With seemingly not much of a task ahead against MHSOB for the 2nd week running, it was a little bit difficult to evoke much excitement going into the game. Nevertheless, we drilled the message into the lads that we must not underestimate the opposition and that we must continue to develop our own game as we look to take on the big players in the league in the coming few weeks.
Again we had some issues at the selection table, with injuries ruling out a couple of our best players and the ones still sucking away our depth through some injuries of their own. We did our best to not dwell on this and again used it as an opportunity to get some game time into some underdone players. After a ‘half disappointing’ 92 point win the week before, we put it on the boys to not have the same sluggish start and to play out a full 4 quarters.
Unfortunately, it was a reasonably lacklustre first half again and whilst we could see the endeavour was there our skills under pressure were letting us down severely. What was also disappointing was that after one of the great pre game speeches the week before from David John Prowse which focused on goal accuracy, our ‘behinds’ tally was almost too high to fit on the scoreboard. So again, a meagre half time lead could have been a thumping had we kicked straighter.
Though we were a tad flat at the fact that again we had to deliver the same message as one week prior, it wasn’t all bad and we had some good contributors across the board. Dils was reliable as always on the wing and Hess was best on ground before getting a bit hot under the collar and telling the ump where to go, which earned him an extended half time breather. Another bloke who unexpectingly popped up in his first game for 2010 was Macca who was a rock in the back pocket.
Whilst our second half was by no means phenomenal, we certainly lifted and continued to chip away. Our lead was safe enough for the coaching staff to try a few moves for later in the season. These included the twin towers of Smith & Lilley, who were told not to step an inch outside the goal square as well as the one man forward line which we told Dents to make his own. Following some success with the twin towers, we threw Lob in the ruck and asked Lilley to have a ‘2 minute’ spell as his backup. With a limited pre season under his belt, we told Lilley to drag himself once he had ‘stopped’ but after 10 minutes he was still firing and we had to bring him off ourselves.
In the end we recorded a comfortable win over a side that lacked a lot of depth and talent. We learned a lot about players that we hadn’t previously factored into our plans but who are now pushing for regular selection. In a new initiative proposed by our skipper, we handed out a 6 pack to the 4 blokes deemed by the coaches as the best on ground. These undisputedly went to Dils, Hess, Meehan & Dents – others that deserved a beer were Pane, Holland, Smith, Lilley, Macca and McLure in his first game back.
We look forward to next week against Beauy and hope to improve on our efforts.