Griffith had not had a good run of late and had been coping some fair loses, however with Uni being back we expected them to field a strong team and were not taking the game lightly. With a few injuries, players unavailable, and still rotating players we were far from full strength but as always the team still looked quite good.
Playing Griffith on a Friday night at Sherwood certainly didn’t bring out an abundance of supporters for either side which was a little disappointing especially from our perspective as quite a few regular guys obviously decided to stay home and watch the cats, hawks game rather than getting out and supporting their team mates. We did have the usual suspects there to help out again and thanks again to Sean, Bub, Maxy, James, Gregory, ferbie, Sally (and Danielle), Chooka for all coming out and helping out.
The first half was quite a flat affair, which was probably to be expected given the conditions and the fact Griffith were playing quite a defensive style of footy. We did have the majority of the play, but through a combination of bad decision making and being let down a little by skills in hitting targets we failed to capitalize on the weight of possession and went into half time only a couple of goals up. I thought we were looking like a side just playing out the rest of the season rather than a side that was expecting to play finals in 3 weeks and I asked the guys at half time to go out in the second half and play as if their season depended on it, stick to the structures we were trying to get in place and most of all, look like they were enjoying being out there.
The second half was a lot better with some good ball movement, and with the move of Tim Sprot up to the full forwards line, a more effective forward structure. This combined with a bit of discipline from out mid fielders not to clog up the forward 50 and we were able to get the space to lead into and get clean possession inside 50. This resulted in Tim kicking 6 goals in the second half. Our back line didn’t have the hardest of nights but always stuck to their tasks and worked the ball well out of defense. We finished the game at 14, 14 98 to 5, 5 35, bit if the 5 posters, and a few other misses (that would normally be converted) had gone through it could have been a much bigger margin.
Special mentions to Tim Sprott who has been good down back for us but showed on Friday night that we can also use him up forward. Welcome back to Anthony Kumar who has been out with an ankle injury for the last month and had his usual consistent game. Scott Waters and Dave Nobel were both great getting plenty of the ball between them (rumour has it Dave Nobel even used his voice on Friday night so things must be looking up). Ryan Weller was also great for us of the Half back Flank, attacked the ball well and gave us plenty of drive.
With 2 weeks before finals we have to really start stepping up. Playing UQ and Grange in the last 2 games, both of which have a chance to knock us out of the top 2. Strathpine drew on the weekend which also still leaves the top spot up for grabs. The top 4 is decided now with us and those 3 teams, it is just a matter of who finishes where. It is getting harder and harder to pick a side now but we still have 2 games before finals for the boys to put their hands up for a spot come the end of the year.
See you all at training.
Cheers
Gilbo.
Last Modified on 28/07/2008 08:50