JONTY: It was a sloppy slugfest of a weekend on Saturday, typical winter conditions. Marcus, was there much to write home about in Emerald’s clash with Pakenham?
MARCUS: We did get a nice bit of tunnel ball from David Johnson which led to the winning goal, but that’s not my best action! That goes to Pakenham A Grade netballer Jordyn Adams who plays a different sport to everyone else – she’s just sensational. She has a maniacal intensity and loves the contest. On Saturday, she classically got her hands into an intercepting lane – almost a trademark move of hers, getting a deflection. The issue was the ball was bouncing around the Emerald goal circle, and she’s a centre, so she tip-toed her way around the circle and when the Emerald shooter was going to grab it, Adams whacked the ball into her, it went out of bounds off the Emerald player and resulted in a Pakenham ball. The ingenuity of that: to think through it and get the possession back for her team to save a potential scoring opportunity for Emerald was awesome.
JONTY: It’s good to have netball in best action, Dave. What have you got?
DAVE: Dylan Sutton is a bit stiff, there was a howling breeze blowing towards the Princes Highway at Tooradin on the weekend and Dylan Sutton, in a game where others were dilly-dallying around, he launched a torpedo that kept going and went 70 metres with the wind behind it. Cam Pedersen does that well for Phillip Island; long kicks that break lines. But Jimmy Munro gets my best action this week; the conditions were tailor-made for him on Saturday. Footballers often use ‘grippo’ so the ball doesn’t slip out; it’s almost like he has that for humans…human ‘grippo’! People don’t escape Munro when he lays a tackle because he tackles with vigour and makes it hurt. He collars blokes from nowhere and it’s fantastic to watch.
JONTY: It’s unbelievable I am going to get Collingwood into LTS with how they’ve been playing in the last few weeks but would you prefer to be tackled by Munro or Beau McCreery?
DAVE: Beau would hurt more but Jimmy sneaks up you….like all good Cobras should!
JONTY: Very good. I was at Haileybury v Brighton Grammar on the weekend which effectively determined the APS title. Dandenong Stingrays played Charlie Rowe. You talk about Jimmy Munro conditions; well this kid might be the next coming of him. Tough, courageous and he kept Levi Ashcroft, who’ll probably be a top five pick, to not many touches and won plenty of contested footy. It was an interesting game though – just one goal scored in the entire first half. On that note, I thought I would ask you boys the best low-scoring, wet weather games you’ve seen.
WET WEATHER FOOTY
DAVE: I’ve brought in another prop! The game was played on 18 August 2012 – an Eagles fairytale victory. It was a slop and officially very muddy. This was at Perc Allison Oval, the last game Beaconsfield played there. After that, they moved to Holm Park Reserve, so they made a big deal out of this game and brought everyone back to the club. There were old legends everywhere but Doveton spoiled the party with three goals in the first quarter, but then from 14 points down at halftime, Beaconsfield outscored Doveton 25-2 in the second half and got the chocolates in front of the adoring home crowd.
JONTY: What was the score?
DAVE: 38-29. ‘Aussie’ Jones said after the game that the club could not have written a better script. They looked down and out, not a great game of footy but one I remember with the heavy conditions.
JONTY: Did it epitomise the Beaconsfield spirit?
DAVE: Yes, it probably did.
JONTY: Very good, Marcus?
MARCUS: Not necessarily a wet-weather game but whenever I think of good low-scoring games, I think of Sydney v West Coast rivalry in the mid-2000s. It was around my formative years of wanting to consume as much of footy as I possibly could. With West Coast being an interstate team you only got to see them on free-to-air TV three or four times a year and it seemed to always be against Sydney. You’d see guys like Ben Cousins, Dean Cox, Chris Judd and the games were edge-of-your-seat, you felt you had to watch every one of them. That relates to local footy because Narre Warren’s semi-final against Wandin last year had exactly that kind of feel. Narre Warren averaged 129 points per game last year and Wandin averaged 109 and the final score in this one was 64-61 on a dry day where conditions were fine for football. This was a game where every goal felt like it was worth three or four and every contest had so much riding on it. It was an absolute arm wrestle and everyone watching could not take their eyes off it.
DAVE: Back in 2012, Cranbourne and Narre Warren played in the second semi and the score was 62-61 and they met two weeks later in the grand final and the score was 145 to 123, the same two teams, same ground, same conditions, so it’s funny how footy works.
JONTY: Very good. Dave, when you think of finals footy, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?
DAVE: Finals? A thousand things, why?
JONTY: In terms of on-field?
DAVE: Heath Shaw running down Nick Riewoldt?
JONTY: You’re not going to get this are you? Pressure!
(Boys laugh)
MARCUS: Impossible question!
JONTY: The first one I’ll touch on is probably the highest pressure local game I’ve seen, the qualifying final between Doveton and Murrumbeena last year. Doveton won 47-32 but the pressure in the first half was like something else. Doveton really struggled to score all throughout last year and everyone knew if Doveton were to win, they would have to do it by keeping their opponents to seven or eight goals and Murrumbeena were a high-scoring side generally. The first half set the tone and allowed the Doves to come away with a surprise win. It’s probably as well as I’ve seen Doveton play across my 18 months covering them. And then in terms of wet-weather footy, Cranbourne v Cheltenham is hard to top in the 2022 Southern Football Netball League grand final. No goals were scored in the last quarter, it was raining sideways and Cranbourne was able to hold on. The tension was sickening.
MID-SEASON RECRUITS
DAVE: Would I be right in suggesting your mentioning of Doveton leads in to your next topic?
JONTY: No…
DAVE: Matthew Clarke won’t get a run?
JONTY: He will now with you mentioning him, but the next topic is about mid-season pickups, thanks for forecasting it Dave, and Clarke came at the start of the season but has just recently spiked in form. So Dave, who has had a major impact in proceedings recently?
DAVE: There have been a few mid-season recruits but none of them have had a major impact yet. Ryan Eaton at Cora Lynn played his first game against his old club, Tooradin, on the weekend. But I’m going to go for blokes who have just made a comeback from injury in the last month. Sam Blackwood at Nar Nar Goon, I’ve known ‘Squiz’ since he was a kid, he was a gun midfielder but had a lot of injuries. A bit like Robert Harvey, he could have four or five guys around him, but still manoeuvre his way around them. Very skilful with his hands and feet, now a defender for the Goon, he’s starting to find his feet and has been back for three weeks. Tom Hams, the Inverloch coach, has had five weeks back from a spell and will be huge for Inverloch as they look to go back to back. Kris Sabbatucci, he’s been around Tooradin for a long time and had an ACL injury two years ago and he returned in round 11 and is a grinding left footer. He’s the heart and soul of that place and missed out on the 2022 premiership. There’s been a lot of suffering for ‘Kritter’ with his injuries so he deserves to have a big impact in finals. And Alex Duyker from Phillip Island is an interesting one. He has been one of the best defenders in the league in the last four or five years but returned from injury via the twos and was hitting the scoreboard. You thought ‘is Cam Pedersen playing him out of position and he’ll go back to defence?’ but he’s been in the forward line in the last month and will be important as Phillip Island look to go deep into September.
JONTY: Dave, really good analysis.
MARCUS: Wasn’t it just.
JONTY: Marcus, can you match it?
MARCUS: Probably not. Emerald has picked up Jake Cawsey and got his brother Dylan to the club as well from Upper Ferntree Gully. Jake played on Saturday, and he is the perfect body prototype for wet weather footy. He’s stocky, low to the ground and impossible to tackle. He played out of the goal square, kicked four goals and made Pakenham’s defence look inept at times. He was so clean. This next guy doesn’t quite fit the bill but is a Matt Clarke type. At Narre Warren, Sam Johnson walked in off the street. He came out of school and didn’t have a senior club lined up and thought he would start training at Narre Warren. He played four games in the Under-19s, he made his senior debut in round seven and since then, hasn’t looked back. He’s a real Narre Warren footballer; hard at it, solid. And last year, Damien Furey was someone Wandin targeted specifically to go with Kurt Mutimer at stoppages against Narre Warren. He came across from Vermont and slotted into the team hand in glove and was a big reason they were able to get the job done against Narre Warren in September.
DAVE: One last one, Tilly Argoon came to Pakenham from Belgrave and has had a big impact on the wing in the women’s team.
JONTY: I’m feeling ill-prepared for my own topic because I only came in with one player and it’s Nathan Langley. He’s someone you’d be familiar with Dave, from Cora Lynn.
DAVE: A triple Cora Lynn premiership player; kicked a truck-load of goals one year, a really good full forward in his day but hampered by injuries in the last few years.
JONTY: He’s come back to Hampton Park, his original club, for the first time in a decade. He’s played up forward and has been critical for them, scoring 17 goals in the five games he’s played. Straight into the senior side, no reserves, they backed him in and he’s repaid the faith. They’ve got Declan Brunell, 24 goals, and Langley is the next highest with 17. Behind them is a few players on 13 so they’ve really got no one forward of the footy, Brunell is a small so Langley provides important presence and can take a mark.
DAVE: He’s probably 6’2 6’3 and can fly.
JONTY: And when you think about him being put in a Hampton Park side, he’s been crucial. For them to win a final this year would be an outstanding achievement with where they’re at as a club footy-wise, but if they do, he’ll be a good reason one.
OLYMPICS
JONTY: We finish with some Olympic predictions. Flick to page 33 for our Olympic lift-out, but I want three predictions very quickly out of each of you. Firstly you Marcus.
Marcus: Australia will not medal at men’s basketball but Josh Giddey will have a bounce back tournament; Ariarne Titmus will become Australia’s most popular athlete after winning the race of the century against Katie Ledecky; and something weird will happen in the AFL to distract attention from the Games.
DAVE: A race-walker will be flagged when they’re about to win gold, like Jane Saville was in Sydney; Min Je Lee and Min Woo Lee will both medal in golf; an unknown Australian will medal in diving.
JONTY: Jess and Noemie Fox to both reach the final of the inaugural Kayak Cross event; Australia to medal in hockey; Zac Stubblety-Cook to go back-to-back in the 200 metres breaststroke. Can’t wait, thanks for tuning in.
