Under 13's - Blue

Only the best teams play in the finals and that clearly showed today.  Close for ALL of the game - our St Marys boys were accounting for the opposition everywhere. 

It was just the last 90 seconds of desperate Whitehorse attack in their crowded forward line that stole a couple of quick behinds to hit the front.  Then a goal in 15 seconds before the siren sealed it.

Be proud of this group because I am very Proud - Rick.

Quite typical of finals, a fantastic contest for two quality teams and truly great entertainment for the crowd!  Discipline in all aspects of the game, run, tackles, play on, marking, shepherd's and talk.

 

Now for one more...... one game at a time..

Congratulations to Canterbury today for the efforts of those who played.  Unfortunately, undermanned then injury couldn't have helped with the team structure but everyone still battled on.

We evened up on the ground but the team still functioned beautifully although the pressure was certainly on "Wol" running the interchange.

The Ivanhoe coaches comments after the game about the way we...."function as a team"..... is all that needs to be said.

Great work everyone!

Followed every single instruction for the whole game!!!  What a coaches dream.

Didn't falter at any time.

Well done Harrison for skillfullly working the changes and not accepting any bribes from the players on the bench.

Good luck with the washing machine and the muddy clothes!!!

Weren't many lulls during this game and the great result is what we got for it.  All over the ground we had winners and the word TEAM appeared again.  Congratulations everyone including all the off field helpers every week.

The "one percenters" won the game for us today.  Very windy conditions that clearly favoured one end all day meant that the little things we did would get us across the line.  Fitzroy came home very strongly in the last - but were halted by our "one percenters".

 A smart win today.

We were a little ragged in the first quarter and weren't following the game plan.  May have been a little confused with opposition short of players and our players filling in for them. 

Better effort in the second and an even contest in the third had us up by 2 points at the last change. 

Then we went BANG and worked as the "well-oiled" machine should work.  Great drive from the centre clearances to strong marking forwards.

We tried players in new positions today and found out how well this team adapts to change.  Very proud of the effort today and it was clearly due to the "one percenters" we so often hear about........ all of them gave us a 100% effort.

Well done and a special thank you to J.P. and the Taggart family for being part of this special group!!!

 

Against a quality team this week and 5 players out, we thought the odds were stacked against us.  It did look like that in the first half but the second half saw us become the quality team.  The third term showed we were the better team and although we ran out of legs in the last - no one game up!  Thanks for not giving up and well done in the end.

Maybe our minds weren't on the job for the full game.... that was an absolute necessity against this very strong team.  All starts again at training this week and with a good attitude at training we'll definitely do better!  No more push ups!

Lessons learned from previous weeks really paid off today!  Against a top side with 5 wins, we changed our game plan into something that was very different.  What a wonderful bunch of players I have the pleasure of coaching - they immediately played with the new plan and succeeded.  Never has the work TEAM meant so much as today.

Close encounter to go down by 7 points.  Maybe dropped our guard in the 3rd quarter to let them back into the game and that was the difference.  Thanks again to all who have been giving me support at training and game day.  This support is clearly contributing to the kids development.

What we've learned from other sides over the last three games showed up in our game today.  Against Fitzroy today we had some brilliant passages of handball, taking on the opponents, side stepping them and delivery of the footy with great long kicking. The most encouraging thing was the team knew when it wasn't working well at times and everyone lifted to get our game back on track - I like this team!!!

Looked like the lack of running on our behalf was the difference between the sides today.  Ashburton had no interchange for the game but still ran with the ball better than us and also ran to space better than us - we can work on that.

However, when clear instructions were made to counter the opposition, we really did play well.  Just need to keep it up for the whole game.  We've learned something new today so we can improve.

Up against a team that had some tall, bigger bodied players, we tended to play a little loose in the first and third quarter.  Second and final quarters saw better team play.  In particular the final quarter saw some of the best passages of handball, short passing nd running to score our first goal and a quick fire second and third.

Attack at the footy, discipline following instructions and unselfish play all over the ground - the 4 factors to winning todays game.  Well done to all.  Keep this up for the season and we will be winners!  Team is the best way to describe the game - well done.