We drew the short straw this week, with a long drive to play Peninsula away.  With D Prowse at the wheel, finding the ground was like riding a merry-go-round.  Funnily enough, this was only the start of the circus.  As we arrived at the ground, we found that it closely resembled a paddock with a few uneven lines drawn on to signal the boundary line, however we put this aside and moved toward are rooms which were locked until 20 minutes before the game.  So our preparation was quick and sloppy, but we managed to fire up slightly, however this was deflated as Neil the ump who was officiating his 3000th game came in to explain his non conventional style.

So as the game started, we hoped our loss last week was the loss we needed to have.  Unfortunately, we were flat yet again and it was one of the strangest quarters of footy I’ve seen, with close resemblance to an under 9s match.  At quarter time we urged for more, but didn’t really get it.  Without going into too much detail, by 3 quarter time we were down by 5 goals by what was really a pretty average team and our boys were still half asleep.  As coaches, we were again disappointed because we were beating ourselves and playing well below what we were capable of.

So going into the last quarter, we urged the lads to show some pride in the jumper and play the footy we knew we could play.  Finally the message got across, we were ferocious at the man and ball and linked up beautifully.  Roges played one of the best quarters of footy I have witnessed, Donnellan kept presenting and ended up with another bag of 6 and blokes like Ralphy, Torr, Boz and Arzy were playing out of their skin.  So after a few quick goals we were drawing nearer, but the clock was against us.  We drew within 1 point, but it was nothing but seconds and millimetres that got in our way with the siren blowing just as we were about to launch another attack on goal.

So with the league leaders in Monash coming to face our hungry men at Straddy this week, we anticipate one of the biggest leadups in under 19s history!  Although we have now gone 2 losses in a row, I know our best can match it with anyone and the boys have too much pride in the jumper to drop 3 games straight.