Macedon 46 Won 30 Romsey
After a good training session in the wet, we were prepared for a cold and windy game in Romsey. We started very strong in the first quarter with strong hands over ball pressure forcing Romsey to turn over the ball. A stunned Romsey couldn’t find an opening and failed to score more than 6 goals in this quarter. Our attack was well-timed, found space and delivered well to our goalers Georgia and Sammi. We converted a very quick 14 goals in the first quarter.
After a quick pep talk and Romsey came onto the court in the 2nd quarter firing and we took our foot off the pedal and spent 12 minutes chasing. The decision to make no changes to our starting lineup in the 2nd quarter came because our starting 7 deserved to continue the outstanding performance we put on in the first quarter but this quickly faded away. Their WA found the centre pass quite easily and they played into backspace to find an easy shooting position. We struggled to find a clear passage in attack with one lead coming to our attack and alot of static players. Goals were not converting and we were getting killed on the scoreboard. Nellie recognised the shift and called a strategic injury time. This did not assist with us winning back the 2nd quarter. We lost this quarter 5 – 9.
The halftime break couldn’t come any quicker. We needed a break to re-group and remember our game plan. Players were reminded of their individual job and the expectation for a much better quarter was put out there. Thankfully with a few positional changes we were able to quickly regroup and go back to basics. Georgia was moved to WA in an attempt to get some more movement out front and Eliza took the GS position. It took a minute to work out Eliza’s reach and the best way to feed a holding goaler. Eliza’s height assisted with the rebounds and Sami continued to help bring the ball into the ring. Our defenders changed their style of defence to suit the umpire and played off the body. Dels long reach in WD slowed the centre pass and feeds and this gave our circle defender a chance to come through and steal the ball. All this was enough to get back ALL the lost opportunity of the 2nd quarter and recoup the 8-goal lead of the first quarter. We almost doubled them 12 – 7. A much better effort.
We grew much stronger in the last quarter and played the Macedon Cats B grade style I would expect from us. We kept Romsey to just 4 goals with amazing defensive pressure. We recovered 12 balls with 6 out of the 7 players recovering a ball. We minimised turnovers and did the simple things right. We shot 13 goals out of 20 attempts in a rainy game to their 4 converted goals. We took away the 4 points because of our heart and passion, uncompromising defence and attack for 3 quarters of the game.
