Week 2 of grading got under way under bright blue skies nice and early on Sunday at Sherwood against the combined Calamvale/Sherwood team. What we wanted to get out of this game was simply more improvement on our solid efforts on the previous week against Redcliffe. Maybe we got a bit ahead of ourselves given our result last week, and that of Sherwood/Calamvale who went down to Aspley by 100 points, because what we dished up for a fair bit of the game was pretty disappointing.
We went into the game without our Vice Captain Rhys Bernhagen and injured duo Dylan Keggan and Omar Alahwala but welcomed back for their first games for the year Lachy Willaton, Liam Walsh and Mitch Osland. Otherwise we were pretty similar in personnel to what we were last week so really no excuses on that front. Brighton Page led us out as recognition for his 100th game for the Pumas, congratulations Brighto!!, and we were kicking with the aid of a very slight breeze first up. Skipper Matty Leadbeater started in the unfamiliar role of fullback, a move designed to help him acquaint himself of the role for his Bushies games coming up over the next 2 weeks. Straight away it looked as though we hadn’t turned up to play as the opposition were first for the footy and working harder than us. Our defence was immediately under the pump. Whether we believed the results from last week would automatically guarantee us a win this week I’m not sure but it was as good an explanation as any. We got 2 goals back midway through the term and it looked like we were starting to get into the game but unfortunately they lifted again and took a 2 goal break into quarter time.
Matty had had enough of his full back trial and moved back into the middle in an effort to try to win us some footy out of there and around the ground. Unfortunately it didn’t seem to help as we were absolutely smashed in every department in this quarter. They were simply more willing to work hard than we were, yes we were lazy, and the results showed. 4 or 5 of their 6 goals for the quarter were from players running unopposed and unmarked into their forward 50 where they took uncontested marks and had easy shots on goal. Our blokes were guilty of spectating and not playing accountable footy. It was probably one of the worst quarters of footy I have been involved with, after the good work of last week it was certainly very disappointing.
At half time we decided basically to just start again. We turned the single game of 80 minutes into 2 of 40 minutes each and we had lost the first one badly. We made a few positional moves and simply reiterated what we needed to do to be more competitive in the second game. To the boys credit I thought they did play better in the second 40 minutes (we didn’t lose by as much!) and although there were still some players second to the ball and not willing to work hard enough overall we did play some better team football in this period. Our tackling was pretty good, reasonable numbers, which showed we were willing to do the hard work when the ball was in our area but we were still letting the opposition run unopposed, showing that we weren’t willing to work hard enough when the ball wasn’t in our immediate area. Footy isn’t just about the bloke who has the ball in his hands but about what the other 35 players on the ground are doing and how hard they are working to either keep possession or win possession back. A lot of our players don’t understand this yet and so we have to work on this at training over the remainder of the season. I think we started to use the ball a bit better in the second half too and also the talk and enthusiasm seemed to lift a bit.
Free kicks killed us all day too, our statistician, who shall remain nameless, “forgot” to track them but it was easily 2 to 1 against us. Unfortunately I have to say the umpires got it pretty right, when you are second to the ball and tackling haphazardly this is going to happen and we need to clean this up in future games. It’s just timing and concentration (and probably a bit of experience too)We cannot afford to give easy possessions away to the opposition and give them opportunities to score, it’s a hard enough game as it is without making it that much harder on ourselves. Some dumb footy too, stuff that we have worked on at training, was also disappointing, ie numbers at the contest, poor decision making etc etc so improvement needed there too.
So all in all not a great day after such a promising first week and after such high standard training sessions over the last month. The good news is that is early season and that means we know early how bad we can be if we aren’t switched on and if we turn up to games unprepared for hard work. It was a harsh but very important football lesson to a lot of us, especially those boys who are just now learning the game. We now know a lot more about our group and who is capable of doing what and who isn’t. There is enormous scope for improvement and that is a good thing, I suppose no team wants to be peaking in April! As it was a grading game there were no points on offer so nothing really lost except for maybe a bit of pride. We can fix that this week against Morningside and we can put up a better showing. Boys, as I said the result is secondary, what is most important is how we go about the game and how many of our 5 boxes we tick every game. Game one we ticked them all, game 2 we ticked 1 and that isn’t good enough. If we win or lose and have ticked all the boxes then all is good, that’s footy, if we win or lose and don’t tick them all then we have to redeem ourselves the following week.
We have to part ways with Jared and Matt now for a couple of weeks of rep duty so all the best to you 2 boys and do the Pumas proud, I know you will. This means that over the next couple of weeks others are going to have to step up and try to cover the loss of these two boys, it won’t be easy but remember if we tick all our boxes we are going to give Morningside a great game of footy.
Final scores Sherwood/Calamvale 17-7-109 def Springwood 6-8-44
Goalkickers: Jared Denny 3, Brandon Lynch 2 Jack Leahy 1
Best players: Jared Denny, Ryan Davies, Brighton Page, Matt Leadbeater, Jack Taylor, Caleb Kennedy.
Last Modified on 25/04/2013 18:51