On a Sunny Winters afternoon, we rocked up at Coral Sea for the afternoon kickoff
Being short a few players, the Over45s who had a bye,
volunteered to take up the challenge.
At the kickoff Redfern only had 10 players on the pitch,
allowing Maroubra to dominate the early exchanges but it wasn’t long until
their reinforcements arrived.
Maroubra managed to get a few early shots in but none were
on target so the keeper remained untested. From the 20 minute mark, Redfern
were starting to dominate and it took a number of last ditch challenges to keep
them at bay.
They took the lead when their influential midfielder (Jonas)
took a shot from the left of the area through a crowned defence, deflecting and
ending up in the far corner.
Soon after Maroubra won a corner which was perfectly floated
in and Russell beat the defence to get to the dropping ball, unfortunately the
Sun temperately blinded him. He still made a good contact with his shot just
scrapped the top of the bar and over. A Let off for Redfern.
At half time the talk was about raising our intensity and
winning the 50-50s but it was only 10 minutes into the second half when big
Jonas made another powerful run and blasted the ball from 25 yards, swerving
violently and nestling in the top left corner of the goal, unstoppable.
Redfern were on top now but we still managed to win some
freekicks and mount the odd solid attack, one of them resulting in Nelson
chipping the keeper on his line, 1-2.
The Redfern defence were now taking no chances and smashing
every ball clear while their midfield (with Snoopdog back from a 6 week layoff)
were now dominating.
Eventually a throughball over the central defence allowed
the Redfern striker to finished it all off. 1-3.
There were a number of yellow cards in the second half as
Redfern played to the limit of the laws at times but they were deserved winners
on the day.
However, we did manage to keep the Falcon off the scoresheet for once!
Thanks to Tom for the beers and who needs to submit his
player votes which was no easy task today (maybe start with -10 and work back
to see who is left!!)
Special Thanks to the Over45s for helping us out on the day.
Well, the season is really hotting up now with Pagewood A on
a winning streak and Waverly with 3 catchup games to schedule. Maroubra need to
refocus and push for that finals berth – Squeaky Bum Time!
Team Sheet:
John, Jason, Dennis, Russell, Rod, Keith, Napoleon, Wayne, Tom, Nelson, Scott Subs: Frank, Yossie, Stan, Joel
Great report Frank. Certainly a below par performance overall yesterday (& my worst game this season I think). We seemed to lose a lot of possession in midfield where Redfern's superior ball control kept us under constant pressure. I don't think it's any coincidence that our dip in form/intensity coincides with us having very few training sessions in the last month. So after this week's Origin, we need to see all fit players training solidly every Weds night. We have some tough games ahead & must lift to lock in a finals berth as the mid table has really opened up & given a few lower teams a glimmer of hope of making the top four. We really need to secure our spot before facing Waverley in the final round. Let's build on the good aspects of our play & push hard to the finish line. Cheers lads.
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts are we fought valiantly yesterday. When you go home after a loss I know we look over little bits and think it was bad and worse than it probably was. I do it.
ReplyDeleteWe are going as good if not better than we expected at the start of the comp. We got outplayed yesterday with a really reshuffled pack.
The tremoundous second half effort to lift up the hill and wind after we copped that second screamer was great. As bad and as disappointed as we were at the end, we were only 1-2 down against last years minor premiers and holding our own. We copped a 3rd late on, but that was only in the last few minutes.
This week we have a really tough game and need to lift our heads more than anything. We have a few out again Wayne so we need to confirm who is in quickly. I know Rod, Napoleon, Con, Peter are definitely away. Leo might be a doubt too after a long flight.
Den