The Old Dark Navy's
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Another game, another loss. Business as usual perhaps? Nod my head and acknowledge the opposition's victory ...... arrggghh bugger it!!!! The football god's have screwed us once again. For the third year in a row, injuries have sabotaged our season.
Okay so we were doing a good enough job of sabotaging our own season in the first month but it might pay to remember that our boys were also knocked around a bit against Port and failed to run the game out. Today against the Roos, old mother Britts went to the cupboard and found that it was bare yet again.
The Blues started the match in scintillating fashion with the first three goals and five for the quarter. The fluency with which they were moving the ball had me more excited than I have been in a long long time. A bit of a worry when 'The Pup took on a big dog in Mick Martyn and came out with a knee injury that saw him take no further part in the match and possibly quite a few to come. Well and good, we will have to overcome. Right? Wrong! One thing we were lacking this year was some genuine class from Scott Camporeale. Well in the first quarter today, he was absolutely killing the Roos and racking up quality possessions at will. B.O.G honours coming up .... well no, another first quarter injury, this time what looked like a hamstring and the Blues were two quality runners short. As if that wasn't going to be tough enough, the hardest of them all, Adrian Hickmott went down with what looked like the most innocent of broken arms. Our bench was gone, the players on the field were going to have to do it themselves and our immediate future was more dire than expected.
The Roos ran riot in the second quarter with five consecutive goals and Carlton were only able to stay in touch by virtue of Matthew Lappin's return to form which produced three goals for the half.
I fully expected the Blues to come out refreshed and firing in the third quarter and that they did, booting six goals to five for the quarter and going in to the final break only four points down. Lappin booted another two to have five to three quarter time but Corey McKernan who had been quite reasonable in the middle of the ground made sure that the Blues had finally exhausted any respite they could get from the pine. The inflexible set up meant that second gamer Luke Livingston had to try to negate big Sav Rocca and it appeared that the task was too much for him. Brett Ratten also went off injured but came back on to replace Corey in a case of who was in more need of recuperation.
A Roo friendly bounce of the ball gave Spider Burton the most unlikely run at goal. Three more goals followed and the game was gone. Houlihan and Lappin gave some cheek before King and Rocca blew the lead back out again. Two more Blue goals in 'junk' time gave the Blues their first 100+ score this season and gave us what was an honourable 19 point losing margin.
Special mention once again should go to our band of young players who are going to do something special with this club in the years to come. So, Trent Sporn, Simon Wiggins, Andrew Merrington, David Gallagher, and to some extent Luke Livingston, all I can say is, keep up the good work thus far. Certainly makes these tough times worth watching.
The fact remains though that it was one game where a win was a must and anything else was going to hurt more than anything this year. And hurt it does. I don't care about diplomacy or good sportsmanship right now. If injuries hadn't have taken out three prime movers in the first quarter and deprived us of some relief from the interchange bench, the result would have been vastly different. We had the run of play and our tail's up and most importantly, the willingness to try our guts out. In short, we would have prevailed easily.
Would have, could have, should have. We didn't and now face a wooden spoon confrontation against a Dogs side who will have more on deck than we will. Can we lift again? Will we have any fit players left? Time to do some planning and see if we can do a St Kilda to overcome our run of bad luck.
Another game, another loss. Business as usual perhaps? Nod my head and acknowledge the opposition's victory ...... arrggghh bugger it!!!! The football god's have screwed us once again. For the third year in a row, injuries have sabotaged our season.
Okay so we were doing a good enough job of sabotaging our own season in the first month but it might pay to remember that our boys were also knocked around a bit against Port and failed to run the game out. Today against the Roos, old mother Britts went to the cupboard and found that it was bare yet again.
The Blues started the match in scintillating fashion with the first three goals and five for the quarter. The fluency with which they were moving the ball had me more excited than I have been in a long long time. A bit of a worry when 'The Pup took on a big dog in Mick Martyn and came out with a knee injury that saw him take no further part in the match and possibly quite a few to come. Well and good, we will have to overcome. Right? Wrong! One thing we were lacking this year was some genuine class from Scott Camporeale. Well in the first quarter today, he was absolutely killing the Roos and racking up quality possessions at will. B.O.G honours coming up .... well no, another first quarter injury, this time what looked like a hamstring and the Blues were two quality runners short. As if that wasn't going to be tough enough, the hardest of them all, Adrian Hickmott went down with what looked like the most innocent of broken arms. Our bench was gone, the players on the field were going to have to do it themselves and our immediate future was more dire than expected.
The Roos ran riot in the second quarter with five consecutive goals and Carlton were only able to stay in touch by virtue of Matthew Lappin's return to form which produced three goals for the half.
I fully expected the Blues to come out refreshed and firing in the third quarter and that they did, booting six goals to five for the quarter and going in to the final break only four points down. Lappin booted another two to have five to three quarter time but Corey McKernan who had been quite reasonable in the middle of the ground made sure that the Blues had finally exhausted any respite they could get from the pine. The inflexible set up meant that second gamer Luke Livingston had to try to negate big Sav Rocca and it appeared that the task was too much for him. Brett Ratten also went off injured but came back on to replace Corey in a case of who was in more need of recuperation.
A Roo friendly bounce of the ball gave Spider Burton the most unlikely run at goal. Three more goals followed and the game was gone. Houlihan and Lappin gave some cheek before King and Rocca blew the lead back out again. Two more Blue goals in 'junk' time gave the Blues their first 100+ score this season and gave us what was an honourable 19 point losing margin.
Special mention once again should go to our band of young players who are going to do something special with this club in the years to come. So, Trent Sporn, Simon Wiggins, Andrew Merrington, David Gallagher, and to some extent Luke Livingston, all I can say is, keep up the good work thus far. Certainly makes these tough times worth watching.
The fact remains though that it was one game where a win was a must and anything else was going to hurt more than anything this year. And hurt it does. I don't care about diplomacy or good sportsmanship right now. If injuries hadn't have taken out three prime movers in the first quarter and deprived us of some relief from the interchange bench, the result would have been vastly different. We had the run of play and our tail's up and most importantly, the willingness to try our guts out. In short, we would have prevailed easily.
Would have, could have, should have. We didn't and now face a wooden spoon confrontation against a Dogs side who will have more on deck than we will. Can we lift again? Will we have any fit players left? Time to do some planning and see if we can do a St Kilda to overcome our run of bad luck.
