Jayda kicks under pressure.
Lucy is joined on a extended bench for a range of reactions.
(From left: Freya Hibberd, Madison Ibrahim, Tay Hart-Aluni, Lily Bateman, Drew Ryan, Eva Harris)
Flying CLUNK by Tia.
There’s a bit of Tory Dickson about her, though she does spend some games ranging further from goal.
MaggieO was very keen to get into the middle of the song for her first win (unlike the other two, she played in the round one loss).
At least Geelong publicly support their team, even when on the bottom of the ladder. Mostly stats and pretending Prince did nothing, though.
The VFLW Cats suffered their sixth loss of the season on Saturday afternoon, falling to Essendon by 40 points at Deakin University.
Geelong brought immense pressure throughout the match, eventually finding success and outscoring the Bombers in the final term, but Essendon’s consistency created too big a margin for the Cats to overcome.
Hayley Peck put together a standout performance in today’s match, dominating in her ruck role with a game high 33 hit-outs along with four clearances and 19 disposals, helping to keep the ball in Geelong’s attacking end.
Cats captain, Mel Staunton (17 disposals, seven tackles, four inside 50’s) displayed strong leadership and composure in the midfield, as did Zoe Cowan (11 disposals, eight tackles, 4 interceptions) who proved instrumental in Geelong’s second half success.
Geelong started strongly and fought hard with some early pressure in the opening quarter, but Essendon gained momentum and kicked three unanswered goals to leave the Cats 18 points behind.
Elise Cook and Mel Staunton were defensively sound in the back half, managing to open up avenues for Geelong to surge ahead but forward entries were hard to come by, leaving the Cats trailing heading into the second term.
Geelong continued to stifle the Bombers attacks by creating stoppages, leading the tackle count (+14) as they sought to trim the margin, but another two majors for Essendon saw the Cats trailing by 31 points at the main break.
Hayley Peck dominated around stoppages reaching 13 hit-outs and two clearances by half time, giving Geelong more opportunities to breach the centre line and put the Bombers on the back foot.
The Cats took some momentum back from the Bombers in the third quarter, Selsia White kicked Geelong’s first goal of the match to give the squad a boost that carried throughout the quarter.
Geelong showed plenty of composure in the second half, with Lily Jordan and Chloe Bryant holding possession and creating greater chances, but a few quick goals on the counter-attack from Essendon pushed their lead to 42 points at the final break.
The Cats applied immense pressure in the fourth quarter, building on their hard work and managing to outscore the opposition with two goals from Jemima Woods and Poppy Schaap, trimming the deficit back to 40 points at the final siren.
Zoe Cowan and Abby Favell assisted in bringing the ball forward from the midfield, finishing with three inside 50’s and two score involvements each at the end of the match.
She’s got some wheels on her for sure!
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QUARTER ONE
- 2:10 Why?!? El is 70m out with the wind behind her, dithers until Robinson runs past and demands it, and gets run down. Eek.
- Camera operator is drunk and given they were in a tent I’m not sure why there is so much wind noise captured.
- Takes six minutes to get to two of our best kicks demonstrating that: Jordan (under pressure) and Tia (from 45m out, not 40m as reported): goal! I may have been a bit unkind about Davidge’s kick; technique was fine, should have fallen just short, but the wind just snuck in at the end despite it being a pretty low kick!
- 7:40 technically correct fifty (ball placed on ground) but the Cat would have been more delayed if the ball was handed to her.
- 9:10 “El smother sends the Cat flying” – it’s very funny if you’re not the Cat who didn’t get shepherded. Fantastic brutal effort, may have saved a goal.
- The consequent transition up the ground is perfect until ChristinaBernardi drops the mark AND fumbles the pick-up three times.
- 10:50 she makes up with the leaping smother and snap goal
- Orritt gets her first centre attendance for the year.
- I’m still in shock that SammyJ missed a right-foot-around-the-body snap.
- 18:00 see my earlier comment about big kickers with the wind directly behind them doing ■■■■■■ little handballs to someone running past into trouble (in this case, MFord feeding Downie)
- This camera operator…
- This is when the siren blew – the DAMAGE after this is 7.0 for the season.
QUARTER TWO
- I know it seems implausible when you look at the ladder and the final score, but the Cats do a lot of things right.
- 6:50 that is… definitely an umpiring decision. Same ump must have missed another 20 similar HTBs this day, though. Plummer is demonstrative on behalf of Azzopardi.
- 7:35 it starts with Harrison not taking the easy option of not just kicking the ball off the ground. Picks it up, dodges, gets it to Prince whose relatively innocent immediate kick goes straight through The Wall, and we’re off to the races. Bernardi kicks it further on into an entirely empty forwardline. Note the position of SammyJ in the centre circle.
- The spider monkey wins the race and kicks her ™ goal. Bernardi was guessing on how it would bounce when she shepherded it through, though.
- 9:10 I expressed a few doubts on Ava last year: how do you succeed at that height without a standout characteristic? Normally someone that height is going to be fast, which she isn’t particularly. But watch this 20 seconds of action see her staying calm under pressure, scrapping away, and making it work (twice).
- 9:50 “Bernardi tries to protect a McIntosh dribbling goal… and it isn’t.” … OK, it was Scar, and Christina did take an air swing at that ball.
- Some nice work by Azzopardi (x2) and then Harrison.
- 11:05 “Layla backs into a pack, and a Cat is the one hurt out of that”… ow. Ump does the right thing and pauses play.
- Geez, there’s some nice handballs under pressure to set up that Melnikas goal (including Mini x2).
- 12:40 geez, that clearance by Thompson. Takes on and beats four Cats in succession. Giggity. Utter beast, and still 18yo.
- Sadly, a ™ goal does not quite result. MaggieO standing alone at the top of the goal square is not happy at being ignored.
- The sequence from 13:20 only ends in a point but geez there are nice wins within it: Thompson willing to back into the unknown on the high kick, effective handballs from her+Harrison+Ava+Davidge, and the sweet sweet candy sold by MaggieO.
- Geez, we concede a lot of marks in the following minutes.
- Ha, El still exists. Ball hasn’t been down their end for so long. Which perhaps tells you how good El was to be leading disposals come halftime.
- 19:05 “LOL ump. Richo clearly grounds the mark on a kick that fell just short of her, crowd groans, ump pays the mark.” – caught between her thighs on the bounce
QUARTER THREE
- McIntosh two intercept marks in rapid succession.
- Pretty awful turnovers by her, and then Robinson/sFord, to cancel those out.
- LOL at the wind at 2:00 stopping the goal and bouncing perfectly for El.
- 9:05 ha, that’s the old Richo we know. Just pointlessly dumping an opponent because why not?
- SammyJ gets her first centre attendance of the year, as ruck.
- 10:55 Cats get it over the top, turn to goal… EL DRILLS THEM TO THE GROUND. Left their opponent and sprinted 15 metres to make that work. Sensational!
- And is rewarded with an extra fifty, to a broad smile.
- Richo wins the ruck, Abbey and Tia are cheat codes, GOAL.
- Some of these tackle calls are… interesting.
- 18:10 Bernardi still got it
