Macedon 40 DREW Romsey 40
What a struggle Macedon had for the first 45 minutes of the game. While Macedon have quite a few players out, they never expected this match to be such a hard slog. Macedon’s quarter by quarter stats point out where the work needs to be done and where on the court they are winning ball.
The first quarter Bronte started in a less familiar position (WA) and Katie was out in GD. Macedon’s
ball handling and decision making proved to be one of the major issue in the first quarter with 9 bad
passes all coming out of defence and in the centre third. When Macedon did get the ball into the
goal ring the goalers missed 7 goals and shot under 50% giving Romsey 5 straight goals. The only ball that was being won was in the back line. Katie tried to hold up her end with 3 intercepts and 3
rebounds, outside that there was no ball won up front. Macedon were down 6- 11.
We made several changes in the second quarter with Georgia F taking the court in GA, shifting Ciara out to the wing, this didn’t last very long before Alex was moved into the wing and Ciara back into goals. Katie started in GD but was later moved back into GK and Bella came on into GD. We cleaned up the turnover ball through bad passes, but the 4 bad passes came through the transitional play form defence to goals. Our goalers shot more accurately but needed more ball in order to catch the deficit from the first quarter. Only 1 ball was won through the court and almost all other recoveries came from Alex back in GK. There wasn’t a lot of whistle in the first half and Macedon were not contesting enough ball. Only 2 obstructions and 10 contacts for the first half of the game. Macedon were down 17 -22 and still 5 goals behind.
Bronte came on into C and Ash H took the WD position for the 3 rd quarter. 4 bad passes and a fumble from our centre and 5 turnovers were costly. 3 more turnovers coming out of defence and we were quickly loosing ball that we were fighting so hard to win. We were starting to win ball in defence, Ash had 2 gains and an intercepts, backed by Bronte’s 2 intercepts. While our GD was kept quiet, back in GK Katie won 4 balls, with 2 rebounds. Macedon’s goaling accuracy had improved with 12 shots from 13 attempts but the volume of ball in the goal third was not going to win Macedon the game. 28 -35 and Macedon hadn’t seemed to close the gap, it was getting bigger.
Macedon threw caution to the wind and took a chance on a shake-up. Alex came into GS, Ciara back
into WA, Karlee returned to C, Hayley came back on into WD and Bella and Katie stayed. Instantly
the turnovers were reduced to just the 2 and they were both in attack. Macedon contested the ball
hard and the number of contacts in the last quarter equalled the amount they totalled for 3 quarters of the game. Macedon were becoming a presence on the court and this was forcing Romsey to make mistakes, The whole team stepped up and the recoveries are a clear indicator of that. Macedon had 6 team gains and 3 intercepts. All but one player on the court recovered a ball. Macedon shot 12 from 21 attempts but with Alex under the ring 6 missed shots were recovered. Romsey only had 6 attempts in the last quarter compared to their 11 in the first quarter, 11 in the second quarter, 13 goals in the third and 5 in the last quarter.
A bounce/ crawl into the last quarter and the points were shared for a draw.
Take aways from this game:
1. Macedon need to work out what their new starting 7 looks like.
2. Bad passes need to be heavily reduced if they are going to stay in the top 4.
3. Macedon need to do the basics right.
4. More ball needs to be won all over the court for a full 60 minutes.
VOTES: Katie Clarke
6 intercepts, 6 rebounds, 8 gains
