Round 11, Collegians V’s Cougars Round 11 2023 @ David Cruikshank Reserve
This round highlighted some of the concerns I have about the standard of play the Cougars have lapsed into over the past 3 games.
All the elements of good Australian Rules football seem to have been forgotten and the team is now descending into a rabble, playing ‘Paddock’ football!
The 5C’s of good football, Commitment, Communication, Consistency, Control and Composure were discarded in this game, leading to an 84 point thrashing at the hands of Collegians.
The Cougars have now slipped to 9th position on the PFL ‘B’ grade ladder one rung from the bottom!
Pete Harty one of our football directors summed up the level of Commitment at the end of this game by saying ‘The Cougars need to get a ‘heart’.
This comment was an accurate description of the level of commitment made by the Cougars in this match.
On Commitment, our players need to consider the level of commitment and organisation made by the committee and club officials to field six teams each week. This may cause them to think what their obligations are to our club!
There are far too many Cougars who stroll up to training on Tuesday and Thursday nights then do their customary ‘warm-up’ by chatting to one another while they dribble short kicks to one another instead of getting out on the oval and practicing skills before official training starts.
Players who aspire to play at an A grade level also need to realize that two nights training is not enough if they have a sedentary job. They need to do some gym work or other physical activity to build and keep their body in shape to play at a higher level.
Regarding Communication, our supporters continually commented on the low level of talking displayed by the Cougars in this game. They compared it to the level used by Collegians players who consistently helped one another with their talking, shepherding and encouragement of each other.
For the fourth round in a row, the Cougars got off to a very slow start allowing Collegians to have 9 scoring opportunities before they managed to kick a goal late in the quarter. This inconsistency has cost the Cougars dearly in the last four games and has contributed to their demise, by having to play ‘catch-up’ for the rest of the game!
In the second quarter, while having the advantage of the wind, things went from bad to worse for the Cougars, as Collegians stormed up the field unopposed to kick 5.3 to our 1.4.
When discussing the problem of unopposed players putting our backline under pressure each game, Ben Dupont made the comment that the Collegians interchange made manning-up difficult as they were changing their players quickly with the physical and skill ability to play in any position.
We noticed our interchange kept Tiger Morris who was one of our best players continually being interchanged to the point where he was more exhausted interchanging, than being involved in combat!
This also seemed to be happening with skipper Trent Pottinger, who despite being spent was better on the ground to control what was going on instead of being frustrated stalking the boundary line!
It may be that the Cougars could leave some of our less physical players in positions they are suited to instead of interchanging them.
On the subject of control, there are players in our side who don’t realize the umpiring in B division is very ordinary! Their backchat and query of decisions has led to a number of 50 m penalties over recent weeks costing our team dearly. The worst feature of this is the ‘double dip’ 100m penalty which places opposing players at point-blank range in front of their goals to destroy our morale!
At three quarter time and 59 points behind, Coach Trenberth looked at his ‘wits-end’ trying to convince his team to regain some composure and at least make a game of this encounter instead of being disgraced. This was not to be as the Cougars capitulated in this term allowing Collegians to kick 7.1
This added to the misery of the cold spectators, before the Cougars had a slight rally to kick 3 goals in the final minutes of the game.
Nothing much more can be said about this game, other than there are a number of players in this team who need to have a good hard look at themselves and their performance, if they want their team to stay in B grade this season.
Final scores: Collegians 18.16 – 124, Kalamunda 6.4 – 40.
Best players: Daniel Griffin, Tiger Morris, Kade McKeown and Jack Jago.
Goals: Kyle Murray 2, Tiger Morris 1, Ollie Adriano 1, Daniel Griffin 1.
Special mentions: Daniel Griffin – never stopped trying and Kane Swithenbank, good game first up.
Goal of the Day: In the first Quarter. Tiger Morris some 50 meters out with a tail quartering wind; Tiger put it through showing great directional control for a long kick.
Mark of the Day: In the third Quarter. Daniel Griffin, a great “3grab” mark followed by a goal.
Other results from round 11
B Reserves – Kalamunda 8. 8 – 56, Collegians 8.11 – 59
E1 All Stars – Kalamunda 5.3 – 33, Collegians 8.13 – 61
Cougar C2 Ladies – Kalamunda 1.5 – 11, Roleystone 1.5 – 11
BJC Colts – Kalamunda 5.11 – 41, Collegians 5.3 – 33
DBC Colts – Kalamunda 5.8 – 38, Collegians 8.7 – 55
Next game: B grade Round 12 Kalamunda V’s Bassendean- 03:05 PM, Sat, 01 Jul 23 Ray Owen Reserve.
This post is dedicated to, Retravision Cannington proud sponsor of the Kalamunda ‘Cougars’ Football Club.
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