Victory during Modfest! – Nomads win for Captain Richards
The Nomads won convincingly over the Inverell Saints at the Bellevue Cathedral on Saturday to ensure that Captain David “Rampaging” Richards had a thoroughly enjoyable 100th game with the club. Young gun Clarrie Barker kicked four for the team while Modra chimed in with three. The Nomads had winners all over the ground, but Paddy Tobias, Phill Mitchell, Cammy Graham, Jesse Petrascu and Luke Raymond were standouts. The final scores were 14.13.97 to 7.8.50.
With the holidays the Nomads looked like they would be short and short they were. However, a couple of old favourites in Tommy Granleese, Mitch Darton and (the aptly named) “Gift from the Heavens” Omphile Temoso all made returns to the team. Gleeso made the trip from Grafton and Mitch from Warwick. Great efforts on their parts. The start of the game also saw two new debutantes in the guise of local boys Ethan Bray and Lewis Taylor. The Bray-Boy has been around the club for a number of years now, training the house down and it was wonderful to see him out with the Seniors.
Still even with these inclusions there was only one on the bench and by half time that had reduced to none (more of which later)
The shortage of players notwithstanding, it was a fine day for football. There was a slight breeze blowing from the south east and blowing across the ground but nothing an accurate forward shouldn’t be able to handle. Modra won the toss and, as is his want and custom, picked the Uralla end. The Nomads started sluggishly. This was not surprising as the team had been rather slow to get itself ready. The midfield were playing well but there was not enough movement up forward and far too little defensive work. The backs, however, were doing a fine job with the Wild Man from Borneo Phill Mitchell leading the way killing anything in the air that looked dangerous with a big Wildman fist. Paddy Tobias was in and under and doing his best Hamish Pearce impersonation and when he was not at the bottom of the pack, his place was taken by Rambo Raymond. Jesse Petrascu was also doing a lot of hard grunt work in there (as they say along the Murray, you can take the boy out of Koondrook, but you can’t take the Koondrook out of the boy). Young Bullet Graham also had a strong quarter out on the wing.
The most impressive feature though of the first quarter was the tackling and smothering. A number of times the Saints looked to be away and one of the Nomads’ players managed to mow the opponent down. In one memorable passage big Ompsy smothered the ball and then Jesse laid a fine tackle. At the first break the scores were 3.2.20 to 2.3.15 (a scoreline which was true to the evenness of the battle up to that point).
The second quarter saw the Nomads kicking to the Grandstand end and they really started to put their feet to the floor. The half backs, Mitch and Wulu Hall, were providing a lot of drive out of the backline, taking their opponents on and delivering the ball deep into the forward line. Steve Wilson was also doing a lot of excellent defensive work, Modra was his usual dangerous self and Jez Ratcliffe in the middle was making sure that the Saints got no easy disposals. At half time the scores were 8.5.53 to 5.5.35.
In the third quarter the backs were particularly impressive restricting the Saints to one goal for the quarter. Again Phill was leading the way – his nullifying of the ball in the air was a lesson to any young hackmen and Gleeso, back in defence, was doing what he does best. in one memorable passage in this quarter, after a switch, Cameron ran 40 metres on the Albies wing and hit his North Shore teammate Clarrie up with a kick aimed squarely at the sweet spot which Clarrie gobbled up. Clarrie by this stage was at full-forward and his body work on the Saints fullback was impressive indeed. At the final break the scores were 11.10.76 to 6.6.42.
The final quarter saw the Nomads extend their lead. By this stage the Saints legs were tiring and the Nomads were able to switch and run through the corridor with relative ease. Given the control of play that the Nomads had in this last quarter, the final margin should probably have been greater than it was. Clarrie kicked one fine goal from out near the grandstand gate, threading it through the eye of a needle – but then all the boys should be able to slot them from there given how much time they spend at training goal kicking from that very spot.
It was a very good effort on the part of the Nomads, especially given the players that were out. Once again the senior players stood up when it counted. Thanks are also due to this who travelled to ensure we had a team. Also thanks to Lisa Rambo Raymond and Giivi Walsh (who made her debut with the women’s team) for running the water for us and to the Chaksman for being a runner. The team then decamped to the Wicklow where celebrations continued. And thanks to Big Phill for baking the football guernsey cake (you are a dark horse on the cooking stakes!).
This week the uni boys will be back and it will be good to be able to field a full squad. Well done to everyone though for training in good numbers and playing well through this uni break period.
Round 11 2017
Nomads def. Saints | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
G | B | P | G | B | P | ||
Q1 | 3 | 2 | 20 | 2 | 3 | 15 | |
HT | 8 | 5 | 53 | 5 | 5 | 35 | |
Q3 | 11 | 10 | 76 | 6 | 6 | 42 | |
FT | 14 | 13 | 97 | 7 | 8 | 50 |
Team:
- C. Barker,
- E. Bray,
- M. Darton,
- C. Graham,
- T. Granleese,
- W. Hall,
- T. Hunt,
- E. Karpany,
- P. Mitchell,
- J. Petrascu,
- J. Ratcliffe,
- L. Raymond,
- D. Richards,
- A. Shem,
- L. Taylor,
- O. Temoso,
- P. Tobias,
- A. Walsh,
- S. Wilson.
Goalscorers:
- C. Barker (4),
- D. Richards (3),
- J. Ratcliffe (2),
- C. Graham,
- E. Bray,
- E. Karpany,
- L. Raymond,
- M. Darton.
Award winners:
- C. Barker (Players' Player),
- D. Richards (Coach's),
- P. Tobias (President's),
- J. Ratcliffe (Captain's),
- T. Granleese (Meehan's Plumbing Services').