First round of the finals and, for a number of the first year U19 players, this is their first final for over 4 years. No doubt nerves will play a role in the game but, as Mick Malthouse said at training on Monday night, ?you have earned the right to play finals football and remember that finals football is a totally different kettle of fish to the home and away rounds. You are all equal again?. He stressed that the critical issue for players today was not to lose sight of what they as individuals can do for the team. ?If you?re doing it hard in the game or the balls not bouncing for you to keep trying to do those little things that will help your team mates get the ball rather than focusing on trying to get another kick yourself.? He stressed that the 1 percenters were just as important to the team as the big mark or long goal.
Armed with those insights we should look forward to Sundays game with some confidence in that it has been the team work and one percenters that have been a part of our game over the last two months and have led to our good wins.
While our last outing against DLS ended in probably our worst defeat of the year we can offer up some explanation in that we were playing away on a windswept cow paddock under the powerlines on a miserable Melbourne winter afternoon that was just not conducive to good footy. We didn?t help our cause by posting 8 behinds in a row kicking with the wind in the first quarter and in fact in the whole game when kicking with the wind only scored 1 goal and amassed 15 behinds. That game started our record breaking run of bad kicking where we kicked over 100 behinds in the next 5 weeks! (but whos counting). That game was significant in that none of the Gippsland gang played and we were missing Trembath and Goss as well as Schmiter for the second half after a rush of blood to the head. It was interesting to note that in the match report, reference was made to ?Lewis, Law and Lovig pumping the ball forward which was not capitalized on by our forwards.?
We go into this weeks game with a full list who have hopefully all recovered from the flu that was circulated by either Quonny, Baxter or Innes – the jurys still out. We have put together 6 weeks of team orientated, consistent football where we have looked for our team mates, have been positive in our encouragement of each other, have finished off the hard work of players down the ground and have enjoyed some sweet victories. Bring on De La!
All Rovers supporters are urged to come down to the Gerry Green Reserve (Nepean Hwy, Parkdale) at 11:30am to see the U19s take on 4th placed DLS in the 1st Semi Final in what should be a cracker of a game.
