U11 South Coach's Report - Round 1
Published: Wednesday 18th April 2012 3:45 PM by HRAFCWhile perhaps a little warmer than the boys would have liked, it was certainly a top day to start our 2012 season. Brighton Beach were firing right from the first siren and that unfortunately saw us spend the first half simply reacting to their plays. I think the combination of School holidays and our first real game for the season made for a slow start from our lads. It certainly wasn't through a lack of effort from the boys but it will give us some things to improve on at training such as 'manning-up' in defence and getting boys into and controlling the play better after stoppages.
Real positives however were that the lads competed hard for every possession, even when Brighton Beach had the ball predominantly in their forward half. The score could easily have been far higher if not for solid efforts of Lachie, Michael, Kenz and Ferg in defence. Special mention must also go to Luke at FB for his repeated efforts in clearing the ball from the 'last line of defence'. Connor, Aussie and Frank were working hard through the middle but the BB boys were getting the majority of the clearances despite their best efforts. The pace of the game on a warm day was showing as we were (unusually) having to rotate players mid quarter to give the on-ballers a break. For the first time we were held scoreless in a half of football.
It appeared our 'game of two halves' style of football was continuing from last year with the boys beginning to get the measure of their opponents in the second half. Felix was tapping out nicely to Jimmy, Ferg and Kenz who were quickly clearing the centre and giving the forwards more of a run. Both Hayden and Mitchell were starting to rack up a few and getting the ball up forward to Michael allowed him to kick a terrific goal from a difficult angle to get the scoreboard moving. Things were on the improve.
Our last quarter was a ripper - the boys realised they were getting the upper hand and started to really press forward. With some really solid efforts from Aussie, Frank and Lachie, goals to Oscar, Kenz and Ferg plus two points in the last quarter almost saw us steal it away from a slowing BB. The boys were certainly going in hard with the tackling but as the Umpire warned us before the game, (he would be tough on high tackles) we probably gave away a few too many free kicks. That's OK though as I'm really happy the boys are tackling hard and giving no quarter because the intent is there. Tackling techniques themselves are something we can easily improve and work on at training.
A narrow loss for us in a low scoring game but that just underlined how competitive the boys were towards the end. No doubt the boys were a little disappointed as the game was so close but given this was the 'Premiership' side from last year, I still feel it's a really positive start to our season. Now, we've just got to work out how to start our games as we like to finish them........... :-)
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