The Nomads have beaten a determined Gunnedah in a 16-a-side match at the Bellevue. It was local favourite Johnathan Frost’s 100th game and the Frostman had a best-on-ground performance in a game which the Nomads eventually won by 62 points, the scores being 20.13.133 to 11.5.71.

The last time the two teams met, the Nomads whipped the Bulldogs by nearly 200 points and it looked like a repeat of that performance might be on the cards when the Dogs arrived with 14 players. After some negotiating by Zac and Starry and last minute form filling, the Nomads organised for two of their young guns Cammy Graham and Clarrie Barker to play for the Doggies to ensure that the game was something more than a sunday afternoon kick around. The game began a little after time and it was the Dogs who came out firing. They scored 3 goals in the first quarter to the Nomads’ 5 and surprised the Nomads with their commitment to the hard-ball. Clearly the Nomads had a game on their hands.

Perhaps it is a statistical quirk but the Dogs seemed to have a fetish for the number 19, kicking 3 goals 1 in each of the first 3 quarters. In the second quarter the game continued in the same vein and the Nomads did not seem particularly focused. Luckily Foles was busy doing what he does every week – collecting kicks all around the ground while Zac Economou was doing his best Plugger impersonation at full forward providing lots of strong leads and taking some powerful overhead marks. And there was another forward causing headaches for the Dogs in the guise of one Rampaging David Richards. He had five goals by half time all gathered in his typical sharking-around-the back of the pack manner. At half time the Nomads were 35 points up.

The third quarter saw the Nomads start to put their collective feet on the pedal and they put the game beyond doubt here to be 42 points ahead at the final break.

The finaL quarter saw the Nomads finally start to play some of the football that they have been renowned for this year – with quick switches and a great deal more running football – kicking another 5 goals for a final tally of 20 goals. Overall, however, it was not a great effort from the Nomads. The midfield did not seem to want to run defensively and there was watt too much space given in the backline. All credit to the dDogs for making a game of it, ably assisted by Clarrie who kicked 4 goals for the Dogs and Cammy, who turned a few of the Nomads defenders inside out in his usual ‘Merlin the Magician’ style.

Next week sees the Nomads playing the Roos and a great deal more intensity will be required if the Nomads unbeaten run is to continue. It looks like it will eb great game though.

Round 9 2014

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2014 at 7:18 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.