Top placed Tigers too good for Devils

Yeronga played last year’s northern premiers in a trial game earlier in the year and eventually ran over them to score a narrow victory. At Mayne today, the 2 teams were fundamentally different in their line ups. We know that Mayne were at full strength whereas Yeronga were once again testing the depth at the club. Having said that, every player in the team has a legitimate claim to push for a position in the seniors, so we expected to perform well.

Mayne are a well drilled team, confident and run to support their teammates very well. Their ground has been re-turfed in parts recently and it just got the all clear from the council. Mayne kicked with a 2 goal breeze, but the long grass seemed to make kicking into it all the harder.

Mayne got out of the blocks quickly and had pushed out to a handy lead. K. Juracic, B. Cody and D. Shewell were leading the way with the backline under enormous and relentless forward entries by Mayne. It is fair to say that their determination was all that stood between a 6 goal quarter and a 12 goal quarter. At the other end, the Devil forwards had little to do and they didn’t trouble the scorer.

The second quarter saw a big lift in dedication and application. The Devils started to work their way into the game and kicked a couple of goals to bridge the gap and controlled most of the play. However, when Boyd was severely restricted by a hamstring strain, finding a forward target became all the more difficult. If we could have made the most of our opportunities, we could have got back into the game, but 2 late goals by Mayne gave them the initiative and one sensed that the result had been struck at the long break.

A huge positive from the game is the way we worked our way out of defence and maintained this for most of the match. It was across half forward where Mayne was able to strangle any forward entry and rebound straight back. In the end, too much was left to too few.

AFLQ observers commented on the fact that we looked good coming out of defence and we have a good base to work on. There is a lot to learn from a defeat like this, but it is probably best to just put it aside and concentrate on next week.

Yeronga: 0.0 3.5 4.5 4.6 (30)

Mayne: 6.6 9.9 13.14 17.15 (117)

Goal Kickers: G. Boyd 2, D. Jordan, D. Middleton Best Players: K Juracic, D. Shewell, B. Cody, M. Johnson, Z. Templeton, J. Brant