By Tricia Mifsud
THE four-week break forced on sporting clubs due to COVID-19 restrictions was felt by Broadford Football Club seniors, who went down to Alexandra 15 to 128 on Saturday.
Angus Norris scored the Kangaroos’ first and only goal in the first quarter of the match at Broadford’s Harley Hammond Reserve.
Despite it only being a three-goal difference in favour of the Rebels at quarter time, an eight-goals-to-none second quarter badly hurt the Kangaroos.
Alexandra added another eight goals to the scoreboard in the second half, 10 of the Rebel’s totalled goals coming from Brayden Norris, who was recruited to the AFL’s North Melbourne side in 2009.
Broadford coach Russell Humphrey said his side was still trying to continue playing the game style they had implemented each week.
“We’re not going to go away from the stuff that we’ve tried to implement,” Humphrey said.
“I think one of our problems was, which didn’t help, I couldn’t get to training … that didn’t help anyone.
“And Alexandra, they’re a good side, they’re on top for a reason, but that didn’t help us either.”
Humphrey said he was pleased with Broadford’s first quarter of football but knows his side needed to work on playing four good quarters of football to find its first win in the Outer East League.
“We were good for a quarter, but a game is four quarters not one, but we just unfortunately didn’t keep going,” he said.
Team selection was another concern of the Kangaroos last week and even though they named their squad on Thursday evening, Humphrey was forced to make five late changes including one right before the match.
The late change gave ruckman Nic Franks the chance to play a game again for the seniors, despite having already played for the reserves beforehand.
Franks went on to be named one of the Kangaroos’ best in their average performance alongside Isaac Smithwick, Caleb Keen, Bryce Fleming, Harley Austin and Zac Neilson.
From discussions with other coaches and members of various leagues, Humphrey said overall, the football played over the weekend was of a lower standard compared to usual.
Leagues commented the break yet again affected its players and the performance they could put in with limited training, if any, allowed.
“Some of the footy this weekend was pretty ordinary because of the break, and that’s right across the state, from the people I have spoken to,” Humphrey said.
“For us, we only trained two nights and for our metro sides because of the radius limit and longer restrictions, they barely got any.
“It made for an interesting week.”
Broadford will focus on its match against Yarra Junction this week, whose unlucky record against Warbuton Milgrove continued over the week, falling short to the Burras 54 to 65.
Humphrey said all he hoped for his side was a positive result and for them to find their first win.
“We’ve just got to keep doing what we’re doing which we really are trying to do … we just want a positive result,” he said.
Across other grades, Broadford Football Netball Club were victorious with wins in reserves, under 17s, and all four netball matches.
