Match Report

Round 05

Fitzroy U-14 Blue 12.11 (73) d Camberwell 3.3 (21) at Lyndon Park, May 9, 2010 Off to Shark Park for the Mother's Day match and the place was hopping with plenty of goodwill and fair sprinkling of sunshine. Garry Lyon and Matthew Knights were out and about, and the Sharks, as always, came with their helmets and a fair bit or pride. And wasn't it a tough old opening. The Sharks were two short, but they played liked they had two extra. There are some footy games where the scoreboard will only tell you half the story. This was one of them. For most of the first half, the Roys struggled to work themselves in to the game. It was scrappy and the Sharks cramped the Roys so much you'd have thought the Roys Boys owed them money. No surprise that the first scoring shots were points. But Lochie broke free and with his trademark dash and vision spotted Wiz on a lead, who went back and slotted it for the Roys' first. Moments later, a long bomb found Nix bringing the ball to ground where livewire Andre grabbed it and snaffled a major. When Patrick found Mo on the lead and he converted, the Roys had three and the quarter was over. It wasn't pretty football but the Roys were starting to shake off some of the Shark shackles. Kent started to get a bit of it when he came on early in the second quarter and then Wiz pumped one forward where Connor trapped it and goalled. Andre took off in the goal square to haul down a beauty and calmly popped it through to give the Roys a 35-point lead at half-time. A few inhospitable clouds came out to darken the day after the long break, but the Roys had slipped a gear and were starting to roll. The defence was superb: Al and Mu were fearless rebounding out of the half- back. It was the "wall'', and they could not be breached. They combined to find Lochie, who found Wiz for another goal to add to two others the boys had already registered for the quarter. Patrick went off after a brave smother left a decent impression of the footy on his throat and Lochie had to rest a damaged leg but Ahmed was swift and precise, cutting them up, while Josh did the important things quietly and effectively around the ground. Luke was outstanding, winning the hard ball, doing the difficult things, and showing why he's such a good recruit for the Roys. Then Jaquan, who'd had a great quarter, latched on to a loose ball coming out of the Shark defence to kick the Roys' fourth for the quarter. Camberwell pulled one back but the lead had stretched to 53 points coming in to the final quarter. Al won a free for a high tackle early in the final quarter and kicked the goal and then a strange thing happened: it was Howard Showtime. Sam Howard, who had been busy again, took off and found Sebastian Howard (no relation) who passed to Jaquan (his brother) who passed to Alex (not a Howard and not related to anyone else on the field), who then kicked the goal. Champagne footy? Well, if it's Under-14s, maybe Gatorade footy! The Sharks persevered and kicked two more goals, but Max, sent forward for the last quarter, grabbed the chance to kick the Roys' 12th and final goal of the day. It was, in the end, a solid win that finished up taking the Roys to second on the ladder. Nick Richardson

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