2016 ROUND 10 V MONASH BLUES

Teams	1st Q.	2nd Q.	3rd Q.	4th Q.
Beaumaris	0.0:0	1.3:9	2.8:20	3.12:30
Monash Blues	2.2:14	3.4:22	5.6:36	5.7:37
Goalkickers : Lachlan Boyd 2, Tom Dean 1.

No	Player	No	Player	No	Player	No	Player
1	Liam Hiscock	2	Robert Cathcart	7	Tom Dean	8	Josh Ward
11	Scott Braithwaite	12	Scott Gower	13	Will Murton	15	Lachlan Boyd
16	Sam McBain	18	Will Edmonds	19	Joel Di Natale	20	Callan Buckley
22	Luke Edmondson	23	Ben McLean	25	Daniel Gribbin	27	Jack Grange
29	Tim Cumming	35	Luke Globan	41	Damian Johns	48	Matthew Lovejoy
55	Will Gillespie	56	Nick Dickinson

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"Its not whether you get knocked down; it's whether you get up"

Vince Lombardi.

After 9 rounds without a loss here we are, our first defeat for the season. To paraphrase a quote from the late Rodney Dangerfield .... "I went to watch mud wrestling and a football match broke out." It certainly wasn't a day for clean skills (pardon the pun) ... or fast ball movement. The team that was going to adjust to the conditions was always going to have the ascendancy.

We had to go back a long way to find a game where we had 'donuts' for the first quarter. Round 4 of 2014 was bad, we only scored 1-8 for the game, but we still managed to kick a goal in the first quarter. This clearly wasn't a game where our kicking efficiency was going to be very high.

Murton (back after a 'three week holiday') was quickly into the action and he made a good start, along with Edmonds and Globan. They each had 5 disposals, however, effective disposals were the exception. Braithwaite also managed 5 disposals for the quarter, along with 2 marks, but he went against the early trend with 4 of those disposals being effective. Monash had more of the ball than we did and they were also handling the conditions better even though the stats didn't show that. We went to the first break trailing 2-2-14 to 0-0-0.

With three quarters to play there was still time for our guys to come to grips with the conditions and get back into the game. No player was racking up a high disposal count but more players were getting their hands on the muddy ball. It took 20 minutes for our first breakthrough. A boundary throw in around our half forward flank was the start of one of the best passages of play for the day. As the ball sailed past the two ruckman, Globan was able to gather the ball, and, instead of just throwing it on his boot, he fed the ball back to a running Edmonds who, with a deft left foot kick, found Ward just outside the 50 metre arc. Wasting no time, Ward pushed back hard and put the ball beautifully into a position for Dean to send Monash's Easson (#21) into one of the mud pools and take an excellent mark for the conditions about 30 metres out. As any good captain should, he strolled back and calmly sent the ball sailing through the goals at about goal post height. We were finally on the scoreboard. Unfortunately it would be our only goal for the quarter. Braithwaite again picked up 5 disposals for the quarter with 4 being effective. Johns was providing some run off half back and he had 4 effective disposals for the quarter to go along with his 3 effective in the first quarter. 7 disposals, all effective. Monash scored only one goal for the quarter and while we also kicked 3 behinds they only kicked 2. So, we won the quarter by a point. We went to the half time break still trailing 3-4-22 to 1-3-9.

Interestingly the free kick count at half time was 6 to 13 in favour of Monash. The free kick count doesn't have to be even, so the fact Monash had more free kicks can mean a lot of different things and is to some degree irrelevant. While the number doesn't really matter, it is where you get the free kicks that matters. It just happens that the three goals Monash kicked in the first half all came from free kicks (two from Ruck contests) and all three were within range of the goals. Some teams give away free kicks in parts of the ground that don't really hurt you and others give them in critical places. We unfortunately were the latter.

The third quarter didn't start well with Monash's McConville (#52) kicking the first goal of the quarter inside three minutes. This wasn't the result of a free kick. Fifteen minutes later Hickey (#8) kicked another and Monash were out to a 19 point lead. We were still winning the disposal count but couldn't put the score on the board. Braithwaite must love the muddy conditions and he picked up a further 10 disposals for the quarter. Murton and Dean were also getting a bit of the ball with 8 and 7 disposals respectively. Our only goal for the quarter came nearly 20 minutes into the quarter. Gillespie beat his opponent through one of the mud pits to fire out a handball to Johns. Johns well weighted kick found Ward in the middle of the ground and he played on and sent the ball wide to Di Natale on the wing. Another quick handball to Buckley. He was able to keep his feet in the muddy conditions and sidestepped a Monash player to put in a well placed ball for Boyd to mark. Boyd went back and kicked the goal. Hardiman (#29) for Monash was causing problems and he clearly loved the in tight contests caused by the conditions. We had our chances but we kicked one goal and five behinds for the quarter. Our goals had come from play where a player was prepared to feed the ball out by hand to a teammate who was running towards goal or was in a position to get a good kick away rather than just throwing it on the boot and hoping it went somewhere 'good'. Twice in the quarter we had gathered the ball while running away from our goal and instead of feeding it off to a teammate who was facing the goals and out in the open we opted to 'U' Turn and try to kick around the corner at goal. Result .... two behinds. We went to the final break still trailing 5-6-36 to 2-8-20.

While the deficit was only 16 points, considering the conditions, we would have to stop Monash from scoring anything and then kick nearly the same score which had taken us three quarters to get. Not necessarily impossible for this team. But, the quick goal we needed did not happen. It took just on 17 minutes before Boyd kicked his second for the game and what turned out to be our only goal for the quarter. The margin was now 9 points with 16 minutes still to play. While we did restrict Monash to a solitary behind we could only manage one goal four behinds for the quarter. We had our chances but just weren't able to capitalise on them. In the end we suffered our first defeat for the season with the final score 5-7-37 to 3-12-30.

This now sets up a top of the table clash next week with St Bedes with the winner taking top spot.

As always, don't you just love the footy.

Go sharks.