Match Reports
State League
Bye
Division 1
With State League having the Bye and Div 3 receiving a walkover, it was the biggest crowd Div 1 had seen at one of their games …well ever! And the boys put on a great show for them. Josh Naughton generously volunteered to Ref the game and received lots of ‘encouragement’ from the sidelines. Cam Mac and Steve dominated the centre (mud pit) all day setting up for a very impressive forward line of Callum (who held onto his stick all game!) AJ, Barnesy and Jake (creepy) Coleman finding the goal as well as his old friend the penalty chair three times each. AJ and Cal showed us why they are SL quality players, doing their jobs and scoring 6 and 5 each with Adam showing a rare burst of speed through the midfield reminiscent of his glory days and contributing to the score line with 4 goals. The defence was strong but really didn’t get a chance to put their skills into action. Jay made some great saves in the cage but was caught out with a slower bouncing shot that he saved four times before it slowly bounced past him to the back of the net, and the now extremely vocal crowd let him know all about it. It was a great day at the Town Hall and a great win for the Div 1 boys.
Division 3
Walkover
B Grade Women’s
After a brief discussion about the state of the ground and the MCC girls agreeing to go ahead with the game providing the centre draws were taken out of the centre, the Malvern girls got off to a great start, with big guns Romy and Tara scoring early and Kate Katie and Michelle helping the scoreline to see the girls head out to a 7-1 lead at half time. With our goalie Leanne on the sidelines with a broken thumb the position was opened to volunteers, and finally and reluctantly, myself and Ivy agreed to half each. We welcomed back the prodigal daughter Phoebe Naughton who will be hopefully stepping in for a few more games whilst she is in town for a couple of months. With six on the bench Coach Rocket had his hands full rotating more than half the team at every opportunity and it gives the girls not only a great perspective to watch the game from the sidelines to see what we can improve when we get on, but also the ability to give 110% on the field knowing we can sub on fresh legs when needed. We seemed to relax in the second half and let the MCC girls back in the game a little with 3 quick goals becoming too lax in our defence and watching the opposition beat us to ground balls and in contests. Again it was left to Romy and Tara to finish strongly both ending the game with 5 goals each and giving us a comfortable victory. We need to work hard on game days to put a whole game together not just one half, our next few opposition teams will not be so forgiving when we turn the ball over by not valuing possession and being beaten to ground balls. We’ve worked hard on the training track trying to get these things right, we just need to transfer it over to game day to make sure we cement our top spot on the ladder over the next month. We’re at home again this week against Newport which should our first real challenge this season, come down and cheer us on. Thanks again to Ivy for stepping into the cage with zero warm up or practice!! woMan of the Match!! Bruiser is back this week (thank god!!!)
Under 18’s
Under 16’s
U16’s defeated MCC-Caulfield 27-6 The U16’s played at home in similar conditions to the U14’s – rain, sunshine and cold. A squad of 13 today with 3 of the U14’s played up after their game. The boys demonstrated some clean skilled lacrosse with our top scorers being Darcy shooting 9 [and very happy about them too!] and giving 4 assists and Chappo getting 8 goals and also 4 assists. It was good to see the rest of the goals shared around by a number of the team members including Aaron who shot 4 goals. Great work by the boys in defence, in particular Toby with great use of the body. A special mention must be made to Jordy who played with his usual tenacity but this week with a possible mild concussion. All in all a great team effort with every player contributing. The Malvern might and passion was evident as usual.
Under 14’s
U/14’s Defeated Footscray 14-7 It had been a soggy week in Melbourne and the Under 14’s were the first of three matches to be played at the Town Hall on Saturday, they were also the only team to play almost a quarter of Lacrosse in relatively clean conditions before the Malvern Mud showed itself in the centre and set in for, undoubtedly, the rest of the season. Footscray gave our boys a challenge in the first two quarters with the scores level at 3 all into the second. It was Ben Chappys turn in the cage and he did a great job making some awesome saves and backing up well. Harry Arthur and Kaileb looked like seasoned players chasing hard and scooping up ground balls with ease. It was great to See George (Bibs) Bidgood back and he showed awesome courage putting his body on the line and taking some huge hits from much bigger players but bouncing straight back every time. Ben Freeman scored his first goal in U/14’s with Tom Martin also scoring on the day showing that there’s a lot of depth in the team. Big kids Aaron and Thom showed what just one year of experience can do, making it look easy winning face-offs dodging defenders and picking up groundballs in 4 inches of mud with ease, they finished with 3 and 4 goals respectively. Lochie and Mitchell ended up with 2 and 2 each. Malvern had a 6 and 3 goal second and third quarters finding their groove and settling into some good Lacrosse, having the game under control by the third quarter break. The only downside to their game were the penalties for slashing and after a talk from Coach Squeak about the importance of body positioning and being in front of your player instead of swinging wildly and chasing sticks the boys (and Ally) put it into practice and turned the ball over almost every time. Ryan is still out for another 2 weeks sunning himself in Bali, while we are hoping Sam is right to play this week and Mitch Reid (despite begging his mum to let him play in his moon boot) is counting down the 2 weeks left before he can take his place on the field. We take on Caulfield this week at Caulfield.
