The Northern Knights have suffered a devastating loss at the hands of the North Ballarat Rebels. After running into some good form last week against the Bendigo Pioneers the Knights were looking to build on that and move up the ladder, however the Rebels led at every change to come away with a 46 point win.
With a stiff breeze heading to the Southern end the Rebels took full advantage of that in the first term by jumping out of the blocks with a six goal first quarter. Unfortunately for the Knights they lost one of their leading clearance players Kane Lambert early in the first quarter. Lambert suffered a collarbone injury when being tackled and will possibly be out for the rest of the year.
The Knights couldn’t take advantage of that wind in the second term, which the Rebels won three goals to two and carried a 32 point lead into the main break. Brent Wallace added both of the goals for the Knights. In more bad injury news Tom Snell got knocked out in the second quarter, but heroically came back on later in the game and played solidly due to even more injuries to other players being sustained.
The half time message from Coach Paul Satterley was to run and carry the ball in the third term, which the playing group responded to. Anton Woods moved well to set Wallace up with his third goal by running the ball. Josh Griffiths, in only his third game was playing very well in the midfield and stepped up in the absence of Lambert.
Despite trailing by seven goals the Knights had their heads up at the final break, knowing that the wind was getting even stronger. When Dean Smith-Whiting kicked two goals early in the last quarter there was some small chance of an unlikely comeback. Smith-Whiting kicked two more behinds in five minutes in an amazing patch of form. After that, the Rebels dominated the rest of the quarter to take their biggest lead of the game before Lucas Hobbs kicked a consolation goal for the Knights just before the siren.
Josh Griffiths, in only his third game was BOG for the Knights, winning 30+ touches. 16 year old Josh Caddy also impressed with his harness at the contest and ball winning ability, despite only playing in his second TAC Cup game, while Jake Walsh had his best game for the club taking a game high four contested marks.
Assistant Coach Rodney Wright noted that there were too many inconsistent efforts throughout the day. “It was very much one of those games where our good was good and our bad was bad. It was hard to come back from that first quarter. We would’ve rather we kicked with the breeze in the first, but they got it and got away from us there.”
On top of the injuries to Lambert and Snell the Knights also lost Sean Calcedo and Dylan Grimes in the second half. Snell came back on, but the Knights were badly undermanned, which Wright touched on post game. “Injuries did take their toll on us. It meant we weren’t able to rotate our players as much as we would’ve liked. We picked up three or four injuries so there’ll be some changes next week, but we’ve got a couple of guys due to come back.”
North Ballarat Rebels 16.11.107 def. Northern Knights 9.7.61
Goals: Wallace 3, Smith-Whiting 2, Woods 2, Hobbs Griffiths
Best: Griffiths, Walsh, Smith-Whiting, Caddy, Wallace, Simcoe
Last Modified on 07/07/2008 17:42