Cobar Blues Club records a trifecta at home
Wednesday June 3, 2009
Cobar Blues’ Chris Higgins winning the ball up against his Tullibigeal opposite number in Saturday’s AFL match at Ward Oval.
The Cobar Blues Football and Netball Club had plenty to celebrate about on Saturday with all three sides recording wins against Tullibigeal in Round 7 of the Northern Riverina League competition.
For the Blues AFL side, it was their first win of the season and an important one, with Tullibigeal one of the top two sides in the competition.
The game however didn’t start well for Cobar.
They lost the toss and had to start the match kicking into the wind.
In contrast, Tullibigeal kicked their first goal less than 30 seconds into the game and looked to have started what was going to be another Cobar walk-over.
That was until Blues’ midfielder Corey Slater answered with two of his own goals in the first quarter lifting the local side.
Cobar went into the first break just two goals down.
In the second quarter there was an emergence of some superior forward defence tactics brought upon by Robbie Mitchell who coordinated the ‘zoning’ initiative that kept the ball in the forward line giving maximum opportunities for the Cobar forwards to score.
Newcomer Craig Curry joined Terry Pitkin and Michael Jones and they took advantage cashing in with goals.
At halftime, there was only a goal the difference with the score in Tullibigeal’s favour 8-1-49 to 6-9-45.
With Cobar now against the wind again, a big effort was needed.
Thanks to some ‘off the chart ball getting abilities’ of Slater, Paul Gauci, Dan Howard and Shane Munro, Cobar was able to take the lead for the first time this season and were up by three goals heading into the final break, (10-10-70 to 8-3-51).
Coach Murray Robotham had a fired up speech for his side at three-quarter time and let the side know just how he would love to get a win at home.
He urged the Blues to go out and play the final quarter as if they were three goals down.
Things looked a little shaky at the start of the final period when an early goal was kicked for Tullibigeal, however the unrelenting efforts of Cobar defender Wade McLachlan effectively closed down Tullibigeal’s full forward so that he could have no effect on the game.
This flowed on to the defensive composition of the Blues’ side and Cobar ran out eventual winners by 26 points with the final score 12-14-86 to 9-6-60.
The Blues best players were: Slater, Howard, Gauci, Scott Munro, North and Travis Dunlevy, however all played at an exceptional level and proved that they are capable of playing quality football.
Goal scorers for Cobar were: Slater 3, Curry 3, Michael Moritz 2, Doug North 1, Robotham 1, Gauci 1 and Chris Higgins 1.
The Blues now have a week off with a general bye for the long weekend.—contributed
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