2016 ROUND 17 V OLD BRIGHTON

Teams	1st Q.	2nd Q.	3rd Q.	4th Q.
Beaumaris	0.1:1	0.1:1	2.2:14	7.3:45
Old Brighton	5.1:31	9.7:61	11.10:76	14.11:95
Goalkickers : Joel Di Natale 2, Tim Cumming 1, Josh Ward 1, Damian Johns 1, Steven Scott 1, Drew Kelly 1.

No	Player	No	Player	No	Player	No	Player
2	Robert Cathcart	7	Tom Dean	8	Josh Ward	11	Scott Braithwaite
12	Scott Gower	13	Will Murton	14	Adam Schneider	18	Will Edmonds
19	Joel Di Natale	22	Steven Scott	23	Ben McLean	25	Daniel Gribbin
26	Michael Defontenay	27	Jack Grange	28	Jack Gabron-Uhe	29	Tim Cummings
32	Dylan Gabron-Uhe	33	Stephen Milne	41	Damian Johns	45	Drew Kelly
55	Will Gillespie	56	Nick Dickinson

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"I hate to lose more than I like to win."

Larry Bird (NBA legend).

We often hear 'a week is a long time in football', maybe that should really be two weeks instead of one. But generally the beautiful thing about football is, unless it's the last game of the season, you get to play the following week. Sometimes you just have to draw the line in the sand and say "that really wasn't us" and move on to the next game. But that still doesn't dismiss the angst arising from the game against Old Brighton when we were playing for the 'Rob Jakobi' Perpetual Cup. In 2005 Rob coached our Under 14s and was the runner for our Under 15s Premiership team the following year. He then went on to be Treasurer and President for several years at Old Brighton. Rob's son Ben played Under 13s, 14s and 15s at Beaumaris between 2004 and 2006 and he was back last Saturday playing with Old Brighton.

Old Brighton still did have a mathematical chance to make the finals if they defeated us and some of the other results went their way. Consequently, they started the game on a mission. Two minutes into the game one of their wingmen, Andrew Dewar (#9), another ex-Beaumaris Junior who played 93 games for the Sharks, started deep in our forward line and ran forward unopposed to score Old Brighton's first goal. Their second goal came 10 minutes later when a ball kicked towards our goal landed in the muddy cricket pitch, it was retrieved by Old Brighton and hurriedly kicked forward. Another hurried kick by Karayannis (#23) saw the ball bounce through an unguarded goal square and Old Brighton had their second. Two minutes later, after a boundary throw in in Old Brighton's forward pocket, our attempt to clear the ball was picked off by Old Brighton and a blind handball forward was gathered by Fisher (#6) and his quick snap at goal saw the ball land on the edge of the goal square then take a 'leg break' back through the goals. Five minutes later a marking infringement on our half forward line saw the ball reversed and Old Brighton again ventured forward. An unmarked Old Brighton player gathered the ball, kicked, retrieved his own kick, and then was almost caught holding the ball. The ball spilled out for King (#30) to gather and run into an open goal. Less than two minutes later Hill (#4) launched one from just outside the arc and Old Brighton had their fifth for the quarter. At this stage we had managed to score one solitary behind. Our kicking was below 50% effectiveness and there really wasn't any Beaumaris player having any effect on the game. We went to the first break trailing 5-1-31 to 0-0-1. But, if you are going to be down 30 points it's probably better to be there at the end of the first quarter.

Unfortunately things didn't get any better in the second stanza. Old Brighton only managed to score one goal in the first 9 minutes. Luckily they were rather wayward and added five behinds as well. In the first 16 minutes of the quarter we only managed to go inside our forward 50 on one occasion. It was unfamiliar territory for this Senior team and things only got worse. Old Brighton kicked another three goals for the quarter while we didn't trouble the scorer at all. As would be expected the backline was under considerable pressure. Dean was 'fighting the good fight' with 10 disposals for the quarter but we couldn't get our overall kicking effectiveness over the 50% mark. The trust that existed between the players in our earlier games didn't appear to be evident. We went to the half time break still trailing, but now by ten goals, 9-7-61 to 0-0-1.

Good teams fight it out and try to salvage the game. While the game wasn't over there needed to be a massive improvement in the third quarter if we were going to make any inroads on that 60 point deficit. Five minutes into the quarter and Johns forced a holding the ball decision in the pocket right in front the club rooms. On the wrong side for a right footer, he calmly went back and slotted through our first major for the game. There was an arm wrestle for the next 10 minutes and this was more how the game was meant to go. Unfortunately, Old Brighton managed to score the next two goals before Ward put through our second. This time we only lost the quarter by 2 points. Much better than the first half but at three quarter time we were still trailing 11-10-76 to 2-1-13.

The last quarter in games such as this one can be a little hard to judge. If the trailing team wins the quarter, did they finally get their act together? ... or ... Did the team that was dominating simply 'put the cue in the rack'? Either way, we did win the quarter and our overall kicking effectiveness for that last 30 minutes was around 87%. Di Natale, Scott, Cumming, Milne and Kelly all managed to score goals while Old Brighton managed 3 goals of their own. Several players also managed to get hold of the football. Ward had 15 disposals for the quarter, Cathcart had 12, Scott 10, Gribbin and Di Natale 9 each and Edmonds 8. Unfortunately it was all too late. The final score was Old Brighton 14-11-95 to 7-3-45.

In the end, nothing can be taken away from Old Brighton. They wanted the ball more and played for each other more than we did and they well deserved to hold the inaugural 'Rob Jakobi' cup. Our consolation is the big picture; we still have that chance to move to Premier A and that will mean the only way we'll challenging for that Cup again is, at a minimum, two years away.

Our season doesn't finish after this Saturday and we have a chance to get things back on track. You don't get to spend most of the season on top of the ladder if you can't play some good football. Hopefully the last two games are just a 'blip on the radar'. A lot will be revealed at this weeks' game against Ajax.

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

Go sharks.