Senior Women
Olinda Women’s team re-joined the winners’ circle with an impressive 39 point victory over Monbulk in arctic conditions at home on Saturday night.
While the conditions were horrible, with chilly gusts blowing balls back over the kicking players heads, Olinda’s game was very pleasing, and solidified the work they had been putting in over the last month.
The synergy between the three lines was exceptional and every player contributed to the win. The game style and overall team effort should be a great springboard for the final weeks of the season.
Olinda entered the game in less than healthy fashion, having lost regular full forward powerhouse Phoebe Dixon to what looks like a season ending injury at training during the week.
To compound this, the Coach’s phone didn’t stop vibrating all Saturday morning, each message a late withdrawal due to illness. When the dust settled, Olinda were looking at fronting up to the clash with only 14 players.
After a couple of desperate phone calls, Olinda’s U16s juniors came to the rescue. Kyah Barry, Nikayla Seamer, and twins Bridie and Jewell McDermott stepped into the breach, and not only filled gaps, but contributed well at both ends of the ground, and looked completely at home at the higher level.
Olinda has been plagued with slow starts all year, but it was clear within the first 2 minutes that they were switched on. There was “Life on Mars” as Amalija (“Mars”) Kostich Angerson won every tap, and followed up with ground ball, strong marking and long kicks to advantage. Prodigy Grace Belloni continued her elite intercept marking and contested ball winning that has been a feature all year. Captain Maddie Collins began to look at ease in her second week at centre half forward, typified by her pin point pass to a leading Ella Smith. Ella’s gun barrell straight shot at goal into a cyclonic headwind was a highlight of the evening. Olinda went into the quarter time break with a 6-2 lead.
The second quarter saw Olinda kicking with the wind, and they capitalised, outscoring Monbulk 19-8 for the quarter. Revelation Emmalee Keegan built on her groundbreaking form of the last month, stopping every ball or opponent that came her way, and racking up possessions. Emmalee played much of the game on ball and was hugely influential. Olinda has had a tough month, but Emmalee’s emergence has been a great positive.
Goals to Capt Mads and Grace Belloni followed as well as new full forward Kiah Burgess. It was a great debut in the position for Kiah, and her contested ground ball work will be a nightmare for opposition full backs in the coming weeks. Isla “Pipes” Bradbury displayed an amazing work ethic throughout her game at half forward, and continually ran to make position. Pipes’ opponent would have certainly slept well!
The third quarter was a similar slog to the first as Olinda kicked into the strong wind. Olinda’s backline had plenty of work to do, but stemmed the tide, only letting through 1 point for the quarter. Full back Casey Seymour is rarely beaten, and the same can be said for back pockets Sophie Caldwell and Maddie McCheyne. The only goal for the quarter was a great snap by Capt Mads, her 2nd for the game. There are not enough superlatives to describe rover Claire Hyett, but one that comes to mind is relentless. Claire will not stop hunting the ball or her opponent until the final siren sounds, game after game. The same could be said for half back Alex Gunn who shoots from contest to contest laying bone crunching tackles.
The last quarter saw Olinda back with the breeze, and they peppered the goals, managing 2.5 for the quarter. The quarter saw another goal to Grace Belloni, but the highlight was a long range goal to “Mars” Kostich Angerson. The beauty of a strong breeze is that it can make the impossible possible, and Mars’ lob from 45m got caught in the wind and cleared all before her to bounce through for a goal, in a joyous moment.
Overall, it was a classy performance in freezing blustery conditions. Olinda looks forward to their final home and away clash vs Seville next weekend before embarking on their finals campaign
Juniors
Friday stalwarts headed out to Woori on Sunday for their Lightning Premiership carnival only to have it called off midway through due to the poor weather. Coach Tim was really happy with the effort both teams put in for their first games and was already planning where his premiership tattoo was going to go, when the day was halted. The kids seemed to take it all in their stride though in a bittersweet end to their season. Many of them will finish what they started in the U10s, with a couple of them having a run in the U11s as well. Well done to Coaches Tim and Sven and Team Manager extraordinaire Katrina (who else manages two teams?!?), all the assistant coaches and team volunteers that have made their season a success!
The U10s had a bye which was probably a relief for rest of the competition as they get a chance to re-group.
After their Round 12 bye and the school holiday break, the U11 legends were ready to take to the field to see where they measured up against the top team in the division, Healesville. It was a tough encounter with Healesville clean ball movement and hard running the difference between the teams. As Coach Stuart said to the players after the game, in most of the key areas around the ground, we weren’t far off what it takes to challenge the top sides. Ollie Wilford had another stand out game, along with Archie Green, Sol Smith and Jack Ford. The pressure of the game after three weeks off for our kids meant that Healesville blew the game apart in the last quarter with the final scoreline not reflecting a good contest for most of the game.
The U12 girls headed back out to Wandin buoyed by 3 new players joining the squad. All three come from basketball backgrounds and showed clean hands around the contest. Last time the girls played Wandin, they could not match the Wandin intensity and movement. This time, they really showed the work they have been doing in training and applied massive pressure around the contest. We saw great chains of bandpasses from the contest and the girls were really effective in getting the ball deep into the forward line. Not quite a win yet, but it’s not far off!
The U13 boys were the only team to notch up a win on Sunday. Against an undermanned Seville unit, Coach Spida’s finely tuned unit put on a clinic. Most pleasing was the even distribution of goal kickers and efforts across the ground.
In what was a tough day for our teams that made the trip out to Healesville, the U15 boys found the going pretty hard against the unbeaten Healesville outfit. Playing these mostly top age teams shows the boys what their efforts will realise and they’ll be a better group of footballers moving forward for their exposure to these top teams.
The U16 girls headed out to Emerald to see how they would fare against one of the top side in the comp, but they were quite undermanned with several key players not able to make the trip. In terrible conditions, in which the first quarter was abandoned, the girls fought hard and Coaches Claire and Gramercy were really proud of their efforts. After having a run in the seniors on Saturday, Nikayla Seamer and Kiah Barry really shone with Nikayla playing deep in defence. They thought Eloise Tyler’s work in the ruck after an injury to Maeve Higgins was really good and the usual run and carry of Elsa Leonard, Aurora Edge and Kaesha Christie was excellent. They were also really impressed with how Anja Hulston’s game is developing in her first year.
U17 boys had a disappointing day in the office against Belgrave after a great month or so of football. Coach Paddy said that training standards had dropped a little during the week and this was reflected in the game against a bigger Belgrave unit that we are fight ladder position for. His take away is for the boys to apply themselves at training as the game won’t take care of itself, and he hopes this game is what they needed deep in the season to keep their work ethic’s and training intensity high.
