...and thus another season closed for the Warhawks. A season that shows just how far we’ve come as players and as a team, with the regular floggings of 2009 now a distant memory.
The Warhawks arrived at Maiden Gully under overcast but otherwise ideal conditions in which to play lacrosse (although the ground could use a mow). Fourteen Warhawks lined up to play, while Footscray started with a bare ten, but had two more players arrive later.
The early stages were end to end, with plenty of shots from both sides. Footscray tested Gino with long shots and despite good forward work, initially struggled to find the goal. Bendigo had plenty of possession, winning the centre draws often through Russ Crofts and Brett Ruiz, but tended to squander it on rushed attempts to score, instead of holding the ball and working it around. However, Russell Crofts managed a very crisp pass to Will Kenny on a good cut to goal, and the latter cool-headedly picked his spot and beat the goalie. Footscray managed to put in two for the quarter, taking us to the break 2-1.
The second quarter saw both sides’ attacks lift a little, but the defences of both teams still held and it remained an arm-wrestle. Footscray scored three for the quarter, while the Warhawks got the ball moving and better player movement off the ball and Alex Orr scored two, one where he characteristically dodged two players and shot true, and the other where he drove from up high, drew a defender, passed to John Webb, who drew the same defender then passed back to Alex who shot and scored. We practise it, so it it’s nice to score one off it. Mark Reader, charging out of defence, passed sweetly to John Webb on the left side of goal, who TOOK HIS TIME and DIDN’T RUSH and made the net billow. We went to half time with the score on 5-4.
In the third, Footscray gained a player, found a gear and got away from the Warhawks, scoring 7 goals to none. The Footscray old firm of Tonelli and Mollison worked together as they have for decades and it was pretty, if not annoying, to watch. The Warhawks lost structure in the forward line and though there were plenty of shots, they were easy pickings for the goalie.
Since day one with the Warhawks, a score blowout in one quarter doesn’t mean total capitulation. We don’t give in and past oppositions who thought they were going to be treated to a double figure final quarter have often found themselves disappointed, and so it was in this final quarter. Bendigo’s defence stemmed the bleeding and Gino kept out a lot of shots, limiting Footscray to three goals and the Warhawk attackers got their composure back to score two more themselves. Mark Reader fed John Webb twice on the left with look-away passes to have one shot hit the pipework, but the other find the back of the net. Tim Davis capped off a big day of running the field by coming out of defence, taking on a defender, ignoring the plaintive calls of his team-mates, and ripping in a long bounce shot that lifted and beat the goalie’s stick by inches and slammed into the top corner. The game ended shortly afterwards with the score on 15-6.
It’s funny, but I feel better about this 15-6 score line than I did about the 5-4 win against Uni the week before. Footscray are a top side, and we scored 6 against them, while we should have scored many more than 5 against Uni. We were switched on for Footscray, and I’m really proud of how our club can stop a roll by a good side.
It was a great way to finish the season and the Footscray guys are always good to play: old-school tough-but-fair on the field, and they always stick around to have a beer afterwards. You can learn a lot playing them: don’t linger long over a ground ball; if you set a pick, brace yourself and if you want to play dirty, you’ll find that the Footscray philosophy is (and always has been) “If you hurt one of us, you hurt all of us”.
Votes went to Alex Orr (1 Association vote and 3 Club) for an energetic day on the paddock, especially with a Footscray defensive midfielder who could match him for pace to contend with. It was a great tussle. Mark Reader had a blinder, earning 2 Club votes, with his usual excellent defence work, but also swapping into the defensive middy role with aplomb. It’s a litmus test for how our forward line is going: if Wookie gets assists and not goals, then it means that our attack is getting it together. Tim Davis is becoming a regular vote-winner as a long-stick defender and earned one club vote for it (and probably for the eye-catching wild shot at the end too).
Thanks again to Pat Kenny for scoring and Lester Young for reffing. Also, this was Vince Fitzpatrick’s last game with us. He has moved to Geelong, and the driving is too much. Thanks Vince for your 50 games and hope to see you playing for a Geelong team sometime...
See you next year, and I’ll finish with a lesson in etiquette that Footscray stalwart, Rich Tonelli taught me some decades ago. I was gearing up for a final with Uni at the old footy ground at South Melbourne. I can’t remember who we were playing that day, but a Footscray team was warming up on the ground next to us. Someone there threw a bad pass and it rolled past me and stopped about a metre away from where I was sitting. I looked up and Rich was saying “Oi!” at me, but I chose to ignore him and went back to tying my boots. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him slowly shake his head and jog over to get the ball. I was chuckling to myself as he went by, but stopped when a stick whacked me across the side of my head. He picked up the ball and came back past and said, “Don’t be a dickhead all your life”. One of the Uni boys who saw it said, “Jesus, did he just hit you for nothing?” I said, “No. I had it coming”.
John Webb, Senior player
Last Modified on 28/08/2017 15:09