17 May Round 5 Coaches Match Reports

Into the thick of it now with all teams settling into their grades for the remainder of the season. As expected, all teams have ultimately ended up where they should be, and we thank the League for the work they do in getting us to where we should be. The league has released the fixtures up to rd10 and we have been advised that the final fixtures are not too far away.

We continue to be blessed with beautiful conditions for Footy and Rd 5 was no different with sunshine and calm conditions.  We celebrated all things ‘Mums’ with all teams doing their little something special to show our appreciation for the Mums and all that they do for us.

 

Highlights this week

• After a really tough start to the season, fighting out of their weight division, the u13s recorded their first win of the season – highlighted by a five goal haul from, Noah Morris-Thomas.
• The Pigs are finally on the board !! The u9s recorded their first ever win as a group.   This book is going to be epic, this chapter one of our favorites, well done Hayesy and Team.
• The u12 Girls are also on the board, recording their first win for the season in a tight battle with Laurimar.
• 50 Game Milestone celebrated by Scarlet Fitzpatrick (u18G). New to the club this season, Scarlett has been an awesome addition to the u18 girls program featuring in the best most weeks and kicked a nice goal in her 50th game.

 

Boys Under 11

WHITTLESEA 1-2-8 RESEARCH 7-6-48

GOALS – Cayden 3, Ned 2, Jack 2

Firstly, Happy Mother’s Day for yesterday to all our wonderful, amazing mums who really are the heart and soul of our team. Thank you so much.

After drawing with Montmorency last Sunday, we thought a game of footy might be a nice change, so out with the Sketchers and in with the Searchers (great timing to switch to a Searcher as finding the Whittlesea footy ground can be tricky at the best of times).

(Spontaneous laughter – pause)

Anyway, we were blessed to have the opportunity for Ned and Patrick from our Under 9’s to join our team for the match and boy, oh boy, did they play some outstanding football. Ned in attack (playing against his older cousin, by coincidence) and Patrick in defence, were brave, skillful, and an absolute delight to see in action against much bigger opponents. Both fitted in so well and they are going to be leaders of their own teams I n years to come. Thank you to Pete and Zoe (Ned) and Bryce and Narelle (Patrick) for allowing this to happen and, of course, our Under 9’s coach, Michael Hayes, who is always so generous in helping us with players when we are low on numbers (pretty much every week).

The scoreline shows a comfortable win to us however the play was extremely tough for the full four quarters, and Whittlesea never gave in and were brave in defeat. They’re a good bunch of people and terrific hosts and we look forward to seeing them again later in the season.

Apart from our young guns mentioned earlier, Archie was back in town, well he’s never left town this season. A real credit to his discipline and hard work. A big week on the footy field and on the stage for Twinkle Toes (sorry Arch). Great game mate.

Charlie and Hunter – relentless efforts, hard running, engine room stuff. Leading from the front every week. We need to look after these boys. They have big futures ahead. Charlie, brave, as he was one of a few of ours to be ill during the week and still played a super game and a hugely gifted athlete. Hunter is a freak sportsman, a natural at anything he puts his mind and body to.

Cayden and Josh were also on song. A few of our boys copped some hard knocks early and Cayds had a touch of the jitters (for him) however his kicking broke lines, unseen at this level, giving us a huge advantage and influence with scoring, which I feel is important ��, centre clearances, kicked 3 himself and had a hand in the other 4. Joshy is such an inspiration to watch. We have had to shift him around so far this season, but he plays his role perfectly each time. Another to look for in the future.

Jeremy keeps going to the next level. A genuine talent and a pleasure to coach. Beautifully played Jezza, again. Jack returned after being quite ill and didn’t waste any time snagging a couple of brilliant goals. He looked very sharp. We need to keep the forward line open for Jack as we progress through the season. Watch this space with Jack. Max keeps doing the tough stuff across half back and is itching to get more into our mid field mix, which will happen mate. Keep it going and thanks for your patience. Karlius and Miles were solid again and showed what honourable team players they are with their unselfish play, week in, week out without getting all the accolades the mids always get. Hayden, Huddo, and Seb chipped in when needed and I can’t wait to see how much they have progressed as players – the next 2 months training will bring them right on. Alex and Aston are two of our pressure forwards and both continued their consistent and quite brave play. Aston had to go back for a half this week for balance and did an admirable job – and had croup during the week – thanks mate for sacrificing yourself for our team. Alex in top 5 of the stats for our one percenter acts (tackles, chases, smothers, shepherds, blocks, etc) Gus has been a revelation since finding his spot at CHF 3 games ago. His play in this position seems to come naturally to him and this has allowed our team to be more central focussed with forward thrusts.

Thanks to our off-field crew (best in the business), Ondine from Life Memories by Ondine for the photos, Kat from Don’t Pith Me Off for the Oranges (cut magnificently by Captain Jackson), and all our group who filled roles and helped out in general as always.

Cheers,

Rolly, Corey, Brad, Dan, and Dave

 

Boys Under 13

What an amazing, sunny day to celebrate all of the mothers at Research JFC! We have certainly been lucky weatherwise this season so far.

First game of the season proper after a tough four weeks of grading. Although the results were lopsided for the first four weeks I couldn’t be more impressed with the effort and the willingness for the contest from every player and they continued on with it this week.

Our pressure and work in the contest was once again at a high level and this time we got the reward for our effort with a well fought out win.

Highlights were Noah’s 5 goals, our entire midfield pretty much dominating for the game with some new faces like Kash and Joe putting their hand up to become permanent part of the midfield rotations, Kade and Josh being the rocks down back, Harry D taking a couple of important contested marks but probably the one thing I was most proud of was the every single team member contributing the win.

I’m looking forward to building on our first win and most important continuing to improve.

 

Girls Under 14

A hard day at the office today, we went into today’s game a little underdone with 4 key players out.  As we keep saying to our girls, every game in this competition is going to be tough and they really need to have more self belief and confidence in what they are doing. On the training track our girls can produce some very nice football, but finding their way on the field seemed to be a struggle today against a very strong and physical Wallan team.

Standout performance this week by our tiniest but one of our mightiest Bonnie!  Millah R continues to impress with her solid on ball performance. Special mention to Randa and Violet with determined defense, and to Emily putting on some great efforts moving into the mids.  Stef bagged our only goal and it was awesome to see the team get around her!  We saw some impressive passages of play today girls – so let’s put it all together – back to the drawing board at training, let’s get to work!

Keep your heads held high girls and we will keep fighting!!
Happy Mother’s Day to all our Research Mummas.

 

Boys Under 15s

We came up against a very tough opposition this week in Whittlesea after they spent last year hardening up in Division 1.

Our boys were slow out of the gate and Whittlesea raced to a big lead in the 1st and 2nd quarters making great use of the large ground. They wanted the ball more, got into space and kicked straight to lead at halftime by 12.7 (79) to 1.1 (7).

The halftime break gave us a chance to get into the sheds and reflect on the game plan we had not been executing on, and decide how we wanted to walk off the field at the final siren. Our boys looked a completely different team in the 2nd half, and played the game they had wanted to play from the start. We were calm out of defence, hitting 2-3 targets each time we left our quarter and contested everything in the air as equals. We still have some improvement to be made in the ground contest, but the boys did themselves and their supporters proud in the way they turned around their intensity and composure winning the 2nd half until a free kick right in front of goal allowed Whittlesea to finish the game 14.13 (97) to 3.3 (21).

There were some courageous performances, none more so than Mitch Hall who was an absolute wall in defence conservatively making a 30 point difference for us.

This experience gives us a point to prove next time we meet.

 

Girls Under 16

Today we had another home game against South Morang. I was really looking forward to playing them as we have had a couple of similar results to them against the same opposition!

It was glorious afternoon and it was great to see a lot of mums there for the big clash on Mothers Day!

We got off to a really slow start and were on the back foot for the majority of the first quarter Sth Morang were really physical and had the best of the play opening the scoring with the first 8 points of the game.

We scored Two late goals which flattered us a bit and gave us the lead.

The second quarter we started a lot better and started to get more physical and take it right up to Sth Morang who were starting to feel the heat that we were bringing! Another goal for a pretty even quarter gave us a handy two goal lead at half time.

The third quarter and fourth for that matter was all one way traffic our girls went to another level and piled on the goals, seven goals to none in the second half was a dominant half lead by Dakota who finished with 4 goals for the day.

It was a great day all round with the mums joining in the song for Mother’s Day and a great win from our girls full of spirit and enthusiasm!

Well done girls great team effort!

Goals: Dakota 4, Jess, Sienna, Molly, Sarah, Ayva H and Amelia S.

 

Boys Under 17.5

Research 3.10.28 def by Eltham 25.3.153

Goals: Will Hensel, Billy Johnson, Hayden Freeman

Best Players: Jesse Todd, Billy Johnson, Tom Dozzi, Seth O'Malley, Harrison Wenn, Hamish Collins, Josh Northey, Kale Bollenhagen

There are days when the scoreboard doesn’t tell the story but unfortunately this was not one of those days. We were thoroughly beaten by a highly motivated opponent playing at the top of their game.

We were completely jumped and overwhelmed in the first quarter. Eltham scored from the first centre bounce. They had players prepared to run off every line, through the midfield, from half back, the wings and forward, running in waves using link up handball which outnumbered us. The quality and frequency of the forward entries by Eltham gave our backline little chance to defend and we found ourselves 10 goals down at quarter time, an experience we have not had before, and Eltham had remarkably kicked 10 goals straight.

The mercy rule kicked in and the game went in waves thereafter. We did manage to stem the tide in the third quarter which we drew with Eltham but overall, it was a disappointing day and didn’t reflect the competitiveness the boys have played with this season in the higher grade.

We are learning all the time as we compete in Division 1. In the last couple of weeks, we have trained with more emphasis on holding onto possession for longer, making better kicking decisions and trying to make more use of the ground to create spread.

But we simply couldn’t possess the ball long enough, often enough to play with a method we wanted to play in this game. We also didn’t match the intensity of the game and found it hard to have enough players compete in their 1:1 contest and when the ball was in dispute.

There is no doubt the substantial difference in standard that we have experienced since winning last season’s premiership in Division 2, but we have also demonstrated consistently that the team can compete at the level. Today that was not the case however. We need to persist and work hard to stay in games longer and then better results will come.

Despite the footy result, we have a great team of kids and families including of course our very special Mum’s who provide incredible support to us. We hope you all enjoyed a fantastic Mother’s Day and as we celebrate these important moments in life, my favourite highlight of the day was Hayden Freeman’s goal. There could be nothing better on Mother’s Day. Well done Hayden!

Paul and the Coaches

 

Girls U18

Research 5.15 45 d Yarrambat 3.2 20

 Today we played another strong team with a number of new players joining from other clubs. With our limited numbers, we new we would have a real challenge on our hands.

The day started with us celebrating Scarlett Fitpatrick on her 50 game and the team following her through the banner.

We got off to a wayward start kicking 4 points to their goal in the first qrt.

This seemed to be the trend of the day with everyone getting the yips in front of goal.

Sierra Filippone showed her class kicking two majors in the second qrt to get the scoreboard ticking over and rewarding all the hard work we had been doing all over the ground.

Going into half time with a 14-point lead felt unders for the work Anayah, Bella, Abi and Alli had done in the midfield and along with Holli playing majority in the ruck.

Ally Pilakis was having another day out marking everything in her area.

Tess straightened us up kicking her first goal for the club in the third, then the 50 gamer Fitzy kicked one from 60 metres out that just kept on going.

Today we ran the game out well and in the last qrt we had 5 scoring shots, but as for the pattern of the day only one was a goal.

After playing every team once now we now look at consolidating our hard work so far and continue to improve in areas that we know we can do better in.

Plenty of goal kicking practice this week.

Best Players: Sierra Filippone, Anayah Maher, Sophia Howse, Holli Farrelly, Bella Turner and Matilda Raphael

Goal Kickers: Sierra Filippone 3, Tess Gilson and Scarlett Fitzpatrick