After a strong start to the season, we were staring into the eyes of 3 straight losses as we prepared for Monash.  Having beaten the top side Mazenod, we knew Monash were going to be a tough task and it is fair to say our confidence had been shot last week.  So knowing this, we bought in some big guns from the seniors at Thursday night’s training to rev up the lads.  In what has become a Thursday night tradition, a handful of boys from the ones run through a few drills with us and give a bit of feedback at the same time.  To say it gives us a lift is an understatement.

So pre-game we knew we could win, but knew that only our best could cut it.  We had picked our strongest side and rallied the troops in front of a building Straddy crowd.  Our warm up was a bit slow to begin but by the time we got to the pre game speech you could sense the atmosphere had lifted – our time was now and we were ready to show the league.

So with our Ball & Darvell inspired midfield structures, it was inevitable that we would win the first clearance and that we did.  The ball did not leave our 50 for the first 5 minutes and we were all over the blues, Matty Vlahos rewarded those who had taken the 1.05’s for him to kick the first goal and snapped truly from 25 out.  But despite dominating the play and doing everything we had asked for, we were wasteful in front of goals and kicked 3-7 which was juxtaposed to Monash who kicked 2 straight from their only 2 entries inside 50.

Nevertheless, we were thrilled with our endeavour and let the lads know that the results would come if we kept up the intensity.  So persist they did and although we continued to be wasteful, we piled on 6 goals to nothing and basically buried the game.  At half time we were still worried that with a few early goals, Monash could be back with a sniff, so we worked hard to keep up the intensity and continue our momentum into the second half.  We knew Monash were a good side, but they literally had not got their hands on the ball.

So with 2 options, to rest on our laurels or to kill, we took the latter.  A 7 goal quarter blew them away and sent a stern message to the rest of the league.  As coaches, our day was made very easy and we were lost for words at the breaks because we had nothing that needed to be said.  Though we dropped off in the last quarter slightly, we had beaten a top side by 90 odd points and done everything we knew we were capable of.  We did not have one weak link and know that we still have 2 or 3 blokes still to come back in.  With the ladder leaders in Mazenod next week, we have the opportunity to keep up the endeavour and firm for premiership favouritism.