Round 10 Review
Seniors
11.7-73 MT LILYDALE def
9.14-68 MONASH GRYPHONS
Goal Kickers: M. Fletcher 4, D. Wills 4, L. Wells.
Best Players: M. Fletcher, N. Booth, D. Baxter, M. O”Neill, D. McConville.
Reserves
1.6-12 MT LILYDALE def by
15.19-109 MONASH GRYPHONS
Goal Kickers: M. Malone 4, E. Mitchell 3, L. Fisher 2, W. Pocock 2, M. Paolucci 2, T. Russell, M. Davies.
Best Players: E. Mitchell, B. Murphy, M. Davies, K. Love, E. Strain, T. Russell.
Review:
“Horses for courses” is an idiom much used in sporting parlance and means ‘what conditions are suitable for one, may not be suitable for another’. I cannot think of a more appropriate way of analysing Saturday’s narrow loss to the Mountain men. I’m sure if we had our time again, knowing we were about to plain on a Heavy 4, we would’ve gone in with a slightly different line up. It was clear in the “wash-up” that our opponents played more effective wet or heavy ground football and the Gryphs needed a couple of more “in and unders” in the starting 22 to counter this. I’m not suggesting for one minute that the 22 who represented us on Saturday gave us anything but their best, only that there may have been a better starting 22 to represent us given the heavy conditions.
Another aspect that many will look to was the fact we lost two players in the first term and effectively our entire bench by half time. But blaming injuries for a loss is a cop out. Full credit to all 44 players at Lilydale on Saturday as they gave us an excellent contest and let all the supporters ride a wave of emotion, especially in the final term where the lead changed on three occasions. Mt Lilydale won the battle, we must endeavour to win the war as it is likely to be the first of four key meetings between the two sides in 2010.
Amongst the Gryphons best were Matt Fletcher up forward, skipper Dan Baxter down back and on-ballers Daniel McConville and Nick Booth who relished the conditions. The Gryphons began well and had built up a handy lead half way through the second term until, The rams fought back to be 8 points down at the main break. Lilydale also had the better of the third term and held the slimmest of margin at lemon time, before a pulsating last quarter unfolded. The Rams got out to a 7 point lead, then Monash replied with several scoring shots that eventuated in 7 point lead to us. Alas, Lilydale refused to die and kicked the final two goals of the game, the last with six seconds left on the clock and ran out winners on the last clean possession of the day. We can only hope the next encounter in half as good.
Be sure to come down to ECR this Saturday for Rowdy’s 250th…
Photos:
Photos by Jake Zhivov. More photos can be found on the Gryphons Facebook page.