After a big win in their last match-up, the Northern Knights were unable to overcome the Dandenong Stingrays this time around. It was a tough and tight contest all day, but the Stingrays, aided by kicking with the win in the final term came away with a 30 point win.
The first quarter was a fairly even affair, in which the Knights were kicking with a solid breeze. The Knights were deadly accurate in front of goals, kicking four for the term, including one from first gamer Glenn Grgic to hold a two point lead at quarter time.
Dandenong’s first attempt at kicking with the wind was wasted in a second quarter plagued by inaccuracy. Dandenong added 2.9 to their score line and from only six Inside 50’s the Knights converted 100% of the time to kick 3.3 and keep the half time margin at two points.
Hamish Paynter was dominant in the middle for the Knights, while Anton Woods and Michael Brunelli were also leading the charge with great tenacity and ball winning ability.
The breeze did die down a bit for the third quarter and Dandenong took advantage of this by kicking three goals in a row before Matthew Gasparini settled the ship for the Knights with his second of the day. Rhys Boyden was imposing himself on the game by giving the Knights a strong target leading up the ground and taking a number of contested marks.
With an eight point deficit the Knights always found themselves chasing in the last quarter, only scoring a goal in response to a Dandenong goal. It wasn’t until the Stingrays kicked three goals in the row to end the game that the margin blew out past 20 points.
Knights Coach Paul Satterley was naturally disappointed with the loss. “We’ve had the wood over Dandenong since I’ve been at the club, with big wins last year and earlier this year, so yeah, it was a winnable game today and we just let it slip.
“Probably the last 10-15 minutes of the game they got away from us. We were our own worst enemy at times with our disposal by foot and just the number of missed tackles, which is an area we need to keep getting better at.
“We had players like Paynter and Brunelli and Woods, for three quarters…we thought their hardness and ferocity at the footy and the contest was outstanding. It was probably just some players that didn’t match that and let us down at times.”
Dandenong Stingrays 13.19.97 def. Northern Knights 10.9.69
Goals: Gasparini 3, Walsh 2, Dornauf 2, Grgic, Quinton, Still
Best: Paynter, Boyden, Brunelli, Griffiths, Simcoe, Woods
Last Modified on 14/07/2008 17:26