After several months of pre-season, Saturday finally arrived and the Rovers girls were treated to a beautiful autumn day at a sunny Trevor Barker Oval – playing as a curtain-raiser to the Sandringham v Footscray VFL match.
Everybody was raring to go and with a few nerves thrown in, the team headed out onto the ground for warm up. “Wow this ground is huge” seemed to be the common thought along with “it looks so soft, this will be a pleasure to be tackled on!”
Hampton Rovers took on Old Haileybury in Women’s Premier B White competition. Rovers welcomed 5 new players to the field, Chloe, Naomi, Fran and the Atta sisters Lucy and Grace as well as new coach Paul Curry. Haileybury were coached by Danny Frawley.
The huge ground made scoring difficult early but Hampton was winning a lot of ball. With running and tackling machines Fran and Naomi joining the ever-reliable Gaby in the middle, the Haileybury players were really feeling the Rovers presence. Haileybury were first to score towards the end of the first quarter. Haileybury had some very good polished players, one in particular who loved to try and take on the tackler. However, when she tried to take on our fullback Chloe Mirams she soon learnt that these Rovers girls had come to play!!
Nicki scored Hampton’s first goal of the season during the second quarter but Haileybury scored twice towards the end of the quarter to keep their handy lead.
Haileybury had the better of the third quarter and had built up a good lead by 3/4 time. Tash kicked a great long goal afters strong mark to give Hampton a highlight for the quarter.
During the last quarter, with the Sandringham and Footscray VFL teams watching on, the Hampton girls really dug deep and continually pumped the ball inside 50, but sadly couldn’t eat into the lead on the scoreboard. In the end, Haileybury had a comfortable win but Rovers competed really well. Haileybury converted their opportunities whilst Rovers struggled to convert their possession into scores.
The Rovers game was a super team effort with all players really putting in. With Lizzy running down the wings, Zara controlling the backline, Mandy patrolling around half forward along with Bianca and Jess feeding the mids, coach Paul has options aplenty this season.
Congratulations to the new players mentioned above for playing your first game with Hampton Rovers, you all did really well. All the returning players from last season showed improvement and with a willingness to work as a team, it’s plain to see the Hampton Rovers women will be a force to be reckoned with in 2018.
HAMPTON ROVERS 0.0 1.0 1.0 2.3 (15)
OLD HAILEYBURY 1.1 3.4 6.4 8.8 (56)
Goal Kickers: N. Harrison, N. Clarke
Best Players: E. Dingeldei, C. Mirams, L. Timmons, Z. Phillips, M. Naylor
Thanks to Brett for the report.
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