Football
16 April, 2024
Roos start title defence with victory
Harrow Balmoral has started their premiership defence with a tough four-goal victory over Noradjuha Quantong at the Quantong Recreation Reserve on Saturday.
The Southern Roos came out of the blocks fast kicking three goals to one to take a 13-point lead into quarter-time.
The Bombers then started to get their game plan ticking along and kicked four goals to two to take a two-point lead into halftime.
The Roos wrestled back control in the third with a three-goal quarter to lead by 11 at the main change before running out winners by four goals, 12.7.79 to 8.7.55.
Michael Close kicked three goals for the Roos with Brock Orval also kicking three for the Bombers.
Matt Jones and Jai Thompson were brilliant for the Roos whilst ruckman Jack Vague and midfielder James Kerr alongside Jayden Besford were the better players for the Bombers.
Roos coach Jai Thompson said it was a good hitout for round one.
"These are the sort of games that you want to play, especially in round one," Thompson said.
"The Bombers are a good outfit and Damo has them playing well. We knew little bits on how they wanted to play and our job was to slow them down and control the footy and use our experience to do that and it was really good.
"We spent a bit of time last year winning by big margins and that may not be the case this season. It's a new year, new teams and they are different, so to grind out a win was awesome."
Thompson said there are things they need to work on and having the bye next week is a good chance for them to work on what they need to do to improve.
"We missed a lot of easy kicks and the boys were taking risks and weren't hitting the targets or switching the play well," Thompson said.
"The execution just wasn't there and our defensive zone and defensive positioning and spread could have been better.
"It's a 16-week season and it's only round one, so we can work on this and get things right."
The positive for the Roos is the younger players that stood up such as Rhys Daffey, Maddox Blake, George Austin and Alex Rees. Thompson was thrilled.
"I was impressed by our young blokes. The older guys like William Plush, Will Burbury, Michael Close and Peter Staude you know what you get out of them each week, but when you see the young guys come through, needing to get things done, they execute and it's great to see," Thompson said.
"Alex Rees snapped a great goal and Maddox Blake had a good running goal which was a nice sealer on the game for us.
"For them to have an influence straight away was rewarding. That's the great thing about our community and things were, we love to breed from within. We actively knew we had talented juniors coming through."
"If it meant some heartache early in the season by developing younger players, that comes and goes with the territory. I like to coach local players and give them a crack as they live and breathe the club and want us to win."
Bombers coach Damian Cameron said they can take plenty of positives out of the game and know what they need to work on.
"I am a bit disappointed in our execution of things as I would like to think we are a skillful, fit and fast side and we didn't work to those areas which made us battle a bit harder than we wanted to," Cameron said.
"In the first quarter, they caught us off guard and came out firing and were physical and it took us a while to get settled but in the second quarter, we were able to play our brand of footy. We shut them down and things flowed better.
"When things weren't going our way and we didn't perfect our style, we battled away and came close to the benchmark team, so that was a pretty positive thing to take from the match."
"If we want to be one of the top sides we need to work on how we want to play and play to our style."
Cameron was impressed with Jack Vague in the ruck and spoke positively about Brock Orval and Jason Kerr.
"Vague was solid in the ruck all day and got himself a bit of the ball," Cameron said.
"Brock did some good things and important things at times to get us into the lead and Kerr played a bit of the second half in the forward line after playing a lot through the midfield.
"The good thing about those guys is they are reliable and you can put them forward, midfield or back and know they can do the job."
Harrow Balmoral has the bye in round two whilst the Bombers will look to get their first win of the season when they travel to play Edenhope Apsley.