It was the second last round of the home and away season and both Under 16 teams were at home on the same day for only the second time this year. Gold were up first and it was an absolutely perfect day for footy, plenty of sunshine and just a little bit of a breeze. The ground though is certainly starting to look a bit tired, dry weather for the last month hasn’t helped because it is starting to turn into a bit of a dustbowl in the middle and there are large parts of it without much grass. Totally understandable given the use the ground gets with training and games pretty much every day so very difficult to keep it in top condition.
This was a big chance for Gold to break their duck. The form of the boys over the last 3 weeks has been terrific, in 2 of the 3 games they have been in positions to win late in the game, and with Coorparoo sitting precariously just inside the top 4 it promised to be a cracking game. The loss of Brock before the game was a blow but we still had 19 capable footballers and a few helping out that would be playing later in the day in Navy Division 2. Once again we got off to a ripping start edging out the Roos in the first quarter 12-9, our third 1st quarter winning start in 4 games. The boys have certainly been turning up ready to play.
All was going pretty well during the second quarter with the Gold boys at one stage out to a 10 point lead and playing with an air of confidence, only to see Coorparoo kick a couple in the last 5 minutes to go into the break with a 5 point lead, 24-19. The focus of the half time message was just to refocus the boys and try to keep their confidence levels up, they were playing good footy just had a bit of a lapse for those 5 minutes.
Unfortunately 10 minutes into the 3rd quarter things weren’t looking too good, Coorparoo had pushed out to a 4 goal lead and were playing well, our boys heads were starting to drop and it looked like they were ready to pack it in. I think the next half an hour of footy was Gold’s best for the year, full of courage and character, from nowhere they all started to lift and get hold of the footy. We threw all of our big guns, Matty Leadbeater, Alee and Alex into the middle and straight away we started to get our hands on it first in the middle. This gave our forwards some more opportunities and they didn’t disappoint, managing to kick the next couple to go into the last change just 10 points down. It would have to be the best quarter of footy they had played all year to win it as they were kicking into a slight breeze but at the break there was a good feeling that they could do it. The lads were pumped.
The last quarter was just a terrific 20 minutes of footy, our boys gave absolutely everything they had and basically controlled the last quarter. Unfortunately though the rewards for effort just weren’t there, we had the ball camped inside our forward 50 for most of the quarter but could only return 1 goal 5. With 2 minutes to go Coorparoo had only managed the one solitary goal for the term and they led by 5 points. They were gone, we were all over them and we just needed to capitalise one final time and the win column would have a “1” in it. But then no Mr Umpire decided he was going to have the final say by ridiculously giving a 50 metre penalty against our full forward Jack for standing too close to the opposition full back as he was kicking in. Not once did he tell Jack to come back on the mark, no warning, nothing, he just decided to ping him. That was really harsh and pedantic and ultimately sealed Gold’s fate as the Roos took it straight down the other end and kicked the winning goal. This wasn’t an isolated incident with this umpire either, this was the same bloke who, in the Navy game later, penalised Mitch for deliberately rushing a behind as he was being tackled!! If that’s not under pressure then what is? He also nabbed Harley for overstepping on his kick in even though there was no visible line, when queried about it all he would say was that it’s “not my problem, there should be visible lines”. Probably right there should be but geez mate don’t guess, if it’s a problem tell the Ground Marshall at the break and we would could have quickly put some new lines down, but don’t penalise a team just on a whim, use some common sense. Anyway that’s footy and you just have to cop it and move on. Heartbreaking for the boys though.
Anyway no matter what happened it doesn’t take away from the boys one little bit in what was a fantastic effort to get that close to a top 4 team, after being down and out earlier in the game. The way they fought back from 4 goals down to almost winning it will be a highlight of the entire season (Navy included) for me, it was courageous and skilful and just goes to show what you can achieve if you stay positive, have some character and believe in yourselves. Well done boys I was very proud of you all.
Better players and no doubt whilst it was a few individuals who really lifted us in the second half it was a great team effort to shut the opposition down so that’s what I am going to say, TEAM EFFORT.
Final scores Coorparoo 9-7-61 defeated Springwood Gold 7-8-50
Goal kickers Matt Iervese 2, Lachlan Willaton 2, Jack Leahy 2, Matt Leadbeater 1
One more game to go against the very powerful Sandgate with what will be a fairly depleted line up so will be a tough day. It will be very difficult to get players to double up, understandably, as finals for Navy start the following week. It is a time now that we need to start giving those players enough time to recover from their early game and get themselves right for the first final against Everton. Stay positive though and we can finish the season off on a high.
The Navy team was up next and they were up against what is fair to say was an undermanned Aspley. They had lost a few players from their loss to Jindalee the week before and with a few of their better players playing Div 1 at the same time it was always going to be a tough ask for them. They were very little chance to make the finals either and so their motivation levels may have been a bit down. Despite us not being able to be knocked out of the top 2 the boys were still pretty keen to try to finish on top of the ladder so they were pretty keen for a win. Despite losing skipper Nate during the week to a training mishap and Rhys still not quite right we still had a pretty good side out on the paddock. It was a good opportunity to give Brighton Page a run, after several fantastic games for Gold, to have a run around with the Navy boys. He had a good day and played his role perfectly. As it turned out and probably understandably it was a pretty one sided game. Aspley were good with the footy in their hands, they are a very skilful side but unfortunately our bigger bodies made it a tough day for them. We dominated from the outset and never really let up, even in the last quarter when we had just about every player in unfamiliar roles we kept working really hard. It was a good solid 4 quarter performance.
The end result was a 96 point win for us, a good confidence booster as we approach finals. No injuries either so another plus. For us the game was largely about working on a few things that we didn’t do as well as we would have liked the week before. To a large extent I think we improved in a lot of areas but we still have work to do in others. Our conversion rate wasn’t great so that is certainly something obvious that we need to be better at. Ferny Grove this week in the last round and it too will be an opportunity for us to iron out some kinks and also give some boys an opportunity to put their hands up for a start in the first final in a couple of weeks. Everton lost to Kenmore on the weekend, ironically after having 5 more scoring shots than them (which we did last week against Everton), so now with a good percentage we can’t get knocked off top spot (Everton have the bye so can’t increase their percentage). That is something to hang our hats on but obviously there is still much work to do and a bigger prize there to be earned. Big congratulations to Jared and Dan on playing their 150th games on the weekend, following on from Matty Leadbeater the week before. Well done all of you, you should be very proud of your achievement.
Final scores Springwood 16-21-117 defeated Aspley 3-3-21
Goal scorers Jordan Bacic 3, Lachlan Willaton 3, Dan Willaton 2, Callum Eddy 2, Jack Darby 1, Hayden Day 1, Jacob Mitchell 1, Lincoln Opbroek 1, Jared Denny 1, Mitch Hurley 1
Best players and really tough as everyone played their role but I will give Lachy Willaton a special mention, he was disappointed to not get any game time in Navy last week but this week not only was he close to best on the ground for Gold he backed up in Navy and had a blinder, kicking 3, laying 3 really good tackles and generally being a very good contributor, well done mate that’s a great days work. Callum had 9 tackles and Jordy 8 so I was really pleased with that as well, great forward pressure. Loved Mitch Hurley’s first goal since under 12s too that was special, to borrow a phrase from Bruce Mcevaney. Well done boys.
See you all at training, especially you Tristen!!
Cheers, Steve
Last Modified on 13/08/2012 11:00