By Richard Foote 

Coming off two consecutive losses in the ballpark of 100-120 points where we kicked a total of six goals, it was difficult to go into this week’s game v Beaumaris with a real level of confidence. But to the credit of the entire Club, we had a fantastic week on the track and spirits remained high as we took on the boys from the beach in this must win clash. A triple-header at our first game back at home was a great way to get the boys back on track.

Another few changes this week saw the long awaited return of Cody Royle for his first game at Pressure Park, Mayzi after a hamstring strain and Ben Gross, playing for his third team in as many weeks. After progressing from not playing at all, to the Club XVIII, to the reserves then the seniors, Grossy is looking to get a game for Collegians in A-grade next week, followed by a run at Sandringham in the VFL, then for the Cats at the MCG in a few weeks time. After being picked as the AFL All-Australian forward pocket Grossy plans to play against Ireland and hopes to be picked for the All-Earth side in the upcoming Inter-Planetary Carnival (IPC) then hopefully reaching his goal of representing the Milky Way in the Inter-Galactic Challenge (IGC). One week at a time though Ben. Schrothy, Eddie Kalaja and Cam made way for the inclusions and all excelled at reserves/unders level.

With a strong focus on playing accountable, pressure football you could sense an increased concentration and intensity right from the start on Saturday. Whilst we failed to kick the first goal as we had spoken about, we replied quickly to their opening major and piled on the next few to lead at quarter time by 20 odd points. The pressure remained strong in the second quarter and we headed into the rooms at half time 44 points up. Nobby continued his good form in the ruck and a couple of giant kids with really long arms called Callum and Sean were putting on a fine show in the forward line. Strainy was leading the way down back taking control of the kick outs and shutting down a heap of their forward attacks.

Beaumaris were always going to come back at us and in the third quarter they applied the pressure with 13 scoring shots to four. Thankfully our scoring shots totaled three goals one while theirs totaled four goals nine. A mixture of good finishing by us and some relentless pressure was good to see but the fact remains they had the majority of the play in this quarter and we were probably a bit lucky to be leading by 30 points at three quarter time.

They had more chances early in the last but after they wasted a few opportunities, we tightened the screws and finished with another four goals in the last to run out 36 point winners, a good reward for some hard work and more disciplined football. A highlight of the last term being the Slevolution flying high to take a specky in the goal square, then booting through a goal which actually knocked a jockey off his mount as he settled mid-field at the 1400 in the last at Caulfield. Protest upheld.

Without mentioning too many individual performances, it was fantastic to see Hammo back in the scintillating form we have become accustomed to seeing, absolutely unstoppable all day. But it was genuinely a great performance across the board and if we are to win more games like that this year, we will need 22 contributors all day long.

So now we turn to Old Camberwell. Clearly a formidable line up yet they have struggled a bit early in the season. We should be expecting to face a team desperate for a win this weekend, as we were against Beaumaris, and must match our pressure and hard work or risk undoing all our good work. Let’s have a good week on the track, remember how good it feels to have a win and do it all again this weekend.

Go Fields.