Macedon 40 DEF Riddells Creek 31
Having known the results from the Woodend V Riddell game, Macedon knew that Riddell had recruited some good players and was going to come out strong. Macedon had done the preparation in the preseason and were keen to get round 1 started.
Macedon started with their familiar line up, with all new recruits on the bench. Macedon’s attack end started a little sluggish throwing ball straight to Riddell’s floating GK. Once that was addressed, Macedon mid courters Karlee and Chelsea found an open goal circle and Chloe shot from under the post, scoring 7 of the 9 goals for the quarter.
The familiar defensive line up of Katie, Janelle and Hayley started the quarter strong with a lot of one on one body pressure. The defenders were struggling to stay in play with 11 contact penalties giving Riddell an opportunity to open their attack shooting 7 goals for the quarter.
Macedon came into the second quarter with one change to the line-up, while Riddell made a few tweaks to their goal and mid court players. Macedon started the quarter scoring 3 goals to Riddell’s 5 and the score was tie 12 all. Macedon put their foot down, mixed up the play with patient passes and used the height of Hetty in GS to their advantage. Karlee Bruno dominating the feeds and assists into goalers (12) and Hetty finished off shooting at 83%.
Macedon’s tight one on one pressure from all players on court helped the Cats shoot 8 goals to Riddell’s 1. Macedon was starting to put score board pressure on, and went into half time with a 5 goal lead.
Macedon introduced another new player to their line up with Alex coming on into goal keeper. This change had an immediate impact on the team and Riddell’s goalers started to miss goals, that Alex cleaned up. The Cats were again heavily penalised by this umpire with 11 contact calls and 4 obstruction and staying in play was something that needed to be cleaned up.
The attack end cleaned up their feeds and passes and started to share who received the centre passes. Macedon’s change in game play, kept Riddell guessing and the second phase ball became less predictable. Karlee and Chelsea shared the feeds and assist this quarter which again was different to the first half. The 3rd quarter was Macedon’s highest scoring quarter with 13 goals from 15 attempts. Macedon headed into the last quarter with an 11-goal lead.
Macedon made one last change and Bronte took the court in centre. Bronte’s speed and fresh legs gave Macedon the boast they needed for the last 15 minutes of the game but unfortunately, she was too fast to fit into the tired line up. The attackers around Bronte found it hard to match her speed and they were making some uncharacteristic errors. The structure of the centre passes was changing, and second phase ball was becoming a problem. The attack end struggled to maintain the workload of the last 3 quarters, and this is something that I am sure is going to be addressed at training.
Defensively Macedon won the ball through grit and applied pressure. The recoveries changed and the work came from dictating and gains. Janelle continued the relentless pressure on the goal attack keeping her to zero goals from 3 attempts and in the back, Alex swept up keeping her goaler to 73%.
It was a strong first round performance from all 10 Macedon players and the game was won 40 – 31.
Best On: Karlee Bruno
4 recoveries 24 feeds 8 Goal Assists
