After last Saturday’s game we knew as a group what a big week we had ahead of us.  OGGS away was always going to be tough, as we considered them to be a genuine top 4 contender.  We had a big week on the track, on Tuesday night the boys led the session and Thursday night we were privileged to have Dish & Mercs join in and lift the standard.

With more or less a full side to pick from, we had a strong line up and fancied our chances in our first real test.  With the open spaces of Como Park, we had plenty of depth on the bench and backed our boys to run over the top of OGGS.  As the first quarter commenced, the immediate signs were worrying.  OGGS were all over us and we looked to be struggling, luckily poor kicking kept us in the game.  The big ground was hurting us, with our players getting sucked to the ball and failing to hold their positions, similarly our backs were paying nowhere near enough respect and got beaten convincingly.

At quarter time we were lucky to still be in the game, but nevertheless we felt that we had far more to give.  It was a very disappointing huddle, as we felt all the weeks hard work had gone out the door.  So we urged the lads to take risks and do all the things we keep talking about.  Whether it was the coaches talk or not I don’t know, but our second quarter was brilliant, the best footy we had played all year.  Not only did we bridge the gap but we kicked clearly going into the second half.  We linked up wonderfully, were harder at the ball and executed our skills to perfection.

At half time, we were confident we could run away with the game.  Unfortunately, our second half was terrible.  We seemed to leave all our vigour in the rooms and resorted back to our old habits of lazy kicks, loose marking, lack of talk and hardness at the footy.  At 3 quarter time, the game was more or less over, but thankfully we came out with a quick burst in the last quarter.  10 minutes in we were back within 8 points and looked like pinching the game, but unfortunately our 10 minute run was not sustained and we simply took our foot off the pedal.

It was an extremely disappointing post match, simply because we felt that the game was ours to win and we beat ourselves.  I feel that the lads don’t have the belief in themselves that is required for us to win a premiership.  I know that our best can get there, but unfortunately we crawled into our shells when the blowtorch was turned on.  Hopefully we can take something out of the game, knowing that in only a quarter or so of footy we still managed to lose by only a few goals to a genuine contender.

Best players were Jack Curtis who responded well to a shocker last week, Ralphy who had his best game for the year and continually put his body on the line, Dents who was a rock across half back & Donnellan who again bagged 6.