Well it was do or die time for the young Navy Pumas as they arrived at the Strathpine ground for our preliminary final against the much improved Ipswich Cats outfit. We didn’t need to look too far for inspiration either, what an awesome come from behind effort from our young Under 13s, 12 points down with a just a few minutes to go, 2 quick goals to level the game and force it into extra time and then to take the game out by 7 points to go into the Grand Final against Coorparoo next week. And this against a team, Kedron-Grange, that had beaten them fairly comfortably the last two times they had met. Well done boys and well done to coach Matt Preston-Smith, the new Chris Scott of the Springwood footy club, taking his team into the big one in his first season. Congrats Matty and Dan too, well deserved.
As for the Navy boys well pretty much everything went to plan right from last Monday night onwards. Training was top class during the week, we had an excellent team bonding Sizzler dinner and a movie the night before and the good warm up before the game had everyone buzzing about and keen for the contest. All week we had gone over the game tape of what happened when we played them last time (they beat us by 7 points) and we really focussed on 4 areas of our game we had to improve on. A couple of things from our semi-final loss to Everton were mentioned but mainly it was about improving what we had dished up over at Ipswich a few weeks back. It was time to redeem ourselves properly.
The weather was warm and dry, the ground firm and there was a bit of a swirly breeze favouring the change rooms end, which Ipswich kicked with in the first quarter. The first 5 minutes all belonged to Ipswich. They won the footy straight out of the middle and bombarded the goals early. We were fumbly and indecisive, a lot of which I think was just nerves and after 5 minutes or so we started to settle and started to win our share of the footy. Ipswich had 1 goal 3 on the board before we had managed to score but we finally started to make some attacking raids and that was rewarded when Callum marked and goaled to get us under way. From that point on it was a very even and hard fought quarter, no side really dominating and both defences on top. At quarter time the scores were level and I thought that was a fairly reasonable place to be, given our slow start and the fact that we had the breeze in the next quarter. Everyone had settled, the nerves had disappeared and it was time now to start playing some good footy.
The second quarter and the best possible start when we won the first clearance and a long kick forward to Hayden to take a big grab and goal to give us the lead and it was now us that had momentum and belief. We really began to dominate the game from this point, our defensive unit gave them nothing, our midfielders were creating havoc around the ground and our forwards were converting well and putting scoreboard pressure on our opponents. We went in at half time 30 points up, having kicked 5 goals to zip for the term and obviously in a very good position. The half time chat was firstly praise for the efforts in the 2nd term but then a lot about what Ipswich would have to throw at us in the third quarter. They had nothing to lose now and with the breeze they would come out all guns blazing, if we could win the quarter, or at least break even the game was pretty much ours.
Ipswich certainly did come out hard at us, even though we kicked the first goal of the term they certainly got the ball inside their own 50 enough times to create scoring opportunities. Our defence in this quarter was magnificent and time and time again they repelled the Ipswich attacks. They managed to keep our opponents to just 4 points for the quarter and most of those misses were due to the pressure applied by our back half. Well done boys as this certainly was the catalyst for us being able to push forward enough times of our own to kick 3 goals for the quarter and have the game pretty much wrapped up at the last change. We had a sizeable lead of 44 points, and a breeze to come home with in the last quarter.
To Ipswich’s credit they didn’t give up and they kept pushing us for the remainder of the game. I was able to rotate some boys off to give them a spell and keep them in cotton wool for next week and we finished the game off strongly. Unfortunately we had a bit of a scare in the last 5 minutes when skipper Nate went down courtesy of a high tackle and he looked to be in some trouble. After a minute or two the game was stopped as it was obvious that he was really struggling. The ground medico thought it wise to leave him prone on the ground and wait for an ambulance as a precaution in case there was any spinal damage, this was the right call as you don’t mess around with head/neck injuries. With only a few minutes to go and no chance of anything but a Pumas victory both coaches, the AFLBJ rep and the umpires called the game a few minutes early and Springwood had advanced to the Grand Final. We went into the rooms, sung the song, had a quick chat and then all went back onto the field to wait with Nate for the ambulance. Excellent news late last night was that there is no neck damage or anything too major and all is looking good for the skipper to lead us out onto Coorparoo on Grand Final day.
Well done to Ipswich it has to be said they certainly are the most improved side in the comp. They started out playing Div 3 grading games and I was certainly surprised when they were elevated into Div 2. Their early season form was nothing to write home about but their second half was outstanding and they totally deserved to play off for a Grand Final spot after a convincing win in the first final against Kenmore. They play the game in the right spirit, hard but fair, and are well coached and should be proud of themselves. They had moments in the game yesterday where they really had us under pressure and you could see right there the improvement in them. As for us, congratulations boys, great reward for 7 months of hard work and listening to me prattle on and on. Last week of the year now so let’s enjoy it and make everyone proud on Sunday. It is going to be a tough game, Everton have beaten us twice in a row so we go into the game as underdogs, and that is not a bad thing. I can’t wait for Sunday, bring it on.
Final scores Springwood 12-6-78 defeated Ipswich 2-11-23
Not going to list best players and goal kickers, we know who they were, let’s just say it was a great team effort where everyone contributed and the team as a whole did everything the coach asked of them. Well done boys, see you all tonight.
Cheers
Steve
Last Modified on 03/09/2012 13:12