Our first Friday night game for the year and what a great night it was for footy, cool, no breeze and early on no dew on the ground, all was set for a good night’s footy. We welcomed back Matt and Jared from Bushies commitments (although Jared did play a cameo last week) and so went in with what was for us a pretty strong team. I didn’t know a lot about Alex Hills other than they had won their last 2 games convincingly so obviously they had players who knew what they were doing.
Pre-game was mainly focussed on the continuation of getting the basics and our game plan right so really it was just a matter of going over some key points and reinforcing what we did well last week, and underatanding the areas that we know if we do well we will be right in the contest. Ryan Davies lead us out in his 150th game and through a banner in recognition of that feat, congratulations Ryan that is a great effort to play all those games as a Puma and well deserved recognition. This is a boy who played almost 30 games of footy for the club in 2012 as he was always the first to put his hand up and help out our Division 4 team. A premiership medal, the Div 4 best and fairest and now 150 games is something to be very proud of, well done Ryan.
We started like a house on fire, everything clicked straight away. Alex Hils came out pretty hard but our ball movement around the ground was very good. Jared at centre half forward and Jack Leahy at full forward were proving a handful and Matt’s work around the ground was inspirational. Lachy was getting plenty of it and using it well as he always does and down back Jayden, Rhys and Brighton were well on top. 5 goals to none in the first quarter was as good a start as anyone could want and I was pretty pleased at the break.
The second quarter was no different, we kicked 6 goals to 1 to lead by 10 at half time and it was pretty much game over. We were winning the footy everywhere and really not giving our opponents too much easy ball and we had winners all over the ground. Our team work has really lifted over the last few weeks and was on show in the first half as well, yep everything was going beautifully. Every player was contributing something and once again the likes of Sean, Zach, Jack Rogers, Callum, Jake and Kurtis were continuing their rapid improvement and growth in confidence. Special mention here to Caleb as well as for the second week in a row was really owning his wing and setting up so many forward movements, great stuff Caleb.
The second half was a much more even contest due to, in my opinion, a number of factors. Number one, and full credit to Alex Hills, they came out and started to play a much more accountable brand of footy, we started to find it much more difficult to find loose targets. Secondly, the ball started to get a little slippery as the night dew started to take hold and this meant more stoppages and contested footy. Jared found himself banished from the game for arguing with the umpire, a good lesson there for Jared and I hope he learns from it, the umpire is always right no matter how wrong he is. Jared off the ground meant we lost a bit of direction going forward and whilst Brandon worked hard in his absence and did some good things we were missing his big marks and penetrating long kicks into our deep forward line.
Alex Hills were never really back in the game, we were always comfortable, but they certainly made a good contest out of it in the second half. We also took the opportunity to move some boys around a bit and this may have also played a small part in the not as dominant second half. All in all though I was very pleased with the result and very pleased with how we went about getting the result. Still lots of hard work to do and another tough game this week against Beenleigh at Beenleigh, really looking forward to that, they are a good side and I think it should be a ripper of a game. Well done everyone and once again thanks very much to all our helpers on the night, awesome job!
Final scores Springwood 14-5-89 def Alex Hills 5-5-35
Goalkickers: Jack Leahy 5, Jared 2, Lachy 2, Liam Eddy 1 , Sean 1, Jake 1, Matt 1, Brandon 1
Best players: really difficult as there were so many good contributors but I will give it a go – Matt, Jack Leahy, Jared, Caleb, Ryan, Jayden, Rhys, Jack Mackey, Brighton and Mitch. I could name the entire team easily so well done again everyone.
On Wednesday night a group of senior players coming down to work with us so really looking forward to that, it’s really helpful to hear from different people and especially current players who really understand the modern game. We will more than likely run through some drills as a team and then we might break off into forwards, mids and defenders and do some specific drills relevant to those groups. Please try to be there on Wednesday. See you all then,
Steve.
Last Modified on 12/05/2013 09:02