Some games you just have to move on from.
The Warhawks hosted Malvern at Maiden Gully last Saturday. The weather was fairly cold and sunny in parts, but no rain, which was good.
Malvern were running late and were short of players to begin, but eventually had tardy arrivals boost them to 12 as the first quarter progressed. Bendigo began with 12.
Initially, the teams looked evenly matched for possession, and both defences kept scoring low. The Warhawk centres did well with winning draws and the Bendigo middies were able to get to the ball first many times, however, Malvern generally had the edge with skills on ground balls and tended to come away with possession more often.
Eventually, the Malvern forwards began to settle down and experience told and they began to find the goal. At the other end of the field, the Warhawks created chances, but the Malvern backline was well co-ordinated and again, depth of experience became obvious and mistakes were punished with sharp long-pole skills.
That set the scene for the day. Bendigo was shut out all day despite some good attempts and near misses. On the other hand, Malvern scored steadily all game: 3 in the first, 4 in the second, 2 in the third and with a burst of 7 at the end to finish, ran out winners 16 – 0.
The Bendigo defence worked very hard all day to hold out a relentless Malvern attack, and even the Malvern defender I was playing on muttered “Good save” to a few of Tim Davis’s efforts in goals. It could have been a lot worse.
While the Bendigo forward line had trouble getting any structured play to work, there was still plenty of courage and endeavour. However, with a clean score sheet, there was often an understandable lack of patience and a mad rush to just get that first goal, later in the game, and that led to turnovers.
Anyhow, as I said, it’s a game to put behind us quickly. It had a bitterness about it that often seems to characterise Malvern games, and I can tell you, that as someone who generally doesn’t take any notice of reffing, I found some of the reffing very noticeable indeed. I say no more; except that Bendigo usually ends up with maybe three or four fouls a game, but we found ourselves with a count of nine this time, while Malvern had two. Make of it what you will.
Votes. Mike Bell, with a long stick, found himself awarded with 3 club votes and 1 Association vote for some great work in defence and his usual excellent clearing. Alex Orr was given 2 club votes for keeping his chin up and throwing everything at Malvern, and Gino Iuliano also kept the pressure on the Malvern forwards all day and caught the refs’ eye and was given a club vote.
Congratulations to Tim Davis, who spent his 50th game for the Bendigo club being peppered by Malvern shots all day in the goal. Probably not the way he’d have liked to play it. Thanks again to Lester Young for reffing for us and Tracey O’Meara for scoring for us.
Anyhow: Training; I’ll see you all on Thursday. Let’s see what we can do with Altona at Altona next week.
Around the grounds:
U13 Moreland lost to Camberwell 3 to 8, with Christian Iuliano scoring two goal (which one was a lefty) and Matt Saxon assisting in all three goals.
U17 Moreland lost to Footscray 6 to 11 with Will Kenny scoring 2 goals.
Senior Women’s, MCC defeated Eltham 14 to 3 with Abigail O'Sullivan scoring two goals and Eliza O'Sullivan scoring one. These were their first senior goals scored by both girls.
John Webb
Senior player.
Last Modified on 25/05/2018 13:07