Macedon (44) V Romsey (39)
My expectation for the game was to not take our foot off the pedal and make our opposition pay for every mistake they make. We got off to a very strong start and moved the ball quickly down court. We valued possession, with only one turnover through ball handling. Feeds and assists were accurate and when there was no opening in the ring, the players made good choices. Defensively we were heavily penalised by the whistle but 9 clean recoveries and 5 spoils made it hard for Romsey to catch us. Our mistakes came from the 10 missed goals but we still managed to convert 15 goals to Romseys 8.
Ash came on into GA and Cass and Shanae took the GD and WD bib. We lost this quarter 8 -11 because we were not adjusting to the umpires 3 feet and lack of contested ball. We were put of play 19 times and only took 2 clean intercepts. We did have 4 gains and 7 tips but these balls were not put back into our hands. We missed 4 and they missed 3, giving Romsey more shots at goal than us in this quarter. They were catching us and we lost our 7 goal lead and it was just the
4 at half time.
With Romsey closing in on us, i made some changes that i thought would have matched our opposition better. Ash and Sam paired up in the goal circle, Madi came back on into WD, Taylah into GD and Shanae back into GK. We were not adjusting to the umpires and were penalised for 14 contacts. Our circle defenders did recover 3 intercepts and 4 gains but we started to make the wrong choice in attack and threw 5 bad passes. The lack of ball starved our goalers of ball and gave Romsey 7 extra chances to narrow our lead. They did this with accurate goaling and won the quarter 10 -8. We had a 2 goal lead heading into the last quarter.
In the last quarter we were SMASHED by the whistle with 17 contact calls against us but we made up for it with our full court defence. Yes it took us a whole game before everyone on court defended but when we did the rewards came. Every player had at least 1 tip (9), our GA, WA, C and GD all intercepted a ball and Jess and Shanae rebounded 2 of their 3 missed goals. Our feeds and assists looked more like the first quarter and our goalers were serviced well and made sure their shots at goal were more accurate, shooting 13 from 17 attempts. We out scored Romsey 13 – 10 to take a 5 goal win.
Best on court goes to Jess Dugdale-Walker
