Macedon 61 Won 29 Romsey
We went into this game with a game plan. We had a few recovering from being unwell and a few niggles in the team. A full side of 10 players meant that players would get some bench time to recoup when it was needed. The goal was to go out and do your job, for as long as you can.
We got off to a pretty good start shooting the first 5 goals of the game. The ball was easily making it over our transverse line and with Chelsea’s sharp attacking leads, she landed on the circle edge to dominate the feeds and assists. The unfamiliar goaling lineup of Chloe and Eliza took a little time to find its groove as Chloe was struggling to play out front and shoot with accuracy. Our defensive pressure was amazing forcing Romsey to make mistakes and we reaped the benefits. Our circle defenders recovered 10 balls from this pressure and cleanly intercepted 4 balls. Romsey was kept to 4 goals while we started powering ahead with 12 goals.
Hayley moved into C, Alex came on into WD and Katie played both in GK and GD. We stayed tidy in attack with just the 3 turnovers and this egged on our defence to get more ball. We recovered the ball with a record 10 intercepts for the quarter, with 6 out of our 7 players getting an intercept stat on the game sheet. The pressure impacted their dominant goaler and 2 of their 3 missed goals were rebounded by us. Hayley found the feeding space and mixed up her feeds with a variety of passes. It was 6 all in the 2ns when we made a change and this lead to our 2nd surge and we score 9 to their 2 goals. We doubled their score and were on target for a good win.
We made a few more errors in the 3rd quarter with bad choices in passes. We mixed it up and our centre passes were shared between the GA and WA and this opened up an easy play for us. Ball made it into our ring quite quickly and Chloe shot the majority of our goals. We didn’t hear a lot of whistles in the 3rd but we were not as lucrative with the recovery count. Katie and Janelle combined well back in a familiar partnership with 10 recoveries between them. Romsey had a decent amount of opportunity but inaccurate shooting from Romsey helped us score 19 to their 9. We had a healthy lead and were on target for 60 goals.
Our defenders worked extremely hard to get as much ball as they could for our attackers to help us get to that 60 goal mark. Janelle, Katie and Shanae all played their individual role and the partnership came as a result of the uncompromising individual defence. After Chelsea took a solid hit, she was benched for the last 5 mutes of the game and Alex had a spell in C. A less familiar position but with the taller centre Alex had no trouble being an option in our attack. Eliza and Chloe finished the game in goals together and showed us what potential we have to come. Outside the inaccurate goaling (10 misses) we hit our target shooting 15 goals and keeping Romsey to just the 6. We won the game 61 – 29
