Macedon 53 Won 38 Woodend-Hesket
This game was always going to be tough. We beat Woodend early in the season by just the 3 goals, so we needed to make sure that we stuck to our game plan and adjusted quickly to the umpiring.
We started a little shaky making predictable ball handling errors through our mid court. We knew what style of defence Woodend were going to play and we initially played into their hands, but this time we only did it on a few occasions and we quickly corrected our errors, rather than continued to make the same mistakes. Hayley in C, placed herself perfectly on the circle edge and dominated with feeds and assists. The goalers delivered and shot 11 from 12.
Our team defence started tight with 7 team intercepts and 4 gains from our defensive end. Woodend were making well timed moves and our back-line defence made sure that when there was a moment they capitalised. Pressure over their shot forced 4 missed goals but Woodend’s rebounding position and the height of their young GS meant that they recovered 2. The GA was kept to 50% and by quarter time we were up by 2.
The only change we made was bringing Lara on into GS. We learnt from our last round that Lara needed to take the court earlier and we needed to work her into the game. This strategy paid off and she had an instant impact with her height drawing 2 players, leaving us one player free until we hit the circle edge. The ball was delivered well to our goalers and we had 16 attempts at goal which was 4 more than the first quarter. With only 2 misses, goaling remained strong.
We minimised our turnovers to just 2 for the quarter and the centre passes were shared between Chelsea and Ciara. The centre passes weren’t too hard especially with Woodend conceding the centre pass in order to float back in defence.
Across the whole court we were heavily penalised by this umpire with 12 penalties and just 2 recoveries for the quarter. We were taken out of the contest and this made it incredibly hard to put our foot down and gain some goals and a healthy lead. This is something we would need to address in the second half, as this umpiring could affect our last quarter result. We maintained our 2-goal lead 25 -23.
The team vibe was strong and the half time talk was full of positives. Alex came on into WD and the other 6 players kept their position. We knew that we had a real opportunity to score as the umpire allows contesting and this was something our defenders needed to take advantage of. Although we had 6 obstructions and 7 contacts we were allowed to contest. Hayley had 4 recoveries, Lara and Chloe 1 each, 1 gain for Janelle and 2 intercepts for Katie. We were continuing to apply full court defensive pressure and the rewards were slowly coming.
After an injury time from Chelsea, Chloe returned to the court and played GA, Ciara moved out to the wing and Bronte later took the court for her first game in A grade. This had an immediate impact as after this injury time, we went on to score 7 goals in a row. No matter what change we made, we continued to push on and build the score line. Our goalers shot 13 from 15 attempts and we finally pushed out the lead to 7 goals. 38- 31.
We kept our new line up heading into the 4th quarter. We just continued to push on, play full court defence, feed the ball accurately and shoot well. Ciara was becoming a little costly with 3 turnovers, something that needs to be addressed at training. Due to Macedon’s solid defence, goaling opportunities were coming thick and fast. We had a 3-goal run, a 5-goal run and then a 6-goal run. Giving us 53 goals to finish out the game.
Our whole court defence continued and it was starting to pay off. Katie began reading the ball very well and notched up 5 clean intercepts and a rebound. Janelle’s pressure on yet another GA gave us 3 recoveries and Alex was there to sweep up a rebound. Shanae came on with 5 minutes to go had had an instant impact. She intercepted 1 ball and with her height over the shot caused a few missed goals. All this work deprived Woodend of opportunities and resulted in just 3 single goals for the quarter and just the one 3 goal run.
An amazing team effort in all areas of the court and because of this we earnt the 4 points and the 15-goal win.
