After a very good win against Caulfield, Bendigo travelled to Melbourne’s western suburbs to play against Footscray. We had twelve starting players with Vincent as an emergency to play, ref or scorekeeper. He ended up scoring for the team, which was very appreciative. At 9.00pm Friday night Bendigo was informed that the ALRA ref was injured and could not officiate the game. However, we were fortunate that Footscray were keen to play and they supplied two Refs.
It was a crisp day and the sun was out on occasions. The ground was mainly solid under foot, even though it seemed small in size. The match was delayed by 15 minutes as the previous game went over their scheduled time.
In the first term both teams were feeling each other out and Bendigo’s defence knew very quickly that it was going to be a very long day. Footscray were very quick with their passing and it was evident that Bendigo needed to stay very close to their players. Footscray got three goals from there many shots. The scoring could have been higher if it wasn’t from firm defence of Wookie, Tyrone, and Tim Davies, who was a revelation in the backline. There really wasn’t any movement from the Bendigo’s forwards but that was corrected in the second quarter.
The second term saw Footscray score 5 goals as their long shots starting going in. Bendigo middies realised that they had to ensure their opponents had no free ground balls or easy possessions. Bendigo had a few more minutes in their forward line than the first quarter and many more shoots, but Footscray’s goalie was easily stopping them. Although, Mr Ian Lock scored a solo goal receiving the ball from Rusty, and doing his trade mark scooting around the goal crease to be one on one with the goalie, and goaled with the smallest of angles. The great aspect of the goal was that our attackers allowed Ian space by bring their opponents with them away from goal, so Ian had room to do his thing.
Bendigo was clearly winning the centre face-offs between Rusty and Brett with Alex maximising this advantage by running off the midfield line and obtaining possession. Nick, Mike, James and Mason were following suit, as well as rotating between the midfield and forward lines to spread the load.
The third term was heart warming, as Footscray players were being more forceful with some body and stick checks, while Bendigo players were focused on the ball and absorbed the physicality. As a result Bendigo had a few man ups, which allowed more ball movement in the forward half, but unfortunately no goals. Nick Goddard did score with a thunderbolt which Gino will testify that if you’re in the way of them they hurt! Footscray scored four goals with one dubious goal on the cease.
Actually the final quarter went very quickly, and the ball seemed to stay in Warhawk’s attacking half for the majority of the quarter. Bendigo scored a goal, from a magnificent centre face-off by Brett which Alex swooped onto and shot. It took only 10 seconds!
Footscray landed another 4 goals to convincingly win the match 16 to 3.
The club votes went to Rusty (3) and two association votes, Alex (2) and Wookie (1). Goals went to Ian Lock, Alex and Nick, with an assist from Rusty.
We now heading into a break and then returning to play Malvern in Melbourne on Saturday July 9.
Special mentions to Vincent who was under the weather and still came to lend a hand in case of the team were: short in numbers, or needed to ref, or score. Thanks to James for playing his final game for the year and congratulations to Gino for reaching his 50th game for Bendigo.
PS Will Kenny’s team in the U15 competition had a win with Will scoring 4 goals and 2 assists, well done.
Gino Iuliano.
The other senior player!
Last Modified on 27/06/2016 08:35