The Knights put up a gallant showing against the top of the ladder Murray Bushrangers, but couldn’t quite take the points. It looked like early inaccuracy from the Knights combined with perfect conversion from the Bushrangers was going to be a big concern with the quarter time score seeing Murray leading 5.0.30 to 1.4.10. Significantly the Knights misses were all quite gettable.
The Knights found their way in the second term and booted four goals, including a pair from Brent Wallace. Tom Hill was the leading ball winner for the Knights playing in the ruck and up forward, while Anton Woods was getting his hands dirty at the bottom of the packs and winning plenty of hard balls. Murray
held a 15 point lead at the main break Tom Rockliff and Brad Mangan the forces up forward for the visiting team.
The third term was a lower scoring affair, however the Bushrangers made good of the limited opportunities by kicking 3.1 to the Knights 1.1. Despite the score line drifting further away from the Knights there was still a sense of belief that an upset was on the cards. Michael Hurley was up and about in an utterly dominant display winning 12 touches for the term. Rhys Boyden continued a good month and was doing another solid job in defence.
This belief was justified with the Knights jumping out of the blocks getting seven of the first eight scoring shots. Hill, Woods and Matthew Dornauf goaled to bring the margin back to only six points, but unfortunately Dornauf’s goal was the Knights final score of the day. Murray teased for a few minutes by kicking five behinds in a row before finally nailing the game.
Assistant Coach Craig Hunter took the reins as Head Coach for the day in an initiative to give the Assistants an opportunity to gain experience. Hunter instilled the mantra into the playing group all week that “it’s not who we play, it’s how we play” and he felt the team got a lot of the processes right today.
“The main thing was being able to compete strongly. We were really disappointing last week in that area, so the main focus of the whole week was about competing and being able to walk off the ground with our heads held high. In that regard we were really happy with our effort.
“Tom Hill was fantastic I though. He’s been eased back into it this year. He’s had a few injury problems as we all know and today was a good performance in pretty tough conditions for a big fellow. For him to play that well in conditions like this gives him a fair bit of confidence.
“Hurley was very good as well and Anton Woods was fantastic. He worked really hard to get front and centre to the contest and winning plenty of contested footy.”
Murray Bushrangers 13.11.89 def. Northern Knights 9.12.66
Goals: Wallace 2, Woods, Zaharakis, Dornauf, Hurley, Hill, Stanton, Walsh
Best: Hill, Hurley, Woods, Kelly, Boyden, Zaharakis
Last Modified on 11/08/2008 11:48