On a warm almost-spring like day at the Bellevue, and with a good crowd of supporters, the Nomads were unable to capitalise on their opportunities, and lost to the Tamworth Swans for the second time this year. It was a tale of two halves, with the Swans running rampant in the first and the Nomads playing clever football in the second. But unfortunately the goal-seeking radar was not switched on and the Nomads missed a series of shots which at other times they would have nailed. Up forward in the second half Clarrie Barker was a revelation kicking 4 goals while in defence Conor Nest continued the use of his go-go-gadget extension arms to intercept mark after mark. In the midfield Tom Hunt and Morgan Dunn also played their hearts out. Final scores were New England Nomads 9.12.66 to the Tamworth Swans’ 12.10.82 This makes reaching the grand final in a month much more difficult than it might otherwise have been.

The game started with the Nomads having an almost complete squad. Big outs were Jesse Petrascu (whose bullock work in the middle was, as it turned out, very much missed)m Coach Treweeke (who would have been pretty damn handy in the forward line) and Sam Feltham who adds a lot of speed to the forward line. But except for those three the Nomads had a solid line-up. One very welcome addition was third-gamer Pat Hunt who had previously donned the Nomads jumper once in 2006 and once in 2016.

Anyroads, it was great to see Pat on the park again.

The Nomads kicked, as is traditional, to the Uralla end (have we been winning every toss or something?). Unfortunately, from the very get-go, the Swans midfield were running the ball quickly out of the centre and were putting an enormous amount of pressure on the backs – who withstood the onslaught stoically and only conceded three goals for the quarter. It could have been much worse but for the work of Conor and his colleagues. He was ably supported by the Frostman, Lindsay Brown (who it turns out hails from somewhere near Ardlethan), Ira Sulzberger (who is adamant he is not related to Eamon de Valera in case you were wondering) and Phill Mitchell. At the same time there were plenty of entries into the Nomads forward 50- thanks to Morgan Dunn and Tom Hunt and the ever-reliable pair of Rambo and Modra. But, there was a lack of structure up front – and probably not enough defensive pressure – and the ball rebounded out of the forward line way too easily. At the end of the first quarter the scores were Nomads 1.2.8 to the Swans 3.4.22

The second quarter continued in the same vein…. only worse…. with the Swans kicking 4 goals and looking like they might run away with it completely. Again it was only the excellent work of the backline led by Conor Nest and Clarrie Barker that prevented an even bigger deficit. At the half time break the scores were Nomads 4.3.27 to the Swans 8.8.54.

The third quarter saw Coach pull out some vintage positional changes and shifted Clarrie and Modra up forward. This worked almost immediately with Modra hitting Clarrie lace out a number of times with Clarrie leading cleverly and consistently to the fat side. The Nomads were back in the hunt. The team lifted generally across the whole paddock. By the final change the Nomads had cut the deficit to 10 points with the Nomads 7.9.51 behind the Swans on 9.7.61. It could have been much closer if the Noeys had hit their set shots…3.6 on the face of it is not that bad but almost all of the behinds from the quarter came from set shots.

The final quarter was a real battle. Again the Nomads didn’t really take their goal kicking opportunities. They had the momentum but really didn;t capitalise. At one point it seemed the Nomads were going to knock off the deficit by scoring point after point. However, it is difficult to maintain the momentum for a whole quarter and in the final ten minutes the Swans scored three quick goals and sealed the match. It was a very solid effort but not quite good enough.

Next week we have the final game for the year at the Bellevue. If anyone is around town make sure you get down since this will be the last chance to see the team in their natural environment.

As a final thought – and this is a question that did occur to many seasoned observers – have we yet reached Peak Flunt? Perhaps there might be more surprises on the way!

Players player C. Nest
Coach’s award: M. Dunn
Meehan’s Plumbing Award: I. Sulzberger
President’s award: C. Barker
Captain’s award: P. Hunt

Round 7 2020

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 1st, 2020 at 10:46 am 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.