Round 1 for Springwood Gold began on Friday night against Zillmere Eagles under lights at home. Expectations were pretty high before the game, we had 20 players so at least a bench this week, and we thought we could be competitive. We certainly didn’t know much about Zillmere other than their grading game form had been pretty solid, winning one comfortably and losing one by about the same margin. As it turned out they were a pretty good outfit and you could tell that as a stand alone team that had been playing together as a group for a few years they were a bit too strong for us, as the scoreboard suggests.
It certainly wasn’t all doom and gloom though because for much of the game we were very competitive, we only lost the 3rd quarter by a few points, and we kicked the first goal of the last quarter to have the scoreboard at least looking pretty respectable. Unfortunately though it seemed to jolt the Zillmere midfielders into action and they took over, winning clearance after clearance and hammering the ball into their forward line. The resultant pressure was simply too much for our young defence and the scoreboard really blew out, in fact I think they kicked 10 in 15 minutes. Heads dropped and effort waned and that’s what can happen in footy, especially too when you have so many boys that are still learning the game with just a handful of games under their belts.
All in all though a great measuring stick as to where this young group is at, yes some games could get a bit ugly this year, but we just have to keep heads up and keep striving to learn and improve, and then, who knows? Kedron Grange this Friday night up at Stafford and they are coming off a pretty strong win so the signs are that it could be another tough night at the office. It looks like we will have 20 again so there is no reason why, if we learned some lessons from last Friday night, that we can’t go up there and give them a good game of footy.
Thanks very much to the 3 Under 14 boys Mitch Osland, Jake Keeble and Caleb Kennedy who stood up more than admirably to help us out, much appreciated boys.
Final scores Zillmere 23-13-151 def Springwood Gold 5-2-32
Best players were Harley Storey down back who must have had 20 possessions mopping up inside defensive 50, Jayden Ruscoe who rucked tirelessly all night, Brock Meredith up forward who was a constant headache for their defence with his hard lead up work, Mitch Osland from the 14s was outstanding wherever we put him and Tristen Newcomb, Ryan Davies (7 tackles) and Jack Leahy chipped in here and there to be also good contributors.
Goalkickers: Brock Meredith 2, Matt Iervese 1, Mitch Osland 1, Ryan Davies 1
Last Modified on 10/05/2012 14:35