As a coach , when
you receive a call at 7am the morning of match day it is never good news. Players dont call to tell you they feel a 'million bucks' and are going to play a blinder today. Unfortunately we got one of those calls and young Will Overs was taken to hospital with an unknown illness, we understand they are still doing tests this week and Will remains in hospital. Speedy recovery Will !
With events like these comes opportunities for other players , Zac Chapman got his opportunity to return to the senior side and played a solid game at Centre half back/ Full back.
In a nutshell, we were beaten easily in the end on the scoreboard but throughout the day tested Queanbeyan on several levels. Our tackling pressure in first half was excellent and we used the footy quite well moving forward. The difference between the two sides in the end was Queanbeyan's ability through Kavanagh & Armstrong to kick long goals from set shots. Queanbeyan's high priced recruits Carey & Powell were more and more dominant in the midfield as thet game grew older and proved the catalyst for forward thrusts for the Tigers to get the ball into Qybn's power forwards hands. It is quite obvious that the Tigers finals push is heavily reliant on these 4 players, when they arent switched on they simply do not win games of footy.
The second half was an old football story where if you do not take the opportunities in front of goal all of the sudden the game can slip from your grasp, too many times the Hawks coughed up opportunities at goal from 40-45 metres out. When reward of a goal can lift spirits and effort, the reverse can generate a breakdown of structure and creativeness through desperation and panic to gain another scoring opportunity.
The story of the day was the story of our year so far.....
Competetive to a point where we are in control of the game only to have bad execution at certain areas of the ground cost us dearly, also when able to exert some scoreboard pressure on our opponents we allowed them to simply return the favour too quickly and too easily.
Kurt Masters played his best game for the year and provided an excellent target on forward thrusts and his work rate was the highest it has been all year and he was rewarded with the players player award for his efforts. Craig Healy was tagged heavily throughout the day but tried hard and Troy Feneveysi , Dave Smith and Nathan Smith who kicked 3 goals were good performers.
In the end , our player fitness was tested with only 17 fit players available for the last qtr and this proved to be too difficult a task as we simply ran out of steam with no ability to rotate midfield or other positions.
The margin of 50 points was not really a true reflection on our performance for the first 3 qtrs and as mentioned above the loss of Will Overs before thr game , Troy Takanen to a hamstring early, concussion to James McCabe and corks to Matt Ghirardello & Phil Lovett stretched us late in the game.
We have a weekend off with the Rep Carnival , all the best to the ACT side in Shepparton and fingers crossed we have some representation through Craig Healy & Ben Cleaver.
In a fortnight we tackle the Swans who have been hit hard through injury.
The Other Runner
Last Modified on 01/09/2008 08:40