Men Rd 7 – Point Cook | Women Rd 4 – Fitzroy

WOMEN | RESERVES | SENIORS

Women

Goal Kickers: Y. Hall, R. Azzopardi, M. Spillane, B. Kynaston, K. Bulluss
Best Players: M. Spillane, R. Azzopardi, L. Daw, A. Payne, P. Simon, Y. Hall

The once hallowed turf of Collingwood FC’s Victoria Park greeted our girls with a strong, swirling wind and sunny, blue skies on Saturday morning. A beautifully manicured, full-sized footy ground awaited us at this historic venue and once again we were lucky to have good conditions for footy (except for the pesky ever direction changing breeze).

The girls were quiet in the change rooms, a superstitious coach might tell you that’s a bad thing…they were also quiet during the warm up…no one said too much after the coaches addresses either…hopefully this was the calm before the storm…hopefully?!?!?!

During the week we’d worked on our tackling, accurate disposal, peripheral vision and decision making, played heaps of ‘keepings off’ and kicked at goal a lot too. We’d also reiterated the need for linking up chains of possession and the need to look laterally but most of all we’d spoken about how our sloppy disposal had let us down so we knew we had to be better at that in order to be more competitive and win our first game. Despite the fact that Fitzroy hadn’t won a lot of games, we knew they had a little bit of momentum behind them after they’d come off a 52 point thumping of Bulleen-Templestowe the week before, so we knew we couldn’t afford to let them get off the leash early like we had let other teams do to us previously.

In line with the AFL’s Indigenous Round celebrations both teams observed the traditional Welcome to Country arm in arm around the centre circle, a wonderful mark of respect and humility shown by all players participating on Saturday. Formalities over, the siren blew for to signal the start of the game and the girls ‘flicked the switch’ so to speak, 45 seconds in to the match we had our first goal! A brilliant clearance from a centre square stoppage resulted in an easy goal as the Fitzroy defence was caught napping. Some superb rebounding out of our defensive 50 repelled the ball away from Fitzroy’s forwards in the first 5 minutes of the first quarter as our backline once again held firm. They saw that fortune favours the brave and in one of those rebounding runs out of defensive 50, Tara Hall was cut down in a tackle trying to take on 2 tacklers during a dash through the corridor…the fortunate part? The umpire was a doctor who helped her put it back in whilst she was on the ground! From there, something must have clicked because the girls came in at ¼ time 3.2 to 0.0, our best 1^st quarter yet. A combination of brilliant running, great link up play, holding marks, taking the time to assess all options and nailing our kicks gave us the advantage at the first break.

With the energy and adrenaline levels up for the second quarter, we expected that Fitzroy would also come out firing. They upped their physicality but we just ran harder to up ours. Our girls were just too fit and too quick for them, once again the likes of Lauren Daw, Rita Azzopardi and Mary Spillane were too much for the opposition to handle and in close, Pippa Simon was sharking Evie Hall and Eshana Singh’s taps to feed out to Ange Payne at every possible opportunity. We only generated another 2 scoring shots, 1.2 in the second quarter, but almost just as importantly, we still held them scoreless.

Our half time focus was pressure, pressure, don’t take your foot off their throats (in the nicest possible way), composure, pressure, and a bit of praise too! The girls were really excited at the prospect of their first win and we really tried to just keep them focussed and level headed so that they didn’t take their eyes off their prize so to speak, a hard thing to do when they’re so pumped!

The second half could go either way but we’d have to play it out and try to control the ball as much as possible. Once again Fitzroy played some hard, aggressive footy and our girls ran them around, making use of the corridor and forcing the play to the wings. Thankfully our girls know how to use the ball in tight spaces and their ability to transition along the boundary line from ‘coast to coast’ was excellent on a couple of occasions. The rock solid backline miserly and unrelenting under pressure being the catalyst for rebounding out of defensive 50 on multiple occasions again in the 3^rd quarter and also keeping Fitzroy to 1 rushed behind. Meanwhile down our end, we’d added another 1.1 by the time the ¾ time siren went.

Some tired and sore girls came in for the ¾ time address and all we could ask of them was 1 more quarter, 20 more minutes and just don’t lose your focus. Bring home the win.

The final quarter was slog, we were down to 3 on the bench after Ange Payne had a knee concern late in the 3^rd but she gallantly opted to be ‘rested’ at full forward to allow us a couple of rotations for the tired legs out on the field. It was a wrestle ‘til the very end, Fitzroy took it to us and looked like they were going to score a couple of times in the last quarter but some excellent intercept marking and great ‘professional’ stoppages by our backline held up play sufficiently in order to allow our defensive mids to run back and assist and work the ball out and block up holes inside Fitzroy’s forward 50. By the time the final whistle was blown there were some very tired and very elated girls almost out on their feet but finally they had that elusive W!

Congratulations to Beth Kynaston and Evie Hall on kicking their first goals and it also needs to be mentioned that 2 of our behinds only just hit the post.

Jade Shanahan – Assistant Coach, Senior Women.

Reserves

Goal Kickers: S. Woodward, T. Wooster, D. Hutchinson
Best Players: N. Stogdale, L. Venditti, S. Cross, R. Hawke, H. Betts, C. Reid

Round Seven against Point Cook down at the Snake Pit, we were looking forward to this game for a win as we were playing the bottom side and it was a great chance to get some confidence back going forward.

The first quarter our attack on the ball early on was good and our quick ball movement down to our forwards set up, gave us the first opportunity with Woody presenting and kicking our first goal. (Sportsbet odds 100-1 first goal kicker) We all cashed in. The first quarter against the wind we defended well until late in the quarter when Point Cook kicked two easy goals in the term, margin 11 points.

The second quarter with the breeze we were expecting to get back into the game.Point Cook was winning most centre-bounce clearances and with their desire and commitment for the football kicked five goals to our two. Our two goals were kicked by Wooster and Gashman. At times we move the ball well, which was for a short period only, but our efforts in D1 D2 pressure were virtually nonexistent, down by 31 points at halftime and our backs to the wall.

At half time we spoke about giving effort and playing to team structures to get back into the game, but any efforts were short lived and Point Cook took control and virtually run around as they liked kicking six goals to our zero against a breeze. The way we played in this quarter was like a team that had given up and were just going through the motions, which is very frustrating to watch.

The last quarter we had the breeze but Point Cook still managed to kick five goals and run out winners by 102 points. There were some players who tried their hearts out today for the club Cross, Vendetti, Betts, Stodgale, Stalys, Gashman, but as a whole, it was a very disappointing effort.

Playing football is not just measured on winning if you come off at the end of the game and you can honestly say you tried your best, then that’s all we ask of you.

So as you can see we a lot of work to do during the week and let’s look forward to giving 100% next week.

Cobbies lets all keep positive and work hard together and the results will soon come our way.

See you all at training during the week.

Go Cobras !!!

Uncle Den

Seniors

Goal Kickers: T. Lowden 5, R. Hummerston 4, R. Walmsley 2, S. Murphy 2, A. Wheeler, A. Hummerston, N. Szabo
Best Players: T. Lowden, J. Blakemore, J. Carrington, S. Murphy, R. Walmsley, S. Fitzgerald

Needing to bounce back from 2 losses on the trot and keep ourselves within reach of the top sides in Div3, we were all set for a must-win clash v the much improved Point Cook at home. With another fine Autumn day on show, the gods had smiled on us once more which was super, albeit with a gusty northerly breeze that swept from Guildford Rd straight towards the train line which would make things tricky by foot.

Unlike the previous week, we came out of the blocks well, with a focus on slick ball movement out of our D50 with plenty of switches, chain handballing and centering of the footy. Our reliable backline of Carrington, Wishart, Bold, Lloyde, Peely, Jimmy Wilson & McDonald were instigating some fine ball movement which got us out to a quick 17pt lead at the first change. Newly promoted Richy Hummerston really grabbed his chance early with some fine clunks and kicking for goal, and with Tommy Lowden doing the same we were in a good position at half-time to be 4 goals up with our mids of Blakemore, Wombat, Bucky, Gates & Wheeler driving the pill forward from Fridgey’s deft rucking skills and the backline doing a great job in particular the way that they linked up and moved the ball forward.

The start of the third saw us kick the first 2 goals to skip out to a 36pt lead, but things were to change quite quickly from there as the Point Cook Bulldogs (with their season on the line) increased their attack on the ball significantly as they started running rampant to close the gap to 16pts with 10mins left in the term remaining and held us goalless from the 5min mark of the quarter to ¾ time. We needed to refocus on winning the ball on the inside first, and to clean up our disposal efficiency (which had dropped back down to 52% from 64% in the first half) in order to stem the tide and then play the game on our terms again like we had earlier in the day. And to the lads credit that’s exactly what we did, as we got those 2 focus areas up and did enough to get the job done and close out the match 4 goal winners to make their coach proud and a complete a ripping day for all of the past players who turned out to see the modern day Cobras fight it out like Gladiators at the Colosseum circa 100AD.

With a massive clash v the undefeated UHS/VU this coming Saturday at home, it will be a great chance to bring our best to the table to see how it stacks up against the table-topping Vultures. If we can bring our best and play out 4 strong quarters of footy, we are in with a fighting chance of knocking these guys over and making a statement to the comp that we are not here to make up the numbers, we are here to win it!……

Train hard this week lads……let’s take these guys down……

Love Doaky……