Given the Finnish heritage of many of the players from both the Nomads and the Gunnedah Bulldogs, it was decided to play their match on Sunday rather than Saturday to celebrate Vappu, Finland’s national knees-up. Tim “Timo” Keys and Hamish ‘the Hammer’ Pearce in the middle worked hard and both racked up possession after possession, with Tim dominating in the air and Hamish doing the hard work in the packs. Bello’s favourite son (along with Adam Gilchrist), Jed Ellis-Cluff, kicked 6 goals to add to his tally for the year and Gunnedah-born Tom Hunt kicked a lazy four. Around the ground young guns Clarrie Barker and Cameron-the-Whippersnapper Graham created plenty of opportunities for the forwards. The final scores were 23.21.159 to 7.11.53.

On the trip over to Gunnedah, rain fell heavily and it looked as if the Nomads were in for a heavy day in the wet. However, not so much rain fell in Gunnedah and, though the ground was wet, no rain fell during the actual game. It would in fact have been a good day for Torries (King Woodenbong where are you when we need you?).

The Nomads began kicking to the Highway end. The midfield was playing well and moved the ball forward quickly to give the forwards lots of scoring chances. Chris Roe and Rampaging David Richards were moving well in the forwardline. However, there was a fair bit of fairly average (to put it mildly) goal-kicking and the Nomads finished the first quarter with 5.5.35 to their name (although this scoreline doesn’t really do justice to the terrible nature of the kicking). The backline held up well with Mitch Darton and the wild man Big Phill Mitchell (looking suitably Nordic) doing an excellent job of stopping the Doggies forward advances. Mitch has thrived since taking on his role as Half Back Gleeso.

In the second quarter the Nomads put the foot down. Timo Keys played a kick behind the play and marked ball after ball in this quarter. The Whippersnapper was unstoppable in the middle and the elusive Velani Chakalisa was doing what he does so well – getting loose and delivering the ball with precision to team-mates. The backline again did an excellent job. Jed was taking some wonderful marks up forward and converting (most of the time). The Nomads were lucky though that this time it was the Dogs who kicked poorly and missed some very gettable shots. At half-time the scores were 11.11.77 to 1.7.13.

Something must have happened in the change rooms at half time – because the third quarter saw the Nomads play lazy and uninspired football. The Dogs easily won this quarter in terms of overall possessions and contested balls but failed to really capitalise on that dominance. At the final change the score were 16.15.111 to 5.10.40

During the final break Jed gave the boys a spray – he looked as disgusted as he might have been had woken to find himself drinking a caffe late at a hipster bar in Bellingen.

When play resumed captain Modra took it upon himself to set the tone and in the first five minutes threw himself into the play and inspired the boys to lift their intensity. The team did improve right across the ground. Mitch D, Frosty, Liam and big Phill continued their strong work in the backline. Jed snaffled some goals and also hand passed a shaky one to Tom Hunt in the goal square who managed to keep the ball from going over the line prematurely (to the relief of the bench). Clarrie, who kicked three for the game finished strongly and Jesse Petrascu kicked two for the quarter.

The boys went inside and sang the traditional victory song and finished in honour of Vappu with a rousing war cry of “Minä rakastan sinua numero nelja” which translates roughly as some form of affection for the number four.

Overall, it was a good effort. However, if the Nomads are to continue their winning ways they cannot have lapses like the third quarter. Still there were many positive aspects of the game and the form of some of the newer players was very pleasing.

Congratulations and welcome to new boys Liam Cudmore and Brett Grant playing their first games for the Nomads. May there be many more.

Round 4 2016

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 5th, 2016 at 10:20 pm and is filed under Match report. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.