WBFL - SENIORS
FOOTBALL is a Winter sport, and along with the rain and mud, comes coughs and colds.
The body is weakened, the head is clogged, which affects decision making and the only good place to be is in bed, but when you feel fit enough on Thursday, sometimes you don't want to let the boys or girls down on Saturday.
The Cats were under no illusions the day was going to be a tough one, with several key players out and a few playing with less than normal lung capacity against the top of the ladder Demons, the healthy few were going to need to have everything go their way.
The first quarter saw Casterton-Sandford gaining a lot of possession early, Ethan Currie ploughing through packs and delivering the ball to his team-mates resulted in the Cats getting the first score on the board, a behind to Alistair McCrae.
The ball was proving to be very slippery and clean possession was hard to come by and it was no surprise when the first goal came by a kick off the ground to South’s Mitch Sims.
Casterton-Sandford continued to be the first to the ball on the majority of occasions - Matt Kerr, Alister Bright and Tom Foster sweeping across the backline with assistance from Diarmid Cleary and Justin Carlin further up the ground.
South Gambier though would make full use of any loose balls the Cats didn't pick up, their second goal coming after Dylan Ayton was unable to take clean possession due to having a couple of Demons jump on his back.
South picked up their work rate a little as the quarter went on and started to kick the ball a little lower to their forwards.
Damian Wombwell had been able to clear the ball away from Brayden Kain a few times, but the delivery was so low that Kain brought up worms from his mark and then kicked South’s third goal.
Casterton-Sandford pushed hard against the wall of Demons with Matt Killey, Nick Schembri and Ayton charging at any ball that came to Souths half back but at the other end the Cats couldn't get clear from our half forward line as the Demons swarmed, Casterton-Sandford got a behind which South then ran into their forward line where Nelson Forbes - no relation to our Coach Forbes - kicked the Demons’ fourth goal.
The quarter had proved to be a slippery one, but South had used the scoring end well and now the Cats would need to do the same in the second.
Quarter-time: South Gambier 4.2.26, Casterton-Sandford 0.3.3.
The second quarter saw more of the same as both teams slipped and slid around after the ball, South though were the first to break through with a goal about three minutes into the quarter.
Casterton-Sandford had the ball in their forward half for the next four minutes, scrambling around, and anytime the ball looked like leaving the Cats zone it was soon picked up by President Ayton, Hamish McCrae or Billy Galpin.
The Cats finally got their first goal for the game when Justin Carlin kicked to Adam McKinnon in a one-on-one contest and McKinnon scooped up the ball and kicked truly.
Billy Galpin soon after put the Cats’ second goal on the board after a free for in the back, sending the heavy Sherrin sailing through from 45 metres out.
South were also quick to reply with their sixth goal from the next centre bounce and the rest of the quarter saw two teams defend grimly, neither willing to give an inch.
Foster, Killey, Schembri and Wombwell were proving to much for South on the last line of defence time and again and further up the ground Cleary, Carlin and Currie were in and under everything.
Fletcher Bright was another who was making life hard on South, one particular passage of play saw him burst through between the pocket and flank out of defence, get his kick away, follow-up and worry the Demon away from the ball and cleanly pick up and kick away again up the wing to Sully Gibbs,
Bright then again followed up the Gibbs kick and was able to get to the fall of the ball and beat several South players to get the ball over the boundary.
The Cats went in at half time trailing by 22 points.
Half-time: South Gambier 6.2.38, Casterton-Sandford 2.4.16
The third quarter saw the Cats out on the Park first, get the first centre clearance, be first to the ball on the majority of occasions and be first in the tackle and hard ball get counts but it was south who were first where it mattered, on the scoreboard.
South kicked three goals and kept the Cats scoreless for the quarter despite the best efforts of McKinnon, Cleary, Carlin and Currie in the middle, the McCrae boys in the ruck and Ayton, Gabe Parsons, Foster and Schembri down back - Casterton-Sandford just could not get the ball past the forward flanks.
Three-quarter-time: South Gambier 9.3.57, Casterton-Sandford 2.4.16.
The Blue Lake Park had a long brown smear from goal square to goal square and the majority of the players were also coloured in this volcanic soil, both teams continued to battle hard in these less-than-ideal conditions, but we expect this in our beautiful game.
South showed our Cats how to handle the conditions, they play their ground well, the Demons kicked a couple of goals early, but the Cats continued to apply pressure.
The scoreboard unfortunately was only ticking over behinds for the Cats, Colby Munro, who had had a much quieter day than when last we met South, kicked the Demons’ 12th goal and then the 13th, about five minutes later.
The Casterton-Sandford mids continued to try and come up with a way forward but again a behind was as good as we could get, the day was summed up when a clearly spent Ayton took the mark on the half back flank uncontested, having taken a dozen or more contested marks for the day and the siren went, Casterton-Sandford defeated by 64 points.
Final scores: South Gambier 13.5.83 defeated Casterton-Sandford 2.7.19
Our Cats never stopped trying but South were the fitter team on the day, Coach Forbes and his team will appreciate the weekend off from footy and be fit and raring to go after the Kelpie Festival long weekend. North Gambier will be our next opponent, at Island Park on 18 June.
WBFL – Under 14
ON A very bleak morning at Blue Lake Sports Park, our young Cats started the match very well.
Jett Lykke completed some great desperate acts in defence and saved a certain South goal early, the first quarter was very even, with neither team managing to get on top.
South scored the first goal before Jack Rhook launched a long kick from 50 into an open goal square.
With no South players in sight the Cats crowd was confident the ball would dribble through the big sticks, but unfortunately South chased down our open forwards, Ayden Nolte and Blake Kurzman, in the goal square and it was a touched point only.
South got the ball back in their forward line and a touched point was reciprocated at the other end.
This next play was one of our better ones for the day.
As he did all day, Reghan Parsons’ precision kick out to Jaggar Geary, marking strongly, then delivered out on the wing to Archie Lane, who then passed to Jack Rhook, Jack turned and hit up his leading cousin, Jedd Rhook who marked 40 out in front of goals.
This was one of two Cats’ excellent forward entries in the quarter where South did not manage to touch the footy.
Jedd kicked a lovely long goal to even the score just before quarter-time - South 1.1.7, Cats 1.1.7.
Coach Kurzman asked for a little improvement of communication in defence, talk about who is going up to bring the ball to ground and also that we looked a bit flat-footed in the contest, but other than that an excellent first quarter.
Brody Pratt had a solid four-quarter-effort for the day and followed on his form from last week, Connor Stephens, Archie Lane and Jedd Rhook running on the ball all took a lot of hard hits in contests and were working overtime and laying some brilliant tackles.
Sam Patton was getting to every contest and marking strongly around the ground.
Reghan Parsons saved several sure goals with desperate tackling in defence.
Jaggar Geary was excellent all day in the last line of defence and in the first five minutes of the second quarter took four intercept marks deep in the backline.
Although we had a lot of the play we didn’t manage to score, whereas South did.
Billy Rhook, as usual, was throwing his body into contests and tackling hard, Billy downed a larger opponent who got called for holding the ball and was kicking into the forward 50, where Nate Longhurst marked strongly and turned to go when the siren sounded – a couple seconds too early as we were threatening to score again.
At half-time Cats were 21 points down.
Half-time instructions from the coach were to push back harder off the mark and man-up in the backline, find a player and stick to them.
And then the heavens opened and it literally poured rain for most of the second half.
The two girls, Kirby Vise and Krystal Collier, worked their butts off in the backline in tough, slippery conditions, but they kept attacking the footy.
Rupert Dorahy also chased hard to impact contests.
Riley Hutchins’ work rate on the wing was great all morning.
Late in the third quarter, Lachie Auld and Ayden Nolte found themselves with the footy deep in the forward pocket, they managed to centre it where Billy Rhook roved the ball, when it hit the deck and got open to snap, but unfortunately it went through the wrong side of the goal post and that point was our last score for the morning.
At three-quarter time cats were 30 points down.
In the last quarter our team tried their best to hold the wet footy up, diving on the ball as much as possible to stop South’s flow, but this was the only quarter where it felt South actually got on top of us in general play, even though the scoreboard said otherwise.
We failed to score and South added another three goals, three points.
So, the actual scoreline didn’t really reflect how well our kids battled it out against the top side. Final scores - South 8.11.59, Cats 1.2.8.
