With a bye round for all TAC Cup teams last week, the Rebels were given the opportunity to return home to their local club. Some boys chose to take the week off for a rest while others took the chance to gain some confidence in the lead up to our round 10 clash against the Gold Coast. The Rebels were placed second on the ladder while GC was sitting fourth. So it was going to be tough battle for the boys flying interstate to win the four points.
The Rebels welcomed three inclusions into the team with Jake Dunne, Jeremy McDonald and Nathan Kelly who was making his debut for the club. Ben Peters was a noticeable absence from the Rebels line up this week. After a solid debut performance in the Roosters VFL side last week Ben was named in the Vic Country side for their Round 3 match of the U/18 Championships. We wish him along with the other boys all the best.
Our trip started off on Friday morning in Ballarat with a bus taking the team down to Tullamarine Airport. Our plane flew out at around midday and all was going well for the boys so far except for Sammy Cowling who realised he left his wallet on the bus. After a two hour flight and some smooth talking by Josh ‘Richmond’ Free with the flight attendants we arrived at sunny Coolangatta. It was a short half an hour drive to our accommodation at the Super Sports Centre in Runaway Bay.
We had a light training run on the synthetic turf field when we arrived to get the cob webs out after not training as a group on the Thursday night in Ballarat. The skills were sharp and there was plenty of excitement about tomorrow’s game. We enjoyed a little bit of free time and a swim before tea. Lucas Cook was looking right at home in the warm weather and fancy Gold Coast life style. After tea we had our team meeting and watched the vision from the Geelong game. Wilks told us not to get carried away with a holiday like perspective on the game. He quite simply explained to us why we are here and that was to win a game of football.
We started the Saturday morning with a very small walk to a grass filled paddock with no scenery what so ever. Then we had a light breakfast as a group and some free time before we had to head off to the game. We packed all our gear up onto the bus and arrived at Carrara at about 11. We went through a normal pre game routine where Dean Gavin was named Captain for today. It wasn’t long before the game got under way.
The first quarter saw the Rebels off to a slow start with the GC kicking the first couple of goals before some brilliant roving by Chris Giampaolo to set up the first goal kicked by Josh Free. Ollie Tate won plenty of the footy out the middle to set up numerous forward thrusts. We went into the first change only a goal and a bit down which was a good result considering our best was still to come.
In the second quarter was won by the Rebels after some inaccurate goal kicking of the Gold Coast. Chris Curran and Liam Hoy were strong in defence while Josh Free continued to impress the Richmond recruiters with his run and carry. The margin at half time was only 6 points with the Rebels kicking 2 goals straight to the Gold Coast’s one goal three.
The third quarter again saw some inaccurate goal kicking by the GC which kept the rebels in the contest. Lucas Cook provided a big marking target at centre half forward with some strong leads. Dean Gavin started to win the in and under contests out of the middle and this frustrated the GC team who started to argue with the umpiring decisions. Even our runner Wilba was in on the action. With him helping break up a push and shove between Kev Bourke and a GC player and copping a bit of lip for it. A great goal to Liam Hoy saw us go into the last quarter with plenty of confident being only two straight kicks behind.
The Gold Coast got off to an extraordinary start by kicking the first 3 goals in 10 mins. But to the teams credit we hung in there and replied with 3 quick goals to Dylan Parish, Chris Giampaolo and Jake Dunne. The momentum was with the rebels but we had left our run too late with the siren sounding and being 7 points down. We had 11 individual goal scorers which show the versatility of our team. Our best players were Ollie Tate, Josh Free, Dean Gavin, Liam ‘Hoy’ Hoy, Marcus Darmody and Chris Curran.
After the game we went straight to the airport and got onto our flight back to Melbourne. Dean Gavin suffered from plane sickness even with the help of the Angelina Jolie look-a-like flight attendant.
Next week we take on the Calder Cannons down in Melbourne which is surely to be a tough contest.
Last Modified on 17/06/2009 09:36
