Match Report

Opposition: Easts(2)

Date: 01-Jun-2004

Time: 7:00pm

An early game! Early games cause a little problem as Steve cannot make it to them and we are already down on numbers. No difference tonight from most other Tuesdays – we started with 9 of our own players, one player who is interested in playing (thanks Perry) and in the second half Van joined our ranks for the last 20 minutes (thanks blokes). We ran onto the field with 10 and only one fullback.

1st half.

A good steady start saw us press into attack down the right side time after time with Wayne, Neil, Colin and Greg putting together some good moves. Meanwhile I was busy undermining the good work by missing opportunities - not the only one though. Several good opportunities went astray.

They were whacking the ball up the left side from their 16's and on a few ocassions this caused us a little bother as we were one short back there and Neil often had to scamble back to help as Ray held them up. Worked most of the time.

With us attacking most of the time it was a surprise to go behind by a goal, the first time this year we've had to dig deep to get back into a game – well, not too deep as we were in control most of the time. They used their centre half a great deal but Wayne kept this closed down and turnovers were frequent in this area.

For a bloke that was feeling quite sick Neil did an enormous amount of running as he was overlapping out on the right flank from Half and then having to quickly retire to cut off their huge whacks up that side, often the ball touched a stick and flew overhead and out – most of the time it was off our sticks. We failed to counteract this for the most part, late in the second half we dropped back a bit forming an inverted V so he had to continue to go for the big whacks but giving our inside a chance to trap it.

Greg put a couple of penalty corners high into the net and their runners began to come out a little more slowly - something we were hoping to capitalise on later in the second half.

Half time score 0–1

No panic at the break, just some words from Wayne as it continued to look as though we were in control and a win was inevitable. Not so as it turned out.

2^nd Half

We started to attack up the edges and some good balls went straight between us on the left hand side of the circle as Greg was ranging in with his crosses. We got a penalty corner about 10 minutes into the half and Greg equalised when he finally kept a ball on the ground.

We carried on attacking and pinned them into their half most of the time but we were working hard and the lack of subs was beginning to tell. During this stage after I had used my feet accidently a couple of times and was allowed to play on I mentioned to the oppostion half that "all this trapping was making my feet hurt" – a wry smile was all I got for my effort.

Our Rockhampton right winger scored off a great cross from Greg and we went ahead 2–1. Finally in the lead but not for long - they managed to snag another long ball while we were a little short and they scored a great goal. Within two minutes of going into the lead it was 2 each and this is the way it finished.

Well, we did pick up the pace from last week and the game was played in good spirit and with a good level of skill on the most part. Moses failed to part the waters with his attempt going wide and Wayne and I missed a few opportunites with both of us missing the same one from a corner. We all enjoyed it, perhaps a draw wasn't a good indication as I thought we could've won it – but if you miss the chances we had then you can sometimes lose, so perhaps the draw is okay. Next week we have SWU and we'll be down Darryl, Wayne and Steve.

Final Score 2–2.

Scorers: Blanchard,Hammett

Cards: None

Injuries: No new ones – same old, same old.