Coachy's Corner: Round 7, 2009

Hi everyone,

For the first time ever, The Bullets were to play off in a rec footy grand final. Wednesday 9th December was the date we were to face up to The Mugars, the nearly all female team who had had some great wins during the seven week comp. We had recorded two wins against them during the season and felt pretty good going into this game. Unfortunately, The Mugars had to forfeit the match due to a lack of players, so The Bullets were announced premiers for 2009. As good as that was, we were hoping for some sort of contest, and Shawn offered us the chance to play a full listed Wannabees instead. We jumped at that, as it was a game we really wanted to win - The Wannabees had disposed of us twice this year, once by 14 points and last week by 11. I knew we weren't far away from them, plus we had Andrew & Renee back in the side, whom we didn't have in our previous two meetings against them. We had a few come down to watch us this week, joining Dan on the boundary were Felicia Huang, Steve (partner of Dani), Desma, John & Zoe Burford plus Georgette & the injured Simon Conti. With Simon again missing the finals through injury, it was fantastic to see him at the ground supporting us and his courage definitely gave everyone a lift.

We started Narelle, Luke and myself in the forward line, Dani & Brent in the middle, while Renee, Dean & Andrew went back. The first half was quite close. Brent & Dani were terrific in the centre, taking marks & winning possessions. Both were on good players, so it was a battle, but they fought on and did very well. Dean was excellent running out of defence, being a marking option around middle back really helped us. Andrew was manning The Wannabees big forward, and I would say broke even with him which is all we needed. The big bloke kicked 2 for the half, but Mez either stopped attacks or picked up kicks the rest of the time, while Renee won a fair share of the footy too. Luke was good up forward, presenting well and doubling back to mark. He finished with 3 goals, while I managed 2. That left us 11 points in front at the break, 5 goals to 3, a pleasing half over, and a bunch of players ready for the second half.

The team made a few changes for the last half. Dani, Brent and myself went to the backline, Renee & Luke to the midfield, while Andrew & Dean joined Narelle forward. After an even few minutes, The Wannabees scored a couple of goals to be really pressing us - they were nine-pointers too, as they had two girls playing forward, with one guy. Their giant forward had moved to the centre and was playing on Luke. Brent and Dani were starting to take marks, play in front and drive the ball out of our backline. Luke and Renee were playing well around the ground and were starting to find Andrew, who went about kicking 2 goals - and for the rest of the half, Brent, Luke & Andrew looked for Dean & found him, helping himself to 4 majors. Dean was superb, taking great marks and  three of his goals were from very good kicks. He also gave Narelle a beautiful pass which was an equally good mark from her. Dani had moved back into the centre and was marking well with great run, while Renee was picking up a few possessions down back. Luke was very good in the middle, as was Brent down back. We wrapped up the game with a 25 point win, which I must say was just as pleasing as winning the flag.

It was a great effort from everyone, a terrific match and fantastic to be able to play our players in different areas on the field which we'll keep doing in the future. Thanks for an enjoyable season everyone, you'll hear from me soon for Coach's End of Season Review & Player Report Cards.

Best Players: Brent, Dean, Dani, Luke, Andrew.