Thirds Match Report – Round 15
We started very well and neither team scored in the first five minutes and then the heavens opened up and did not let off for the rest of the day. Murrumbidgee scored the first goal and we responded, but Murrumbidgee kept applying pressure and with their taller fwd line and very good FF (who kicked 14 goals for the day) provided them with a great target and they kept scoring and we didn’t. Our effort was still their, but our accountability hurt us as we went chasing the ball and did not win the stoppages even with the additional numbers. We played a solid 2nd qtr and made Murrumbidgee work their goals even though they had it over our backline in height., one of the consequences of that was we gave away some silly free kicks by not playing in front, but the back line pressure was still pretty good.
We came out of the blocks a little bit slow after half time and Murrumbidgee rattle on some quick goals, it took us about 15 minutes, but the we manage to grind ourselves back into the contest and slowed the scoring down, and we blew our opportunities to get a couple of goals back. The last 10 minutes of the 3rd qtr was a good contest to watch in appalling conditions. Considering the conditions and what happened during the 3rd qtr the boys were surprisingly up beat at the break and ready to run out the last qtr, which they did. Our defence held its own and some of our ball movement in the conditions was very good and it was nice to play a qtr where the ball was in our fwd zone for a lot of the qtr and we can gain a lot of confidence out of that to take into our last three games.
Summary:
Considering we had only 20 players then got three late withdrawals and three injured players (Jason Cox, Toby Treloar and Justin Westcott) stepped up and with most of our tall players away, the vibe from the team before the game was surprisingly positive. Once again the effort could not be questioned with the only problem being we would drop off the pace just a bit when we should have been stepping it up and trying to apply more pressure. During these little lapses was when Murrumbidgee scored a lot of their goals, also the slow start after half time did not help our cause much. But a committed 25 minutes in the last qtr where we outscored them in very ordinary conditions was very pleasing and also our skills looked okay as we controlled and ran the ball quite well. So once again disregarding the scoreboard, there were some good signs.
Scoreboard
|
Ainslie
|
Murrumbidgee
|
G
|
P
|
T
|
G
|
P
|
T
|
1
|
1
|
7
|
5
|
5
|
35
|
2
|
1
|
13
|
10
|
12
|
72
|
2
|
3
|
15
|
17
|
14
|
116
|
5
|
5
|
35
|
19
|
18
|
132
|
Best Players
Dave Stewart, Ben Moffitt, Drew Alsford, Damien Eddy, Robby Ho and Chris Watkins were among our better players on the day.
Goal Kickers
Stewart – 3, Butlin – 1, Jordon - 1
Last Modified on 29/07/2008 17:16