Hi All,

Last Saturday we headed out to Gaza to take on Gaza in our Round 4 clash.

Unfortunately, for the first time this year, we experienced some omissions due to COVID and other illness etc in the lead in. This proved for a challenging Friday/ Saturday morning for us as coaches.

However, our depth really shone through and we had 3 A grade debutants once again. Riley Talbot played his first game after some great early season form in the B grade and played a very serviceable game. Riley got better and better as the game went on. New to the club, Patrick Winter was a Saturday morning call up. We went with Patty because we were extremely impressed with his intensity and attack on the ball. That came through early in the game, Pat had a great first half and was somewhat influential in our half time lead.

Last but not least, Lachlan Tredwell, a member of our premiership winning Under 17.5 side from 2021 come into the side and had a ripper kicking 5 goals and was influential in many others. Unfortunately Lachie heads back to school footy this week to play for Immanuel First 18. He is a star of the future both on and off the field!

On to the game.

We set the tone early, our midfield started well and were winning the clearances. Small forwards like Will Papatolis and Luke Taylor were applying great pressure in our forward half.

At half time we led by 9 goals, I thought our second quarter was the best footy we have seen in 2 years. To me, it looked like everything we had been working on was coming through.

Gaza responded in the 3rd quarter, we knew they would. They came out after the break and tested our contested work, an area in which we pride ourselves on.

We spoke about a few of the basics of the game at ¾ time and delivered in the last quarter kicking 10 goals to 0.

Best players were familiar faces in Henry Papatolis, Tom Derham, Dylan Morton, Todd Lewis and of course 5 goal start Lachlan Tredwell.

On to Adelaide Uni at home this week, it sounds simple but we just need to keep winning and keep refining our game.

See you at the footy!

Minnas