Round 12 Summary

Hidings all round was the order of the weekend, unfortunately we were on the receiving end of a couple of them and were only able to give out one. Before I get into that though, I'd firstly like to congratulate the girls that played in the netball grand final on Sunday. They were unfortunately beaten by a better side on the day, but gave it their all and they can all hold their heads high. Good effort girls.

Injuries and unavailability's wreaked havoc at the selection table on Thursday night and left all three sides without the services of key players. With so many out, it was actually a great effort by the club to still manage to get all three teams out onto the ground. The Raiders, as they have so often done this year, set the tone for the day when they piled on 34.15 to Fulham's 1.2 to smash them by 211 points. With players dominating all over the ground, it was another opportunity to look at players in different positions, and we even managed to have a look at Mango in attack as he was sent to full-forward. He did still fail to kick a goal mind you, but provided a rather large focal point for the boys. The majority of the goals were shared by LJ and Crick who were dominant on the ball, and who along with Jimi finished the day with 6 each, as well as "Big" Bobby Appleton and Stu Shuttleworth who both chipped in with 5. Cindy again put in a great performance in the ruck after being promoted from the Emus, while Gools, Deano and the rest of the on-ballers all were able to run themselves into more form. The only lapse (if you could even call it that) came in the third quarter when we only managed to kick 7 goals, and allowed Fulham to kick their entire score for the day! With the boys continued great form and still plenty more players to come back, I'm sure there's going to be some disappointed players as well as headaches for the selectors in the coming weeks, but from a club perspective it's a great position to be in! And the percentage boosting win shot us about 43% clear of Regents Park at the head of the ladder, and a couple more wins like that could see us heading straight into the big one.

An extremely depleted Emus were no match for Clapham in the second game of the day. With the relaxed rules meaning that more Aussies were required to play in the Wildcats, it meant more Raiders were required to go up, and the flow on effect was disastrous for the Emus lads. It was a credit to the boys that they still managed to roll up with players to spare. From the first bounce though it was clear that the boys were going to be in for one of those days, and that was the case. All of the lads did give it their all though, and battled it right out until the last bounce. Special thanks to a couple of the new boys who pulled on the boots to help the boys out, and especially to Terry from the Ealing Rugby Club who managed to lay a few bone crunching tackles. Unfortunately though the boys failed to trouble the scorers, and went down 28.17 to 0.0. Not to fear though, I'm sure the Raiders will apply a bit of payback to Clapham on the Emus behalf when they meet in the next round.

From that it was on to the main event, and there isn't a lot to say about that either, except that the players that made themselves available gave it their all and were just beaten by a far better side on the day. We can't really offer any excuses other than that. North London were fitter, harder at the ball and used it a lot better. They did everything that we wanted to do. They switched the ball and broke up play and much the same way that we have been trying to work our game plan on. With 15 Aussies and only 1 EU on the ground, it was also a much faster and more physical game than a lot of the guys would have been used to for a while. And while all of the boys tried and battled away, it was to no avail. North are the yardstick of the competition and displayed why so full credit must go to them. In defence Ty was solid all day, while Mark Harmer also played very well in his debut game for the Wildcats after playing the better part of the season in the Raiders. In the ruck Benny Statton worked hard, and Jack Jess gave us a much more physical presence when he was switched there. Ice and Kittsy also played well in defence, they just needed a bit more pressure applied up the field to stop the constant flow of balls heading in their direction! To our credit we did put in a much more disciplined display, noone dropped their heads and we managed to match them a lot better in the second half, but none of this stopped us from copping a 13 goal defeat.

So there are a few areas that need to be addressed and we're fast running out of time to correct them before we hit the finals. And what in the past would normally have been taken as a gimme game against Gryphons, all of a sudden is looming as a season shaping match as we need to win to book ourselves a finals berth. So let's all knuckle down over the next month, get to training, and make sure we give ourselves the best possible chance we have to succeed in 2002.