"Moving Through the Gears" from ‘The Outer Eye’
Norwood travelled to Knox Gardens Reserve for Rd 9 action on a classical dreary, drizzly Melbourne winters day. It is ground where we’ve had plenty of success, though much of it hard earned, in the past. The game was a must win for our club, looking to move away from the battle for relegation - which, statistically if not emotionally, we were in. We were also looking to move through the gears in terms of our form and confidence by picking up our 2nd win on the trot. Winning form is good form, or so they say. The game itself proved to be just what players coaches and supporters were looking for. It was never in doubt, we set it up with a 5 goal to 1 first quarter and eventually cruised home to an impressive 43 point win.
Kicking with the aid of a 1-2 goal breeze, we started identically to last week with a very early goal to Leroy to settle the teams nerves. Leroy was up and about early, certainly the difference in the first quarter, as he marked imperiously in the square from a well weighted Kreuzzer kick to register his 2nd. He should have been paid a mark soon after, but it mattered little as the ball spilled to Kreuzzer who passed to Bater for the goal, then Leroy added his 3rd, his kicking boots certainly appearing to be on. When the ball spilled to the Lumberjack alone at the 40m mark he calmly turned and drilled it and was promptly beset upon by his teammates. At quarter time we led 5.2 - 1.0
The 2nd quarter into the breeze would give us a more accurate picture of how well we’d played in the 1st quarter, but it was soon apparent that we had the measure of Knox. Kreuzzer got himself on the board with the first goal after a free, and despite a reply from Knox we continued to hold sway. Stewart squeaked through a goal from close range and Kreuzzer had a golden chance to add another but missed, and as often happens, you pay full price as Knox swept it down the other end for their 3rd goal. We then wasted a couple of chances which left the 2nd term evenly balanced. We led 7.4 - 3.2 at Half Time.
We started the 3rd quarter as we had the others, with an early goal, this one a classy running effort from Harro. Alex Calder, playing a prominent game, took advantage of a very poor Knox kickout, marked and sent it back over the goal umpires hat for our 9th to extend the lead to 38 points. We were in full flight now, some of our best play of the day saw Ceppi from the back pocket find Leroy high up the ground, he centred to a running Harro who found Kreuzzer deep. BANG. This was followed by another to Writta and the margin was out to 53 points. Late in the quarter Leroy marked and passed unselfishly to Hudson in the goal square for what looked a certain goal but he dropped the easy one and again we paid full price, the ball going coast to coast for Knox’s 4th goal - their only score for the quarter.. At 3/4T we led 11.8 - 4.2. Coach Denis Knight urged the players to find something in the last quarter, aware of other results around us and of the need to pick up as much percentage as possible. The trend of us kicking the first goal of the quarter continued into the last quarter, Leroy with a clever dribble kick for our 12th goal, his 4th in a strong performance up forward. It was to prove our last however, Knox picking up two late consolation goals as both teams tired in the wet heavy going.
Final score read: 12.11 .83 - 6.4.40 (Leroy 4, Kreuzzer 2, Harro, Wrighty, Bater, Ace, Lumberjack and Stewart 1)
Our best player again was Stuey Hill at CHB, continuing his stellar form with yet another brilliant display. Leroy was the dominant forward on the ground and set the game up early, his 4 goals as noteworthy as several unselfish team acts which helped the cause. Michael Pearson, Gouldy, Blake Charles and Fingers were among a large number of good players during the day. The win is very important to the club, it allows us to cast our gaze upwards towards a very even battle for spots in the top5 rather than downwards where we do not belong. Ironically, despite the win, we drop to 10th by a hairsbreadth on percentage from Nth Ringwood, but we are two games and massive percentage ahead of Knox in 12th, and have significantly superior % to both East Ringwood and Montrose, who we trail by just a game. Doncaster holds down 5th spot, only 2 games above of us now. Next week is a massive game against one of those half dozen sides vying for a finals spot - Blackburn. We haven’t played them at home for a while, lets hope we make this trip a miserable one for them. In other very good news, we completed our 2nd Wooders Day in a row with the Development squad and U19s both saluting.
Last Modified on 14/06/2016 11:58