Match Report
Opposition: Bulimba (2)
Date: 11-May-2004
Time: 9:20pm
Managed to muster up a whole 8 of us for this game. Gary is out for the rest of the year, Greg had the flu and will be away next week with a golf related illness (over indulgence), Andrea is still doing his crocheting classes (just joking - we miss you Andrew), Darryl was in Sydney persuing wine (perhaps) and Ian was absent. We asked two players to help us out, Kev Luck from Commercial and Wes Boldery from Easts. Many thanks to these two.
1st half.
Bulimba usually leave a couple of forwards high and try to get the ball to them (we may have noticed these tactics before - good nut!). Nothing was much different in this game. We started with the ball and immediately went on the attack and basically spent the rest of the half trying to penetrate their umbrella defence in their 25. With Neil now playing as right-half we have a good attack up that side (Neil is relishing the freedom from marking oppositions right wings). Neils balls (read crosses) into the circle were crisp and accurate and this lead to our first goal from a deflection high into the net from Wes - well done Wes, was an excellent goal. (Wes continued to try to perfect this shot during the game but the first was the best - it went in!).
Wayne, working with Steve and Moses kept a steady flow of good balls into the strikers where we contined to squander it a wee bit - but practice makes perfect. (and we've only been playing for about 40 years now). A second goal was scored during this half from another good pass and several opportunities were missed - all in all though the passing and general play were excellent and their defence swarming. Their goal keeper, the QLD 40s, kept goal really well and it was difficult to convert. We went into the break at 2 goals up.
Half time score 2–0
2nd Half
Usually at the break we would change positions around but as we already had the team arrayed in the most injured to least injured order there was no way we could get Ray to come into the forwards - he was sitting on his injury (so to speak) and wasn't going to budge. Ray did manage to hold up all 5 of their forwards at one stage until we could muster some defence. Rickey in the goal got a little cold during this game as I think he didn't have to make any saves - didn't stop him talking though! He keeps the defence on their task.
Steve played well during this game and probably took on one to may players a
few times but you would expect this of an inside! (hehe). Two more goals were
scored in this half, one by Steve and one by me. The best goal was the first half effort by Wes though. I encourged Kev to play as centre-forward towards the
end of the game and a couple of times we had good linking between Easts and
Commercial but this link didn't produce a goal - came close though. Moses failed to part the waters in this game but he chimed into attacking play well and some passing movements were excellent - we're still not playing the long back ball much but there wasn't much need for it in this game. Not much we did, short of turning it over, could extract defenders from their 25.
Overall our passing and positional play was much better than it has been. We
kept our width and depth and came back looking for the ball. Bulimba wasn't
disgraced, they defended well but their strikers were almost absent - they
lacked attack options and often ran the ball when they should have actually
gone for the long hit to 'chooka'. We were pretty well marked and it was only the
continual moving around of the ball that broke up their defence.
Final Score 4–0.
Scorers: Higgins(2), Boldery, Sawyers
Cards: None
Injuries: Can't afford any more!