12.84
Goals: O'Donnell, Totino, Micevski 2, N.Kelly, Fitzgerald, Tantsis-Hall, Stanton, Merkel, Santoro
Best: Totino, Brunelli, Micevski, Spiteri, N.Kelly, Hanchette
Last Modified on 30/03/2008 18:17