Dallas Magpies Kick off Season 2004

Coaches Corner.

April 21^st 2004.

Today was the beginning of the season with an away game against Austin Crows. A good size team of 17 made the journey that was sure to be a tough battle, as the Crows always manage to play with determination and a never say die attitude at home. It was a very windy and partly cloudy day that meant perfect conditions for scrappy football. As a team in its first game of the season there will be many take-aways – some good and some definite opportunities.

Winning the toss and electing to kick with about a 3 goal breeze, the Magpies capitalized early in the first quarter through some good passages of possession. The ball was moved out of the center square by some strong ruck work by 2^nd year veteran Aaron Gunn, who played a terrific game all day. Dallas dominated the possession during the first quarter totaling about 80% of the entire play. However, due to some “over-handling” and over usage of the football, mistakes came too often, which kept Austin in the game. A valuable lesson we can learn from this is that when kicking with a wind (a strong or moderate wind) to get one quick possession and then a long kick down to the forward line. This will keep the center-half forward position open will create an open space for those players and on-ballers running down the guts. Full credit must go to the half back line, which in the first quarter stopped almost all of the Austin advances. Led here by Scott Cobb the back line was tough and relentless.

The second quarter was obviously the toughest of the match with Austin staying in the game with a couple of easy goals, which could be attributed to the Magpies very offensive play. This was also evident into the 3^rd quarter where Dallas was focusing so much on the attacking side of the game that a few times opponents were left unmanned and Austin scored some easy goals. This will need to change as the season progresses to prevent possible game changing scores. But looking at the positive side it was great to see players willing to run in to space, past other players for handballs, commit to the ball and put themselves out there – we just need to remind ourselves about our defensive responsibility. If the ball is turned over, it is your first duty to your team is to pick up your man and make sure he doesn’t get an easy possession. But for the first game it was pleasing to see that all the practice and drills have started to pay off.

The third quarter was another one where forward advances went astray. Even though Dallas continued to win the ball in dispute around the ground there were too many decisions that should have seen the ball kicked long and to the top of the goal square, but instead went short or wide to the pocket (or worse yet, across the face of goal in the back line). Again the breeze was tricky at the best of times and we will focus on this at practice. Over time players will learn that coming out of the full back line against a head wind or cross breeze, we will have to play short and with the wind (as much as possible) then run the ball through the center or to the top flank before bringing it into the forward line. There were a couple of kicks that went across the face of goal, back into the strong breeze that cost us dearly. When kicking into the forward line, far too many times the ball ended up in the “dead” pocket where the wind was blowing and could not easily be converted. We’ll work on this strategy at practice to ensure every advance is given the best chance to score. Austin was still in the game as the quarter finished and only trailed by 10 points.

Dallas once again came out strong in the last quarter and used the ball pretty well to get a few goals. There were some great passages of play that saw first game rookie Parimal Patal rove the pack and put on through for full points. There were some signs of tiring into the last 10 minutes of the game from both teams, as it had been a hard fought battle all day with some heavy hitting. To the teams credit the Magpies were able to do just enough to keep the Crows at bay and ran out 35-point winners.

Some mentionable mentions go to the steamroller Deren Wilcox in his first game in the full back position, Scott ‘scooter’ Hunt out of the back pocket and Anthony Guterres for his dashing around the center of the ground. Great work all the rookies who were out for the first time – please make an effort to make it out to practice during the week and Saturday for fine-tuning of skills and game play strategy. In addition to this we must focus on fitness – practice alone will not be enough – we all need to be doing an additional 3-4 days exercise to gain the endurance required to run 4 quarters every week.

Cheers,

Super Coach Stu