Round 11 Match Review

Senior Men's Match Report

Fitzroy: 11.13.79

Old Haileybury: 19.9.123

The history associated with the Brunswick Street Oval has been a distraction in the past and we often haven’t played our best football. But Saturday with different with the boys were focused from the start and clearly determined to play a decent brand.

 We welcomed Max Sinclair and Sam Hall- Kahan in for their first senior games. They settled in well, and with the recent blooding of new players, the depth of the club is continuing to improve. Like most seasons, and many clubs, this is the time of year that injuries can become an issue, but we have been able to cope.

Our ball movement was slick, and the backline held up all day. Fitzroy had only scored four goals for the first three quarters and as a result we held a commanding 73 point lead. But the hosts to their credit stuck together well and managed to kick seven goals to our two in the last quarter. In some ways it was a disappointing last stanza, especially when we were so dominant for the first three quarters.

Jackson Ross finished with five big ones, while Josh Gasparini, knocked up getting possessions and was clearly our best player on the day. Brodie Steele continued his good form while the ruck combination of Bell and Treverton is working well.

Next week we host De La which is second vs third so a real test. Supporters are welcome back so the throng is expected to return for the afternoon tea and a bit of footy.

Senior Women's Match Report

BYE

Men's Reserves Match Report

Fitzroy: 21.21.147

Old Haileybury: 4.3.27

Always going to be a hard game for the boys playing Fitzroy but we offer no excuses other than we were not able to stick with them in the second half on the scoreboard despite a mighty effort from the boys in the first half.  The difference between the two sides was probably exacerbated by the fact we started with 19 players after Pete Gleadhill strained his calf in the warm up and Budge did his hammy early in the second quarter which left us with the bare minimum 18 for nearly three quarters.  That being said……

The game started with Fitzroy kicking the first  goal from a couple of mistakes but the boys fought back and kicked the next, we were competing around the clearances and around the ground that we were able to compete in  key one-on-ones over the ground.  .  As a group we committed to be being more accountable and defending better across the ground and we did it well for 20 of 25 mins, they had a fairly strong breeze behind them up until the 15 minute mark it was one goal a piece, a couple of skills errors cost us two goals close to half time.  I thought the boys as a collective really gave all they could to defend much bigger bodies which is a common theme, so for them to hand back the progress they had made was disappointing for them but it was not a lack of effort that did it.

The third quarter we begun to tire and get ground down, our intensity in the contest dropped away despite a long bomb from Disco into the square the a Jarrod Mantell goal at the start of the quarter but by mid quarter, the second efforts and third efforts that were there in quarter two which kept us in it began to decline and opportunity to score did as well, Owen Gorozides, kicked his 2nd of the game and our fourth of the game, it was great to see Owen coming into his own this year, he has shown himself to be a really versatile player.  Jack Grenda had marked everything that came near him and without him the scoreline would have been far worse.  Jordy Hurley was great all day and Ben Schauder and Matty Charlesworth gave us everything all day but as they went further ahead their backline ran off even more and our forwards, in coming up with them to be accountable lost structure so we often kicked into a forward line with no forwards in it. 

The final quarter started with us trailing by about 80 points, similar to last week against Bedes.   We certainly did not quit but as with most very young and inexperienced sides, it’s fair to say we did get ground down over the quarter.  We only started with one on the bench at the start of the game and that limited our options a bit, a huge shout out to the boys who finished the game with no ability to have a break against a side that was bigger, stronger, fitter and that had 22 players they could rotate.  Scotty Ellis and Cooper Nolan stepped up in the last.   These are not excuses, but simply the facts and the fact is every club has injuries and unavailability, we have to learn to cope better and build better depth to cover it.

It’s becoming a common theme but like most developing sides we compete and hang in there for chunks of games but when we drop-off the consequences are really severe for us.   We really need to work out just how we can compete with what we have.  We can go down the track of worrying about things we can’t control like how big and strong the opposition is or we can get on with the business of finding a way to deal with it. 

This group of boys are developing and to their credit, despite any result, turn up to train and play every week and are working on it, we will hopefully get some players back this week and I know the boys will want to bounce back against De La.  Young players like Alex Van Well, James Curtis and Lorenzo, Zac Plaf get better every week.

We had a few first gamers with us for this year

• Jordan Nolan
• Disco Seccull (not so new)
• Jarrod Mantell

A win is not far away – Hang in there!

Under 19's Match Report

St Kevins: 6.5.41

Old Haileybury: 14.8.92