Poor old Phil Oswald will need to join in rehab this week as he has a list of injuries coming off a busy goal umpiring effort last Saturday!  Big Phil covered more ground last weekend than half our on ballers and was partly due to his own son's misfortunes in front of the sticks!

Having said that, the Old Xavs reserves bounced back with a comprehensive victory against Marcellin having 45 scoring shots to 6.  Unfortunately on 16 of those went through the middle!

Most pleasing from Saturday's performance was the form of several players, in particular Liam Ginnivan, Huw Davies and Chris Santalucia.  The former produced his best game for the year and was pretty much everywhere all day.  The latter was back to his best sharking the ball from Nick Bye and reading it better than we've seen this season since last years finals series.  The first quarter was frustrating as we had countless opportunities going forward but could only kick 2 goals.  Tyson Lloyds pressure was fantastic as he chased down opponent after opponent and James Davies made a fantastic comeback after a month on the sidelines.

The second quarter was much better - we asked the boys to be patient and that they were.  Pasceri, Bye, Matt Skidmore and Ginnivan all produced goals with Matt Skidmore really starting to feel comfortable in his new position at half back.  Talk was up and so too were the boys, running from the back line and sharing the ball with each other.  The backmen stood up to a few Marcellin forward thrusts and James Ulbrick is slowly becoming an X factor, showing enormous prospects going forward.  Tim Agius again showed his zip cutting a swathe through the Eagles players and becoming more consistent as the weeks go on.  

Coming into the third quarter, it was time to start running harder and putting the pressure on the Eagles who gave us a run for our money at times throughout the game.  Pasceri was kicking straighter than the infamous frozen rope of years back and James Glen snuck forward to get on the score board. 

We put the challenge to the boys in the last quarter - in particular a target of 6 goals which was achieved, but also keeping up the game style that we need to enforce over the next few weeks up and about.  Dan Molan kept his average up with a goal in each match he's played, whilst Josh Evens also played a handy role up forward when given the opportunities.  Huw Davies is starting show glimpses of the form we know he possesses and James Morton was looking quite devastating at CHF.  Their dominance around the forward line was only matched by the little man John Pasceri who kicked 7 goals, most of them from the slightest of angles!

This week we come up against De La Salle at home who sit on top of the reserves ladder.  In fact, the top four teams are all on the same points only separated by percentage, so this week is our biggest test so far and a win is the only result we will accept.