REBEL YELL - ROUND 2
Monday, April 16, 2007
With Clayton Hinkley
Warrack Eagles export Clayton Hinkley is one of the North Ballarat Rebels three joint captains for season 2007 and a returning member of the 2006 squad. This week he continues the players' weekly diary about their involvement in the elite TAC Cup competition. The column will continue through the football season with selected squad members taking up guest writer duties.
After the disappointment of the Round One loss the fellas were keen to bounce back from their previous performance, however we were wary of the difficult task ahead. Geelong have been labelled as the benchmark, the yardstick or the front runners....however you like it, of the comp so far as they were coming off an impressive 22 goal win.
Still without our travelling St Pats College players training remained our stock standard, run-of-the-mill sessions although Thursday's training session lacked voice and newly appointed forwards coach Ivan `Pikey' Pike was quick to administer his thoughts with his bellowing voice ringing out across Austar Arena to fire up the boys.
Going into the game depleted with talls didn't worry us as Geelong also has a shorter, hard running team.
The TAC Cup's Round Two `triple header' is an opportunity for scouts and onlookers to see six teams play in one day over three games. The event is usually held at Bendigo's QEO Oval, but due to the state of the surface it was deemed unfit for play and abruptly forced the move to Maryborough's Princess Park.
We were now playing in game three on a much smaller ground that seemed to be in pretty good nick.
Early in the first quarter we had the first six scoring shots with only one goal to come out of it which proved in the end to be very costly to us. It was an opportunity lost to get ahead and set a chase for Geelong but it just wasn't to be.
The Falcons broke through to set up a four goal lead heading into the main break at half time. The Rebels were still well in the game and just bursting to play a better brand of footy in the second half.
Unfortunately we continued to kick through the little white sticks at the end of the oval. As the game wore on the Falcons continued to run hard and make heavy use of the bench to rotate players.
Jason Linke played a solid game in the backline with help from big fella Ryan Hobbs who was unlucky enough to sustain some friendly fire from Matt Austin resulting in a puffy closed up eye which I'm sure `Austo' didn't mean. And the trend continued with first gamer Billy `Rock Star' Barnes taking one to the face but he was able to play on with his shiner.
Through the whole game Nick `Wez' Peters was the Rebels' driving force through the midfield with assistance from Bryce Tickner. The better players on the day were Nick Peters, Ryan Hobbs, Bryce Tickner, Clayton Hinkley, Jason Linke and Kyle Cheney.
Until next week! Go Rebels!
Match Details: Played 14/4/07
Geelong Falcons 16.16 (112) d North Ballarat Rebels 5.13 (43)
North Ballarat Rebels Goals: Matt Austin, Nick Peters, Zach Parry, Nick Johnstone, Daniel Ross-Smith.
Best: Nick Peters, Ryan Hobbs, Bryce Tickner, Clayton Hinkley, Jason Linke, Kyle Cheney.
Geelong Falcons Goals: Zach Hickleton 3, Andrew Scott 2, Kane Smith 2, Adam Donohue 2, Nik Orvis, Edward Curnow, Brett Cunningham, Guy O'Keefe, Chris Lynch, Sam Hughes, Hugh Hunter.
Best: Edward Curnow, Kane Smith, Jordan Jones, Sam Staveniuter, Adam Donohue, Tom Hornsey.
Last Modified on 08/02/2009 16:14