Mark Lanyon - Team Manager
The U12's celebrated their first win of the season with a strong performance on the road against Rowville at Eildon Park. Height was a worry going into the game with Zac and Daniel out injured - hopefully we have both boys back after the bye. After our close loss last week at Norwood the team was determined to get over the line this week.
A great start to the first quarter with Ethan J getting the first hitout in the ruck to Elijah who got a defensive center clearance. Kieran and Campbell were getting plenty of the ball around the wing. Thomas followed up with a strong mark and a smother a few minutes later. We were clearly getting the better of the first 10 minutes but had nothing on the scoreboard to show for it. Luke and Harry took some good marks as Rowville worked their way back into the game and kicked a late goal.
Gabriel stopped a few other Rowville entries with some strong marks and we went to quarter time 8 points down but still confident.
The second quarter saw the Jets start to get on top and after some good play by Kai and Cadyn (who took 3 marks for the quarter) Patrick moved to centre half back and started to get some drive forward for us and we began some great ball movement. The team have been practicing linking up at training and we saw it come to life from a kick out from Thomas. The ball through a chain of play was delivered to Dylan who took a mark and played on again to Ethan. Ethan passed accurately to Luke who kicked his second for the quarter and to put the Jets on the board. Soon after Kai won a centre clearance and found Luke again who went back and put us into the lead for the first time in the game. The Jets were locking the ball into stoppages regularly and Jordy was often inside with some important handballs to outside players. We went into half time 2 points in front and the team was fired up to continue on with it this week.
Rowville came out strongly in the 3rd quarter but our defense was holding up well. Shannon moved to half back and was finding the ball regularly. Our chains of play also continued with a good pass from Gabriel to Thomas and Frash to Ethan. Macsen, Harry, and Frash kept Rowville to 2 early points as we were under pressure. The pressure was broken when Thomas kicked out again and found Kai. He played on and passed to Cadyn who took a strong mark. Dylan then scrambled a kick forward again and our sharpshooter Luke kicked an opportunistic goal to put us 6 points up. Patrick then got a late clearance in the quarter who linked up with Nathan. Austin then found himself with a shot on goal. Unfortunately it was a miss but we went to 3 quarter time with the biggest lead of the game at 7 points.
The big question for the last quarter was could the Jets keep up the pressure for the full match. Earlier games we had played good patches of football but struggled to play out the games. Cadyn stamped our intentions with some strong work in the ruck early in the quarter. Jordan lifted and was regularly repelling the ball of half back. Patrick, Campbell, Thomas, and Kai were well on top in the middle and we found the ball locked into our half of the ground. Ben and Cameron won some important contests on half forward and Elijah was going hard into the contests to force stoppages. We started to get some chances deep in attack but couldn't convert points into goals. Still, our backline was holding fast and we managed to keep Rowville scoreless for the only quarter of the game! The siren went with the ball locked in our forward line and we ran out 9 points winners!
Some big smiles on the team's faces after the match as we sang the song for the first time in 2019. We look forward to continuing our form with our next home match against Waverley in Round 9.
Heathmont 3.3.21 def Rowville 1.6.12