Under 9 Gold
An impressive layer of frost greeted us this week, but at least there was no wind and rain!
The last time we played Greensborough White it was an evenly run contest – and as expected this week was no different.
To get focused for this week’s game I viewed a bootleg copy of last week’s game shot from high on the Research Oval hill (BTW what a fantastic place to play football). It was a bit like watching ants scurrying across a table whilst dealing with intermittent motion sickness. Thankfully however this time the appointed family member camera operator understood the red light means ‘Recording’ and no red light means ‘Not Recording’. (Anyone wanting to watch swaying footage of the ground and sky immediately before and immediately after I undertook my once in a lifetime ride in a Glider…..just let me know).
We had not really changed our groups of five for the last three weeks. Therefore, the team was shifted around, with a balance of good kickers, good markers, good runners and good tacklers spread evenly across the zones.
We took a slightly different approach this week – setting some individual challenges for the boys. Here’s the results:-
| No. | Name | Objective | Results |
| 2 | Oliver | Lead and take a Mark. | Multiple leads/marks. Smashed it in the last Quarter. |
| 3 | Noah B | Run with the ball and kick it. | Started as a ‘mid’ with a group that got plenty of the ball. Nice lead to a Elliott kick into the forward line late in the game. |
| 8 | Lamech | Take two marks. | Tenacious chest marker and ball getter. Great game. Awarded the Opposition Coach’s medal. |
| 9 | Jonah | Kick the ball long toward a Cougars player who gets the ball. | Booming left footer. Succeeded with a good evasive move on the boundary to keep the ball in play. |
| 13 | Lucien | At least two BIG Bear hug tackles | Also got into some big wrestles for the ball. |
| 14 | Charlie | Kick the ball to a Cougars player twice. | The coach got it wrong – this was waaay too easy for Charlie. |
| 16 | Milo | Win a ruck hit out getting the ball to a Cougars player. | Exhibited his rucking potential. Took a nice mark and kicked to our forward line. |
| 17 | Luke | Gut Running. Use opposite foot or hand at least once. | Yep. Nice left foot on the wing and nearly got a snap goal off his left too! |
| 18 | Harvey S | Lots of leading and calling for the ball. | Co-captain this week. Generated shots on goal due to his great running and positioning. |
| 19 | Elliott | Pick the ball off the ground and get a kick or handball away. | Also got a fabulous snap goal off a sweet pick up. |
| 21 | Will | Take a mark and kick it to a player who marks it. | Added a snap goal to excite our fans in the first 2 minutes. |
| 26 | Harvey M | Get the ball out of the pack. | Pulled in some marks. Got the ball multiple times. |
| 29 | Noah S | Have a run with the ball and get it to a Cougars player. | Earned a free kick when he set off on one of his famous runs. |
| 40 | Sammy | At least two handballs. | Also a great chase to catch an opposition player. |
| 46 | Tom M | Stop an opposition player getting the ball at least once. | Co-captain this week. Intercepted the ball with a mark. Iced the game with a late goal. |
| 5 | Tom F | Out | On loan to the Under 10’s this week – transferred his good form in the Under 9’s to the Under 10’s. |
| 1 | Daniel | Out | |
| 23 | Tyler | Out |
Cam will send out an email but as a FYI training is CANCELLED this week – the next training will be Wednesday, 12th July, 2017.
Regards,
Paul Daffey
Assistant Coach Under 9’s Cougars Gold
GO COUGARS!!
Under 12G
What a match it was today for all involved with U12G Cougars team. Both Nigel & I were so focused on the match it felt like 5 minute quarters, instead of 12. Although we lost 9.10-64 to nil, we have really improved since last playing this unbeaten team (early in the year the score was 117-0).
The girls really rallied hard today starting from the ruck. Faydia was awesome in her hunger for the ball. As always she will not stop until the ball is out of her reach. I would love to know the number of possessions Faydia had today. Tackled, ran, kicked, handballed, marked. I think there was a scoring opportunity for Faydia too, after a mark just out of the goal square. Alas no luck with the kick at goal, more practise needed! More support in the midfield from Chloe K and Emily getting the ball out of the centre with their kicking and running. Chloe P also had some good touches to help the ball come over our way. Great to have Aaliyah back attacking the ball & Holly getting more confident to gather & run. Raghda and Myeesha charged through the pack several times to get the ball on the way to our forward half. Great to see them both attacking the ball, and Raghda with some great tackles. We still need to be careful with the swing and high tackles, but the majority were within the rules. Agnes was Captain for the day, I think in her last game for the year. Thanks Agnes, hope to see you in 2018. Some great clearances by Thea today. She always does her best when the ball is within reach. Glad to see she came away uninsured today. I think the girls are getting better at protecting themselves, which is vital in this game, and something Jess Dal Pos also mentioned at Wednesday’s training. Danika & Tash did well in defence & on the wing, we were just up against a team that ran hard all day. This is something that the team needs to focus on for next year. Zahra also played well, in either her last or 2nd last game, hope to see you next season too! Everyone chipped in today, including the forward line (when the ball got down there). So close to scoring, and I have to say thanks to the girls from Diamond Creek, especially Emma & Brianna who led some of the attacks on behalf of the Cougars in the second half. They were up 51 points at half time and only managed to score 13 more points by full time.
A big credit to our team! Diamond Creek coaches commented on the vast improvement from our game earlier in the season.
3 more games to go, all home games from July 16, so lets make a special effort for our last 3 games.
Thanks again to the volunteers on the day. Incl Emily’s brother Pete for doing water runs in the first half & providing me with some advice & tactics..A budding coach no doubt!
Go Cougars.
Chris & Nigel
Under 14G
Hi Girls,
Well done on getting another close win against another tough team. There are simply no easy games in the blue division. It wasn’t our best game today which lead to a grumpy coach… We still aren’t running as hard as we can as a team and our concentration levels really need to improve. I really felt disappointed as a result of you not running, as you are making it hard for your teammates. Instead of being in a one on one contest, too many times it was 1 v 2 or 1 v 3 s and teams that care about each other don’t bludge (apparently this is an old man term and means lazy for the girls who don’t know) on their mates! It’s not just who we are and I am not going to accept lazy football. Please make sure you understand why I got angry as opposed to my delivery at 3 quarter time. As I spoke to you before the game, I want you to play for each other not with each other. We will discuss it at training Wednesday week but I don’t want to do that again, I felt I had to, but its embarrassing…
Now the good stuff and don’t worry there was plenty of great work today and not by the usual suspects. A few weeks ago I had a chat to Mia about the need for her to improve her tackling and today she laid the biggest and hardest tackle against the biggest and hardest Wallan girl, it was just awesome.
Norma showed the desperation that we have to show and chased down a really quick girl, sprinting for 100 metres as a midfielder into our backline to lay another amazing tackle, she has been simply awesome over the last few matches! That’s the effort that I want to see from all of our girls! Olive again provided us with another, “ Was that Olive?” moments by turning into wonder woman, picking the ball up at pace, sprinting and bouncing with the ball then following her kick and laying a Mia like tackle! And what about that match saving mark by Charlie in the dying minutes, under immense pressure, she was cool as a cucumber and literally saved the day for us, well done Charlie.
These were all sensational highlights but I want more from Mia, Charlie, Olive, Norma and more from the rest of the team because I truly believe you have better football in you! Don’t for a second think that I don’t think this team is amazing and I’m extremely proud of everyone of you, but with that belief comes expectations and standards that you have established from playing some great footy to this point. We were ordinary last week and so so today, this team must continue to improve because that’s what good teams do. I believe you are a good team so that is what you will do, get better as individuals and exponentially as a team.
All my superstars were great today, I have very high expectations of you and remember I have an obligation to challenge you, I wouldn’t be doing my job if i didn’t. Ellouise, Chloe W (who is leading the comp goal kicking, despite giving them a 3 game head start), Mahrosh (with one hand), Christina, Jasmine, Antonia (who will stop saying can’t) and Norma were huge today, with our inside pack work our real strength!
Thanks very much to all our volunteers, its such a long way to go…
If the girls want to train this week they are welcome to join in with the under 14 boys team on Tuesday night from 6pm to 7pm, Rick again has offered to come down and help with the kicking skills, this is so important so please make an effort to get down to training if you are in town. Thanks heaps Rick for doing the skills work, its so important.
Go Cougars!!!
Steve