U9

We were back at our home ground this week against Mooroolbark who we played well against when we met them earlier in the season and after playing such a great game just before the long weekend had myself and the parents excited.

Lachlan H who has proven to be a great little recruiter for the team managed to coax another of his friends down to training on Friday so starting the match with the prospect of 17 players was something I looked forward to.

Due to the cold weather and rain during the week the ground was very wet and dew covered the grass making the ball a hard target to hold onto, we started slow and let Mooroolbark dictate terms in the first half, they were running in numbers and using the ball well making us look flat footed and slow.

I switched the side around at half time and put Blaize into the ruck - who after spending the first half on the bench with a blood nose which he got in a warm up drill - which proved to be a good move as he started to win the ball from the centre and our team started to get a bit more run into their game. We managed to score a lot more than what we had in the first half but unfortunately giving any team a three goal lead in wet conditions proved to be costly.

Even though we weren't the team that played before the break we still showed improvement - let's work on some quick run and handball drills at training boys and we will do better next week.

BJFC v The Basin

This week, the Under 11s were back at home against our local rivals The Basin. It was a close game earlier in the year, when we managed to get home by 2 points, so the boys knew they were in for a tough contest. Once again, we were lucky with the weather, as it was not raining and the ground was in good condition. Adam and Corey were playing their 50^th games, and the boys were ready to go kicking into the wind in the first quarter.

The boys were working hard in defence, and were running the ball well into the wind. Max, Jake C and Jaycob were keeping it tight in defence, and Adam kicked a great goal into the wind to ensure we were with them at quarter time. Kicking with the wind in the second quarter, we managed to keep our forward line open and were clearing the ball from the centre to good options. Sean kicked 2 goals and Tom kicked 1 to give us a good lead at half time.

We knew The Basin would come out hard after half time, and the wind was giving them the advantage kicking to the Railway end. Our backline was doing a great job, playing tight on the opposition forwards. Although we didn’t score, we kept them to 1 goal with Ryan and Tom doing well in the backline. Our talk had finally improved, and there were some great handballs to running players to clear it out of the congestion. We also put on some great shepherds to create space or give our team mates some time.

Our forward line got a bit crowded in the last quarter, with everyone wanting to help put the game beyond doubt. Jaycob kicked a goal after taking a nice mark, and we were unlucky to miss a couple of goals when the ball came in quickly and our forward line was open. Our backline continued its dominance, keeping The Basin scoreless in the last quarter.

Bayswater 5.5-35 def The Basin 2.6-18

Goals: Sean 2, Adam, Tom, Jaycob

Best Players: Ryan, Sean, Jaycob, Riley, Ben, Jake K

We travelled to Coldstream today to play a team I felt we had a great chance in beating.

Preparation was terrible with us running out with the bare 14 players and our last player and three borrowed players from our opposition taking to the field after the siren had sounded for the start of the game. Today’s game was played the way junior footy should be played with both teams giving their all and with players honing their skills out on the ground.

Bayswater players ran and ran all day, the tackling was excellent and some of the shepherds were fantastic. When I look at our list and see that nearly half of the boys are under aged and we are consistently losing by only small margins then it goes without saying that these boys can play footy and are committed to each other. It pleases me to see a chain of handballs, a player running forward and receiving a pass from the other side of the ground and also players willingly putting their bodies in to block the opposition and to allow free access for a team mate. These actions may not get you kicking a goal but they don’t go unnoticed and it is something you will be measured on in older age groups. A coach will look to the player who will lay tackles and block rather than the player who gets an easy kick. Keep going boys!

Congratulations to Daniel Manning on 50 games!

Coldstream 2.4.16 def Bayswater 1.0.6

Goals: Sanden

Best Players: Kane, Luke, Jamie, Andrew, Anthony and Finn

Coach: Greg

Round 10 v Scoresby

Q1: A must win game, First v second. We won the toss and kicked with a strong breeze. For most of the quarter we had control of the game without putting scoreboard pressure on the opposition. The game was played in our half for 80% of the time but to Scoresby’s credit they pushed us wide and we were not direct enough to give ourselves a chance to kick more goals.     

Bayswater 1.1.7 - Scoresby 0.1.1

Q2: Kicking into the wind we tried hard to run and create but again failed to take our chances. Scoresby was flooding back and then breaking out from defence to kick into an open forward line and kicked a couple of goals. With all our persistence we failed to take a mark inside the forward line and let ourselves down with the hard work from our attacks going in.  

Bayswater 1.3.9 - Scoresby 2.3.15

Q3: It was a matter of taking our chances in the quarter as we knew we could match it with the opposition around the ground. It was a battle of the two defences as the ball kept coming out of our forward line too easily only to kick it to the waiting wall as Scoresby pushed everyone back to flood. We finally looked to switch play across the ground to open up the forward line but only managed one behind.      

Bayswater 1.4.10 - Scoresby 3.3.21

Q4: Kicking against the wind we went out with a positive attitude as we knew if we could open up the game we would be a chance. Scoresby kicked the first goal of the quarter but our heads did not go down. The intensity lifted and our running game finally broke the backs of the opposition. We started to switch the play and kick to leading forwards rather than bombing long. It was a great team effort as we kicked the next 3 goals to have a memorable win.    

Bayswater 4.6.30 defeated Scoresby 4.3.27

U15