Match Report - u11 Blacks vs Brighton Beach

Written by Nib 2 alias water bottle man alias Crock | 18 July 2011

Match Report

Brighton Beach vs St.Kilda City
Venue: Brighton Beach Oval

“A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.” Elbert Hubbard

Today we ventured down Beach Rd to take on the blue & white stripes of Brighton Beach. This was going to be a great challenge for us considering Brighton Beach had a higher ladder position & had swept aside our most recent opponents, Beaumaris Sharks, comfortably. The end result shows just how tight the competition is, for any team can give any other team a run for there money on any given day.
Brighton Beach won the toss & decided to kick with the advantage of the wind at the non city end in the 1st Quarter.

1st qtr. Our first score came early in the first quarter as big Oscar gave one of his regulation taps backwards to Joel who threw the ball onto his boot for a behind. It was a scrappy quarter and this actually played into our hands as by bottling the game up we only allowed Brighton Beach the opportunity to kick two behinds with the advantage of a wind at their backs. These conditions suited Bobby, who was working hard in tight & scrubbed a number of possessions forward for us, one lightning quick handball which nearly went undetected to the naked eye. It was also great to see Marco get a few touches in close & this has been a big improvement to his game. Declan took a really good mark to defend one of the many attacks as our defence stood firm. Adam, who normally finds himself in defence played a pivotal role up forward and looked dangerous on a number of occasions when the ball got pumped forward. Took one particularly strong mark which shows what he is capable of. Cam who was playing on a wing played his position well and found plenty of space when the ball did get kicked into space.
Score: Brighton Beach 0.2 – 2  St. Kilda City 0.1 - 1  


2nd qtr. Kicking with the wind in the second the boys hit the scoreboard early with Ollie putting his head over ball to win a well earned free kick, but unfortunately sent it the wrong side of the post for a behind. Then after toiling away for the majority of the quarter we finally kicked the first goal of the match with Joel winning a free kick for a good tackle & going back to put it between the big sticks this time. Again we were challenged as the opposition took the ball forward but it was to no avail as Declan again marked well & was ably supported by both Mac across half back & our fill in, Paddy who marked well & provided a goal saving effort right on the line. We then went forward again & after Ollie kicked long to the line Oscar marked & went back to slot our second for the quarter. A great feature of Oscar’s game is his ability to take pack marks with his arms well extended.  There was again a terrific bit of play where we moved the ball forward & Hugo got a great gather coming up at the footy & gave it to the runners working past. It was very good to see Elliot who had just got his appendix taken out on the sidelines helping Mick out and also cheering to try to get the boys over the line through lots of encouragement.
Score: Brighton Beach 0.2 – 2  St. Kilda City 2.3 – 15

3rd qtr. At the start of the quarter the boys should have put the ball through for behind after finding themselves under pressure deep in defence, but instead tried to keep the ball alive which resulted in a goal to the opposition. This was only a small lapse in concentration as the remainder of the quarter we made it extremely difficult for them to score. What made the task harder for our opposition was a couple of scores against the wind. Connor provided a bit of dash running the ball into the wind on a number of occasions and this allowed us to get the ball into a dangerous area for the opposition. Max contested a couple of important balls across half forward and this helped allow us to get numbers across to keep the ball in our forward line for a brief period when we were kicking into the wind. A behind resulted from a Curtis kick which Joel marked, then a fantastic ground gather by Bobby who sent the ball forward where Joel was awarded a free kick for in the back. Some of the most entertaining manning of the mark from the opposition tried to put him off. Harry was holding his width in the forward line, but then put on some good forward pressure to cause a turnover.
Score Brighton Beach 2.2 – 14 St. Kilda 3.4 – 22

4th qtr. In the final term there was some fantastic discipline shown by the boys as they set our defence and made sure the ball wasn’t going to get past the centre of the ground. This was led by Will, Declan, Mac and Cody. Cody displayed great courage to leave his man at one stage and made sure he kept the ball in front of him while Will worked over to support him like any good defender should. Zac provided some much needed ball use and kicked to Joel who marked but sent his kick the beach side of the goal post. Zac is a very clever player who can give the team some spark at times. Cam again did some very smart running to find space and really stepped up into a midfield role. Curtis worked tirelessly and showed enormous desperation to keep the ball going forward or to lock it in if the opposition looked to clear it. Even though Hugo didn’t find a lot of the ball he was still provided a strong target up forward. Oscar won an important ball and threw it on his boot and Ollie, who seems to get on the end of these sort of kicks regularly, marked on the siren and goaled.
Needless to say that the song was belted out with plenty of gusto.
Final Score Brighton Beach 2.2 – 14  were defeated by St. Kilda City 4.5 – 29

Hopefully the boys (and parents) learn some new football lingo.