On Saturday, the Warhawks travelled to Caulfield Park to take on Malvern. The weather was clear and sunny (even something a bit like balmy) as we warmed up to play. Malvern had 15 to start and Bendigo 13.
The game was a lopsided affair, with Malvern controlling the lion’s share of possession throughout. Their ball movement and stick skills were uniformly good all over the ground and they were able to score off controlled forward play: four in the first quarter, five in the second, five in the third and three in the last, giving them a total of 17. Bendigo scored once in the third quarter, from a good series of passes behind the goal that finished with a great dodging goal to Ian Lock and in the last quarter when Alex Orr took on the Malvern backline and shot with the sun behind him. Final score was 17 – 2.
The Bendigo backline fought hard all day against a confident and skilled forward set-up and did well to hold Malvern to less than twenty. These big clubs have a lot of depth and with the Malvern division 1 team enjoying a bye last Saturday, the division 3 team was very much full strength. It’s hard not to be disheartened by the many-to-few score lines, when we travel so far, have key players unavailable (especially in the midfield) and others playing with injuries. But I’ve always been amazed at how the Bendigo guys make the best of things and the talk remains positive and credit is given where it’s due. We just have to keep getting to training and practising stick skills and the forward play. There are things that show up when we do well: when we start to string three or more passes together in a row, movement follows and we often score. When we have more than four guys scoring goals, we sometimes win games. “Let the ball do the work,” the old guys used to always say, and it’s true. The Malvern forward line often had the ball go right around the goal a couple of times to try to test the Bendigo backline and get them out of position. They took their time and shared the scoring around (they had six players who scored and five with assists). We need to do more of that up front, even if it’s just to give our defence a rest.
Votes were awarded to Mark Reader (3 club and one Association) for his tireless work in defence, Alex Orr got 2 club votes, even when he promised us he was going to have a quiet day camped on the forward line nursing an injury, and Gino Iuliano got one for facing a barrage all day and stopping a heap of it.
We take on Caulfield at Bendigo next week.
John Webb
Senior player.
Last Modified on 18/05/2015 12:41