Premier Division Men with thanks to Pennant Hills Toyota
(PH 8.11.59 loss to UTS Bats 10.5.65)

UTS put on a fabulous day for Ladies’ day creating a great vibe at Trumper.

Pennant Hills started the game with intent and pressurising the Bats however didn’t place the scoreboard pressure on as they deserved.

The second quarter was all the Bats kicking 4.4 to no score as they kicked away into halftime. Pennant Hills were lacking the same intent and will to win the contest however an optimistic response was on the cards.

The 3^rd quarter was much the same as the second, with Harry Maguire thrown to CHB he stemmed the Bat’s flow with intercept marks however the Bats left PH off the hook with inaccuracy and PH kicked a couple going into 3-quarter time to give the group some hope.

However, it wasn’t to be, the Bats responded to any challenge in the last quarter running away with the game and sending PH on their way with their 3^rd loss on the trot.

No doubt will be a big week on the track with North Shore this week. There is no time to respond like the present.

Premier Division Women
(PH loss 2.5.17 to UTS Bats 8.8.56)

Coming off our best win of the season against Inner West, we knew we were back in finals contention and had a lot to bring from the previous game. We had 8 changes to the team due to unavailabilities and injury, including a new debutant in backman Sophie Leonard.

UTS beat us in points last game, but we had greater scoring opportunities, and lost due to missing our chances. This round however, was the opposite, and even though we had a good start, it was UTS who fired all the shots from the 2nd quarter onwards.

We had some great pieces of ball movement in the first quarter, particularly coming from Kaity “Sticky” Noble and Ruggy out to Liz Gordon for some strong forward deliveries. This was our only quarter coming out on top, and it was consistency we wanted to focus on as we had the prior week.

Q2 saw us give away too many free kicks to the opposition for various reasons, and this brought them ahead of our score. An untimely injury to Sticky early in the quarter was also unfortunate for us.

Q3 and 4 saw us attempt to fight back, but our lack of communication with one another was one of our downfalls. UTS however, were a fast team and often outran our players. Tayla Duguid was great with her tackling, as was Madi Hare in the ruck, and Maddy Brown and Kaitlin Quinlan in the backline spoiling as much as they could.

Daniel Fiedler – Premier Division Women’s Coach

Premier Division Reserves 
(PH 15.9.99 defeated UTS Bats 8.11.59)

Goal Kickers: M Kunigiskis 2, J Rene 2, B Thompson 1, M Collins 1, O Williams 1, S Zikman 1, J Mortimer 1, J Hamilton 1, H Elbourne 1, M Trenaman 1, O Nockles 1, J Cousens 1, J Carroll 1
Best: R Pinker, J Rene, M Collins, O Williams, M Kunigiskis, O Nockles
Players Player: O Williams

After a fairly even first two quarters we managed to get the game on our terms in the third quarter and pretty much controlled the game for the rest of the day.

Although we seemed to have most of the play, some crucial turnovers kept them close and until we cleaned that up, we couldn’t really be confident that we’d come away with the win.

Our defence was solid and although our midfield was well on top when going forward, we needed to work harder moving back and help the backline when the opposition were going forward.

Our forward line functioned pretty well with help on the scoreboard from the mids and even the backs. We had thirteen different goalkickers for our 15 goals.

Although the top 3 of Sydney Uni, North Shore and ourselves looks fairly set at the moment, we need to keep winning and have North Shore this week and Sydney Uni two weeks later.

With the unfortunate “match ratio” determining ladder position due to washouts, we could find ourselves fighting to stay in the top five, let alone top 3, by the time we get to the Round 15 bye.

Beating North Shore this week will be the statement we need to make to the rest of the competition.

David Pinker – Premier Division Reserves Coach

Division 2 Women
(PH 3.2.20 loss to UNSW 4.5.29)

Coming up against UNSW for the first time this season we knew it was going to be a tough contest. The first quarter we were very congested and didn’t manage to create space from the contest while UNSW were terrific with their hands out the back. Our defence was under lots of pressure and managed to hold firm. We kicked a goal against the run of play and stayed in the contest only down by 2 points.

The second quarter was more of the same, we struggled to get momentum moving forward and to hit our targets, while UNSW were able to run and carry and get the ball forward with purpose. Again, our defence held up against the barrage and we were down at the half by only 7 points.

In the third quarter we started to move the ball better and began to break away from contests, but still struggled to convert on the scoreboard. We managed to continue this improvement into the fourth quarter and played a whole new game style. Hitting targets, using hands out and putting pressure on UNSW for the first time in the game. This created opportunities for us and we managed to kick some goals late.

We suffered our first loss of the season going down by 9 points to a strong UNSW team. There are improvements we can make to our game style to improve our movement forward. We will recoup at training this week and come out stronger next week.

Jed Corbett – Division 2 Women’s Coach

Division 3 Men
(PH 4.4.27 loss to UTS Bats 8.11.59)

This was a crucial game for the Div 3 Men’s team against UTS who sat 2 points behind us as we enter the 2^nd half of this gripping season. The weather was a balmy 14 degrees at Waverley Oval, the wind was neutral and the boys were pumped. We had a strong squad and needed a good 1^st quarter to get a win, as this has been our achilles heel all season.

Chris Bloom, who has elevated his game to a new level started aggressively wrapping up his direct opponent in the opening stanza, and was ably assisted by the ever-improving Morgan Hide and our backline rock in Andrew McKinnon. Lukey Bray was also back and playing in his new role across half back. This kid ran the ball out of defence with pace and delivered with precision, enough to make John Longmire take a look at him for a late mid-season draft (if such a beast exists).

An early injury to key forward Oskar Raue depleted the ranks somewhat, however, Duckie Morris, ruckman-come-centre half forward, Pat Hull and Harry Patchett kept UTS honest with some neat interplay and constant pressure.

UTS did however possess plenty of experience up front and they challenged us in the first half with a couple of quick goals. They also had a resolute backman named Reuben Pannu who made multiple intercept marks and maintained a resolute defence against whatever we threw at him (more on this guy later).

Not to be outdone, Josh Everett was again a rock in the midfield and delivered cleanly to our forwards like Jordan Rohr and in the 3^rd quarter, Josh Ward conducted some stellar inter-play with Zac Baglin who lowered his eyes from 55m out and hit the versatile Conor Hogan on the chest with a spearing delivery. Conor, calm as you like, slotted his first goal and we were in the hunt with one quarter to play.

We needed everything to go our way in the final quarter. The playing group demanded a higher level from each other and again, Chris Bloom stepped up with immense tackle pressure and a commanding voice to rally his troops. Alex Rashleigh, Matty Arcuili and Rod Vowell were steady alongside Bloomy, with Vowell making late tackle after late tackle to confuse the bench and upset the opposition – it’s what he does best so let it run I say!

Ultimately we ran out of gas and UTS claimed a hard fought victory. They are a strong side, however, I am confident we can overturn this result when we meet them later in the season.

In regard to the aforementioned Reuben Pannu from UTS, what a gentleman. After the game, he found the time to see me and tell me how impressed he was with 1^st year player Sam Rice. Reuben passed on some advice for Sam and was very generous in his praise of how Sam went about his game. It’s moments like these where you really appreciate why we play this wonderful game. We can play as hard as we like, but at the end of the day, we’re all doing this for enjoyment and to get the most out of ourselves and our teammates, but that doesn’t have to come at a cost of disrespecting the opposition who are also in the game for the same reasons as us. Credit to Reuben and his club.

Thanks again to our wonderful club sponsors including Eylex, Dream Plumbing & Gas and Pennant Hills Toyota whose support and generosity keep our dreams alive.

Nigel Blow – Division 3 Men’s Coach

Division 3 Women
(PH 1.5.11 defeated North Shore 1.0.6)

This weekend we became the giant killers by knocking off the undefeated North Shore Bombers! That’s right, from 6th place, we beat the team that is ahead of us on the ladder by 14 points and 750%. I have never seen us play such a cohesive game and it was fantastic to see the girls put in such a huge effort and hold on for a thrilling victory.

The game started off with a stalemate in the first quarter – neither team scored but our pressure on the opposition was immense. Jasmine Blow continued from last week with absolute ruck dominance and was quick to provide first use to our midfielders. The quarter was an arm wrestle that gave our girls the belief that we could really put up a fighting chance against the best team in the comp.

The second quarter saw both teams score their only goal, the Bombers scored first with a classy linking play from the far wing that resulted in a deep entry inside 50 which they managed to convert. Not to be discouraged, our girls managed to extract the ball from our midfield and send it deep into our forward line where it would remain for the remainder of the quarter which resulted in 3 behinds and a goal to Katie Wellfare that gave us the lead going into the long break.

The girls took that same belief into the third where we continued to apply pressure and grind away at the opponent – Maddie MD was awesome through the midfield, laying more tackles than the entire Bombers outfit combined. Conversely Bee, Flemo and Jesse were waltzing through their opponents like they were witches hats. The defensive line were formidable in their ability to repel the ball from deep in our defence and stop our opponents scoring when they were adjacent to our goals.

The fourth quarter we showed some early jitters which saw North Shore create a few opportunities deep, but once again our back six held up – credit to Bee, Clauds, Gurks, Kate, Rachel and Sam for playing the desperate footy that allowed us to extract it from our backline. We then marched the ball up to our forward line with further ruck brilliance from Jaz and managed to lock it in largely thanks to our forwards doing the 1% efforts – particularly Maddi GM whose repeat efforts were on show!

Congratulations again to all of the girls on their brilliant effort – I hope it shows you that we can really go far in this competition and mix it with the best teams!

Nick de Gorter – Division 3 Women’s Coach

Under 19’s
(PH 8.12.60 loss to UTS Bats 10.5.65)

Under 19’s took on UTS at Trumper Park Saturday morning which we knew would be a tight contest on their big day.

The boys started really strong, winning the ball out of our midfield, Tait, Stormy and Gillbee were strong all day. Our backs were also composed with really solid one-on-one work from Marcus Rickerby and Isaac Protogeros.

We led for the large majority of the contest but never confidently, missing a few simple chances early and were probably just 5% off with our disposal which hurt us.

After a solid 10 minutes from the Bats that saw them kick 3 goals and take the lead in that time period. The boys fought back gallantly but were taken down by 5 points. Which ended up being the number of scoring shots that we had over the bats. Felix Mole was our clear best on ground so well done to him.

We had our midseason review during the week and our goal was to be more consistent throughout, we absolutely did that so we will look to take that into North Shore this weekend

Joel Cousens – U19’s Coach

Round 12 Fixtures

This week sees a full schedule at home. This week is our local and loyal round. A highlight will be watching the junior club Aus-kick games at half time of the Premier Men’s and Women’s games. A free sausage sizzle and fruit juice will be available for them.

Events

The following is our calendar of confirmed events for Season 2022:

Rd 12 – 2nd July – Local and Loyal Round
Rd 14 – 16th July – Mental Health Round
Rd 15 – 23rd July – 50^th Anniversary Celebration (The Epping Club)
Rd 16 – 30th July – Partner’s Day
Rd 17 – 6th August – Demon Disco (The Underground – UTS)