After a couple of weeks away it was great to be back at the footy for a Friday night clash with Coorparoo at Coorparoo. It was an important game in that we needed to bounce back strongly after a slight hiccup last week against the in-form Redcliffe Tigers. Coorparoo still had an outside chance of making the finals, they had won some good games during the year and they gave us a good contest last time we played so we weren’t taking them lightly at all.
Speaking of the last 2 weeks no match reports as I was away but from the snippets I picked up the highlights included 16 goals between Jack and Lachy against Park Ridge and the lowlight no doubt the broken collarbone against Redcliffe to the same Jack who kicked 10 the week before. That will be a big blow for us as he has been a great target up forward for us all year. A great opportunity though for someone to stand up and take his place.
A further blow during the week with Mitch badly rolling his ankle at training that could see him sidelined for the rest of the year but we were still able to put what we believed to be a pretty competitive group together for the clash with Coorparoo. The focus pre game was to play finals intensity footy, in preparation for the first of our final against Alex Hills next week. Okay so it’s not technically a final but if they beat Beenleigh tomorrow we will be playing off for 1 of the top 2 spots, which are absolutely crucial if we are to try to gain a Grand Final berth.
With a new full forward set up and on ball partnership we also needed this game to get some familiarity in those roles for the new boys. A great night for footy weather wise and the boys were really pumped for a big performance, the warm up was probably our best for the year, full of intensity and enthusiasm.
Just prior to the game starting we were informed that Coorparoo had 4 blokes pull out late sick, leaving them with just 16. I hate playing with just 16, it is such a disadvantage to the team with 22 as it means 6 on the bench and more blokes getting less game time. That is particularly frustrating when we were trying to give some boys who missed last week a good opportunity to press for finals selection. But hold on, here comes the umpire to tell me that we are allowed to play 18! Yep, apparently at some meeting that he was in it was agreed that this close to finals teams shouldn’t be disadvantaged and whilst I was sceptical we did just that, lining up with 18 against 16. Maybe not ethically correct but too much at stake this time of the year to be Mr Nice Guy.
With 2 spare men in defence it was always going to be difficult for Coorparoo to score and whilst they did manage the one scoring shot, for a good goal on the run, we were able to defend them pretty well, all the while kicking 4 ourselves to get off to a great start. In the meantime the Coorparoo officials, quite rightly probably, weren’t happy with the 18 v 16 and made a call to AFLBJ headquarters for clarification. At the huddle the umpire came over and informed our skipper Matty that we had to revert back to 16 v 16. Oh well we got a quarter advantage and it helped us get off to a great start.
The 16 v 16 helped open the game up a bit more and thankfully it didn’t seem to have too much impact on the game and we were still able to play some good footy and be pretty dominant around the ground. The foot skills of the young Coorparoo side were probably a bit better than ours and they were good runners but as the ball started to get a little slippery with the evening dew starting to settle in our bigger bodies were able to win most of the contests. We went in at the main break with a handy 34 point lead and pretty happy with our first half endeavours.
The 3rd quarter saw us open up a 10 goal lead due to some good work all over the ground. The highlight of the quarter for me was the work of Caleb who was on fire for the quarter picking up a heap of possessions and using the ball as well as anyone had done all night, well done Caleb. Unfortunately for Coorparoo they started to get some casualties and were down to just 15 and 1 or 2 hobbling by the last change.
The game was pretty much over by this stage and the last quarter saw us increase our lead to 80 points when with about 1 minute to go Coorparoo lost another player, bringing them down to 13, and by the laws of the game the umpires had no choice but to call an end to proceedings. It was a gutsy effort by the Coorparoo boys and I take my hat off to them for the way they toughed it out and kept at it right to the end, even though they were well outnumbered and outsized.
As for us I was really happy with the result and how we went about it, everything we spoke about pre game we worked really hard at and I was really pleased that we got contributions from everyone around the ground, that will make selection for the Alex Hills game difficult, and that is a good thing.
Well done boys, great effort, see you all at training Monday.
Final scores Springwood 16-10-106 def Coorparoo 4-2-26
Best players: Jared, Matt, Caleb, Jayden Ruscoe, Rhys, Liam Eddy, Lachy and many, many more boys made solid contributions.
Goal kickers: Jared 4, Matt 4, Ryan 3, Lachy 2, Jayden Ruscoe 1, Jake 1, Brandon 1
Finally just a huge thank you to Damien Eddy for stepping in and coaching over the last 2 weeks, considering he was also busy with the Under 18s as well that is an enormous effort and one that I appreciate hugely, thanks very much mate for all your help. Thanks again, as always, to all our helpers on the night and over the last 2 weeks as well, well done all.
Last Modified on 03/08/2013 19:47