Armidale put on a brisk New England winter’s day for the visiting Swans on Saturday 18 June (although the wind wasn’t as persistent as usual) and once again the young guns featured prominently with Clarrie Barker (5) and Cameron Graham (2) kicking goals and Tom Lashlie (1 goal) dominating his position on a wing with pace and precision. Zac Economou (9 goals) was not to be outclassed by the young ones (or the opposition) with a masterful display of marking on the lead and overhead when the packs gathered in front of goal.

The visitors came out strongly in the first quarter with the home side taking a little time to settle into their rhythm, first to warm was Hamish (the Hammer) Pearce in the centre ably assisted by Jed Ellis-Cluff (2 goals) and the unstoppable Harry Freund who (Harry that is) on numerous occasions broke out across the centre to push the ball forward. First amongst the forwards to warm up was Clarrie Barker leading confidently and marking cleanly on a number of occasions, showing poise belying his years.

The second quarter saw the home team begin its charge with the half back line of Shane Snowden Tom Hunt and Mitch Darton working well in combination using fierce tackling and hard run out of defence to set up countless forward entries. Intelligent ball movement and teamwork saw father-son combo Dave and Sam Bioletti extricate the ball smoothly from defence on at least one occasion, while Tom Hunt’s seemingly lackadaisical style constantly deceived the opposition allowing him to dominate in the air between half back and the centre line. Velani Chakalisa, also deceptively skillful, showed off that elusive skill across half forward getting himself out of tackles and away from packs with consummate ease.

By half time the game looked to be over, however, to their credit, the Swans never gave up, persisting doggedly with forward 50 entries of their own against the Nomadic head wind. A gale fortified on the last line of defence by the un-erring fist and punch of Jonathan Frost and the run of Brett Grant and hard-working, evergreen Nomad campaigner Mitch ‘Evo’ Evans who often found himself alone between half back and a wing having begun his run-and-carry deep down back.

In the third quarter the Nomads kicked things up a gear or two with Zac Economou marking almost everything kicked at him – kicking truly on multiple occasions. The Silk Twins, Dave Richards and Cameron Graham to this point had been moving smoothly through the game with sporadic patches of individual brilliance while Jed Ellis-Cluff must’ve eaten nails during the long break playing the third quarter with a mindset akin to that of a wrecking ball – one unfortunate Swan the recipient of a hard but fair tackle that rattled this correspondent’s false teeth from 100 metres away. Jesse Petrescu and Chris Rowe were getting warmed up and were providing a strong marking presence across half forward with the former leading strongly and taking some powerful marks between half forward and the centre square. Not satisfied with his tackling efforts, the Coach went on to finish the quarter with a huge pack mark in the Nomads goal square just before 3/4 time, dotting the ‘i’ after the siren.

As the clouds gathered, darkened and threatened rain for the final stanza the visitors rallied to apply pressure on the home team, restricting the Nomads final quarter score to 2.14. To the dismay of the overworked Swans defence however, at the other end in the gathering gloom the Nomads defenders had constructed a brick wall across half back the Swans attack wasn’t able to breach.

In the end it was a dominant display from the Nomads but the scoreboard didn’t reflect the endeavour of the Swans who competed all day, regardless of the score.

(Thanks to Knuckles for this report)

Round 10 2016

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