Rebels vs, Blues game wrap

On a steamy Saturday morning the Rebels ventured out to Humber North to face the Blues who have been touted as the heir apparent to the OAFL Premiership and are certainly enjoying a very successful season. However, the Rebs headed out with some restored confidence after the recent success in Ottawa. It's not often in recent years that we can say that we performed better on the field than off, but after a solid win on the field and some sloppy performances on the town on Saturday night that was the case in Ottawa and reason for renewed enthusiasm. Once again this weekend players turned up to the field organized and ready to go and this in itself is a sign of good habits for the club.

The first quarter of the game saw a very tightly contested battle with neither side exerting a clear advantage on the field or the scoreboard. In the middle of the ground James was making a great fist of his first go around in the ruck dominating the taps and allowing the on ballers first access to the ball out of the middle. While we didn't kick a ton of goals the forward line was working well to keep the ball in the forward zone and when the Blues did work it forward the backline was able to limit opportunities and rebound effectively.

The Rebs started the 2nd quarter very well with some strong running on the ball from Cam, Josh, Scotty and Frase forcing the ball deep into the forward line. Peter, Doof Doof and Crackers were providing targets up forward (some slightly bigger targets than others), and we managed to kick out to a decent lead by halfway through the 2nd stanza. Unfortunately the Blues have some talent and one particular individual almost single handed, brought them back into the game with a couple of goals in the final few minutes of the quarter, stealing the lead back going into half time.

At half time we spoke at length about what it was going to take to win the game. It was clear that the team that wanted to do the little things to support their team mates most often would win. Unfortunately in the next 20 minutes we were unable to execute all the things that we spoke about doing. We didn't support each other well enough at contests, we didn't tackle and shepherd, we didn't talk and we made fundamental skill errors. The Blues like the solid team that they are took advantage, believed in their ability, worked hard and put goals on the board going into the final break with a 6 goal lead. While we shouldn't dwell on the one bad quarter that we had I would like to point out that through this tough period of the game the backline did a great job to stem the tide under extreme pressure. Nacho, Chook , Paps, Alex and Scotty all fought hard through the quarter and Fabs as usual led from the front. It could have been a lot worse if the backline had not been so resilient.

At the final break we again took stock of the situation and as a group made a decision about how we would approach the rest of the game. Too often in recent times we have been blown out by good teams in this situation. Happily on this occasion the boys showed some great resolve (CHARACTER) to come out and outscore the Blues in the final quarter. This is something that we have struggled to do and demonstrates that we are not far away. If we keep doing the right things some of the tight games are going to start to go our way. We spoke after the game about the importance of our upcoming game against the Demons who are a very improved team and the need to commit to getting to at least 1 training session this week. Let's not be happy with honourable losses, let's get another win on the board this weekend and get the momentum going.

Special mention to Az who played in his 50th game for the club and battled hard all day. 50 games represents a significant commitment of time, friendship and dedication to your club and team mates. This is recognized and greatly appreciated by all at the club.

Final Score: Rebels 8.5.53 Blues 13.8.86
Goals: Brendan Craghill 2, Peter Bormann 2, Josh Ryder 2, Kevin Duffy 1, Cam Stark 1
Buschy's Best: Cam Stark, James-Robert Theiss, Josh Ryder, Ron Brennan, Aron Tonon, Kieran Hess.

Next Game: Rebels vs. Demons
2pm, Saturday July 17th
U of T Scarborough