Moody’s Match Report – Round 7

Saturday saw us play our second away game this season travelling to Norwood to play the Redlegs. We were fortunate to welcome back experienced midfielder Jess Macolino for her first game back from injury, returning against her old side.

The first quarter started as a hot contest, neither team were coming out on top, and momentum shifted between teams. Norwood slotted the first goal for the game at the 5-minute mark and the only off the quarter after a costly turnover in the defensive 50. Beatrice Devlyn started the game off strong with 6 possessions and 4 tackles in the first quarter, as well as Zoe Venning who also picked up 6 for the quarter as Norwood took a 1-goal lead into quarter time.

After a tight start to the game, our girls found some momentum going forward in the 2nd quarter having plenty of the ball inside 50. Unfortunately we couldn’t make the most of our chances forward as Paris Francis fought her way through traffic to kick a behind and Lucy Boyd took a strong contested mark over 2 Norwood defenders to kick our only other minor score for the quarter. Our intensity dropped throughout the last half of the quarter and Norwood punished us kicking 3 goals in the last 10 minutes to put us 4-goals down at half time. Beatrice Devlyn again battled hard and had 16 touches at half time, Louella McCarthy also stepped up in the 2nd and went into half time with 9 touches and Lucy Boyd was dangerous when the ball went forward and playing with confidence.

Unfortunately, the 3rd quarter started how the 2nd finished with it only taking Norwood 2-minutes to kick the first goal of the quarter. Our first goal of the game started with a great defensive tackle from the skipper Madi Russell before Lucy Boyd was involved with a great piece of play down the wing with 2 or 3 strong efforts before kicking our first goal of the game. Unfortunately, again it was all Norwood after that who finished the quarter kicking 0.5 to put them in front by 6 goals. Jess Macolino stood up in the 3rd and piled on the defensive pressure with 6 tackles, Lucy Boyd again was playing with confidence and getting her hands on the ball while Keeley Kustermann battled hard with 7 touches in the 3rd quarter.

Our girls continued to battle hard in a warm last quarter, but ultimately were beaten by a far cleaner Norwood side. Norwood piled on another 4 goals in the last to give us our biggest loss of the year. Beatrice Devlyn battled hard all game and finished with 23 disposals and 8 tackles, Louella McCarthy finished the game with 20 in her first game back from injury and Keeley Kustermann continued her dominant ways with 18 disposals and 9 tackles.

This loss put us at 1 win 6 losses for the season, which is incredibly tough position to be in with only 5 games remaining and a chance at playing finals football all but gone for 2022. The girls are determined to keep working hard over the next 5 weeks and make sure we finish the season on a high note and will look to get back on track against Sturt next weekend. Thank you to everyone who continues to stand by us each week, we will keep battling and working hard ensuring we make you all proud.