Last quarter comeback gets Nomads over the line
by Nick Schultz
The Nomads took on an improving Narrabri Eagles at Bellevue on Saturday
afternoon, and it took a dramatic last quarter fight back to seal a victory in Clint ‘Rowdy’ Ballagh’s 50th game.
We started the game well, getting our hands on the ball first in most contests and pushing the ball forward regularly, but we were wayward in front of goal. After four Nomads points, Narrabri got the first goal, but we straightened up after that with a couple of goals from Ben Page, a roving, running goal from Tom Walsh and great team goal put through by Anthony Reid.
We were a couple of goals up at quarter time.
Things went wrong in the second for the Nomads, in one of our worst quarters for the year. Narrabri kicked four goals to none for the quarter, and could have had a couple more. They were playing a good brand of running football, and our manning up around the ground was terrible. We walked into the sheds at half time pretty disappointed with our efforts.
The third quarter was tight. We worked our way back into the match with some good work in the middle from Hamish Pearce, and with Paddy Tobias controlling things for us across half back. Rowdy was on the bottom of every pack, as usual, and really fought to keep us in the game. With two goals to each side for the quarter, we hadn’t pegged back Narrabri’s lead, but we were back in it, and needed a big last quarter.
A few tactical changes preceded our dominance of the last quarter. Gavin Nelson was given a tagging role on Mark ‘Rabbit’ Barrow, who had been running amuck all day for the Eagles, and Weston Whitby was moved to full-forward. Gav shut down Rabbit, we took over the clearances and we quickly won back the lead. Whitby and Jonathan Frost went berserk up forward. At three quarter time, Frost told us he was going to kick four goals in the last quarter; he kicked three and set up a couple more. Reports from the forward line were that Whitby was kicking the ball over his head blind-sighted, calling Frost’s name and hitting him on the chest. But it was the whole team that lifted in the last, and a six goal to zip last quarter earned us a 15 point win.
Rowdy became the only tenth Nomad to play 50 games, and the weekend was just another of the bruising, dedicated performances that we get from the little feller every week. The TAFL website has us in fourth place on the ladder, but the win keeps us in contention for third if we can string a few more wins together. We have Gunnedah away next week. Get to training Nomads – every win is getting tougher and only hard work will prepare us for the run home into the finals.
Round 10 2010
| Nomads def. Eagles | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | B | P | G | B | P | ||
| Q1 | 4 | 5 | 29 | 2 | 2 | 14 | |
| HT | 4 | 7 | 31 | 6 | 10 | 46 | |
| Q3 | 6 | 10 | 46 | 8 | 12 | 60 | |
| FT | 11 | 13 | 79 | 8 | 16 | 64 | |
Team:
- C. Ballagh,
- M. Bourke,
- M. Clayton,
- M. Dowdle,
- D. Dunlop,
- J. Frost,
- M. Hamilton,
- J. Harland,
- L. Holmes,
- C. Murray,
- G. Nelson,
- B. Page,
- H. Pearce,
- A. Reid,
- N. Schultz,
- O. Temoso,
- P. Tobias,
- A. Walsh,
- T. Walsh,
- W. Whitby,
- J. Wright.
Goalscorers:
- B. Page (3),
- J. Frost (3),
- W. Whitby (2),
- A. Reid,
- D. Dunlop,
- T. Walsh.
Award winners:
- J. Frost (Players' Player),
- G. Nelson (Coach's),
- D. Dunlop (President's),
- J. Harland (Captain's),
- P. Tobias (VC's),
- W. Whitby (Red Rooster).
June 21st, 2010 at 10:32 am
Yep, I know the team and scorers are from the wrong week. I await advice from a higher authority on how to fix it. Stay tuned.
Our Man in Rotterdam – are you out there?
June 21st, 2010 at 6:31 pm
GREAT NEWS NOMADS. I HAVE CHOSEN A FINE BOTTLE OF BORDEAUX RED TO CELEBRATE YOUR WIN.
CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR 50 ROWDY.
BRENDO
June 21st, 2010 at 6:43 pm
The data should now be showing right.
However, the ladder may be out of whack slightly as a result of the postponements in round 9. I’m working on making the code more robust. The CETAFL site version is definitely wrong.