If you're an AFL fan and haven't played the ladder predictor by this time of the season, you're probably lying! It's a fools game (probably why I am addicted to it), filled with biases and impossible to predict. Yet we play it, somehow conjuring the perfect match up for that one day in September!

If you're a junior footy coach, with 3 games remaining and your team sitting perilously in fourth place on the ladder, you have probably played your own version of the ladder predictor too. If you haven't, you are certainly lying!

My recent attempts at the under 16 division 1 remaining rounds had our clash against Yarraville as season defining. A win would strengthen if not cement our finals aspirations, a loss and suddenly our destiny would lay in the hands of others.

Yarraville had arrived with just 18, notable absentees their two best players who had lined up for the Western Jets a day earlier. 

Despite this, the Eagles were up for the contest, a spirited opening with our ferocious intent helping conjure a 2 goal buffer.

To their credit, the undermanned Eagles responded. Our inability to take simple marks, and an unwillingness to take the first option allowed Yarraville to surge, just 2 points in it at the half.

There was a frank discussion in the rooms at the break. This journey only continues if we want to play like a team, share the footy, soft hands, use the space, work for each other. It spurred an improved second half. We controlled most of the play, took marks we were spilling earlier, kicked to team mates advantage and found a range of avenues to goal. Not all went through, 17 scoring shots in the half yielding 7 goals, Yarraville kicking just 2, a resounding 40 point win almost drawing the coach into the huddle for the song.

A wiser head prevailed, as water bottle lids were tossed and water was sprayed like it was a scorching summers day, I watched on with a smile. A special win, the dream still alive.

Now, it was time for the ladder predictor!

U14G Team Roach

U14 Girls played a ripper to beat Truganina by 46 points, set the standard from first bounce and kept it up throughout. 

All girls (especially my onball leaders winning first ball) executed their roles and kept our structure on the big Snakepit #1 ground - we had our highest score ever against a ‘not shit’ opponent. A real team effort.

Thoughts with tough Maddie ‘Superboot’ Barker in game #11 who is in for finger surgery after a courageous smother - a very nasty open double fracture that looked like a bad horror movie, but she handled it so well. Special shoutout to trainer Paul Healy (and the parents) who helped Maddie out; you don’t realise how important they are until you need them.

Had a team catchup at Riverside tonight so otherwise it was a perfect team result for everyone to enjoy.

Shh but F word back in play too… ‎

U14 Team Bloomfield

Theme of the Day: The Road to the Finals (with a Few Potholes Along the Way)

With only three games left and our finals destiny firmly in our hands, we returned to the Snake Pit determined to bounce back after two straight losses. Spirits were high with the return of the coach from his forced holiday (although judging by the stress levels by quarter three, he may have been better off extending it).

We knew West Footscray wouldn’t make it easy they’re tough, gritty, and love a scrap. And true to form, they made us earn every metre.

First Quarter – Smooth Road Ahead

This was the footy we train for. Clean movement, great spread, smart switches – we made the ground big, controlled the tempo, and made it difficult for West Footscray to get into the game. The coach may have even unclenched his jaw. For a moment, it looked like we were cruising.

Second & Third Quarters – Cue the Potholes
Then, like a poorly planned road trip, we hit a few potholes. Actually… a lot of potholes. The game plan vanished, structure went out the window, and suddenly we were playing rushed, reactive footy. Long bombs down the line became our go-to (even if no one was there), and pressure turned us into our own worst enemy. It was frustrating, messy, and stressful particularly for the coach, who may have aged a decade in those 40 minutes.
Luckily, Football Is Weird

Despite two pretty ordinary quarters, we somehow held a 10-point lead at the final change. Go figure.

Final Quarter – Back in the Right Lane

Something clicked in the huddle – maybe a reminder of how good we were in the first quarter, or maybe just a collective decision to stop making life so hard. Either way, the boys came out focused, returned to our structure, and finished the game the right way. We kicked 3.4 in the last quarter and took home a win that, on reflection, felt like more of an escape than a statement but we’ll take it.

Next Stop: Bayside vs Williamstown - Buckle Up

Now, we shift our focus to a massive clash against our arch-rivals Williamstown at Bayside Secondary College. It’s a must-win, and we’ll need four quarters of discipline, no more detours, no more potholes.

The road to finals is still open.

U14 Team Sacco

It was a really tough day at the Snakepit for this group up against a genuine premiership contender, Flemington Kensington, who are in second spot. Again, we were up against a side full of top age and Inter League players, which can not be dismissed in comparison to our roster. If you were watching the same game I was today then you would agree that those four Inter League players were in a different class to ours!!!

A standout game from Will Humann at half back , his timing, clean hands, calm head and intercept marking had the coaching staff and his teamates on the bench in raptures after what was a tough week for the Dominator. Ruben Olanda and Johnny Franze were physical all day up back. Joey Tranter and Joey Monaco hit the scoreboard with goals in both of their milestone 50th games, and we continue to see Big Harro (Harrison Doyle) emerge as he forges his own path and gamestyle I can only continue to get excited about how damaging he and J-Mac can become in tandem in the coming years at this club. Henry "Buzz" Hill was really, really good today, taking his training form into gameday and our onballers J-Mac, Buckets, Bull & H battled on manfully all day.

We lick our wounds after a 60-point loss and head to next week, where we host Albion at the Snakepit. A shout out to the umpires today who I thought both did a great job.

U12G Team Zucco

U12 Team Farrugia

What should have been a Winnable game turned out to be a close loss after again we failed to kick goals early even though we dominated the first 10 mins of the Game. West footscray went goal,goal with 2 fwd entries and we chased tail all day after that. We fought our way to be ahead in the last quarter but wrong umpiring decisions( and thats hard to write)  went against us and we lost momentum and that was the game over. Congrats to 2 x 50 gamers Will Harris and Flynn Odlum. We again will front up to the undefeated Willi next week with all shackles off so hope the boys can be competitive with the best. A really hard lesson for kids to understand we cannot let poor umpiring decisions ruin our momentum so we will address this and get better in thay area!

U12 Team Trewin

Beat pegs at home. A great team effort with Lewis Hardwick celebrating his 50th game and him and will hickey kicking 5 between them in the first quarter. We didn’t kick a goal the the second half. But held on for a 5 point win. We practiced our marking during the week and made discipline and structure the key themes and helped us get over the line. It was a really well deserved win for the boys who have had a tough month with some massive losses. But the boys to their credit have turned up to training, never given in and kept enjoying themselves which is the main thing as we lay the foundations for next year.

U12 Team Fitzpatrick

Another stirring win by the boys today where we took down the 4th placed Altona Vikings by 51 points in what was perhaps our most complete team performance for the season, having only beaten the same opponent by 5 points on their deck a month ago. 

The win was set up by Lorenzo ‘Silk’ Calandro who carved through the opposition like a hot knife through butter. Everyone loves a lefty and it’s a thing of beauty when Silk plays like that. He was ably supported by a host of fantastic contributors, most notably Sammy ‘the Wolf’ Tranter - if there is a kid who tries harder at the Club than the Wolf I’m yet to meet them!

Ryder ‘Postman’ Fellowes played one of his best games for the year today as well, but the list of great performances 
went on and on - so we could very reasonably name them all !

On the Goal front - ‘Jedi Kobe1’ Farrugia helped himself to 3 majors and Max ‘Magic’ Brown, James ‘Muzzie’ Murray and Jacob ‘Doc’ Hosie all booted their first goal in footy ! A big congrats to all. 

On to next week where we take on Yarraville at the Pit - they are the only team we have come up short against in the season proper and we are yet to get within 6 goals of them in our two meetings so far this year, so a great challenge awaits to see how far we have come. The prize - equal top spot and a top 2 finish for the finals.

U10G Team Smith

Played YSE away. Another 4 quarter effort, tackling, was top notch, and the girls continued to share the ball by hand at every opportunity. First gamer Alexandria Vittorio joined her sister with a goal with her first kick. We ran out convincing winners.

A bit of lip from the YSE Karen goal umpire in the final qtr topped off a lovely day. 

BOG Essie Zucco & Tully Allen

U10 Team Biggs

Under 10 Team Biggs played Newport at Newport in near perfect conditions. The message was to take the game on and bring our team mates into the play. Newport scored within a minute and we knew we had a game on our hands.

We levelled up pretty quick with some great tap ruck work from Billy Vernon and a perfect crumbing goal from Hamish Hammer Carrucan. 

The second was a similar affair to the first and it was neck and neck. We threatened to break the game open with beautiful unselfish link up handballing and breaking the lines from AJ and Sanka which resulted in goals. 

Co Skipper Harry Arnold was attacking the ball at every opportunity and snagged a few “sausage rolls” for the day. 

Eamonn Williams was the same, hard at it and putting his body on the line.
Tiarnan O’Dwyer competed in the air all day and also gave us first use of the ball in the 3rd.

Leo Biggs was given a task at the start of the day to be on the move and ready to react when the opportunity arose. His tackling, 2nd and 3rd efforts one us the ball back several times and stopped their outside run.

More overlap run from Johno, and smart ball use from Runners, allowed Emi to almost pull in a screamer in the goal square, only to rove his own ball and kick his 1st ever goal, a contender for goal of the year, a soccer scissor kick over his head! 

There were a plethora of other brilliant moments, JP and Sammy Gia’s speed with ball in hand is something to watch, Benji was in and under and Tommy Nieman was rock solid in defence.

We ran out 28 point winners but it felt much closer than that. Great job boys 2 games to go let’s get at them next week.

U10 Team Manley

Round 12 took us out for our second trip to Point Cook for the year. Thankfully the threatening weather held off and we faced clean conditions for the game. 

The directive for the day was ‘Hot Potato’, an encouragement for the boys to release the ball quicker and handball to create, not just when under pressure. 

The boys put this into practice well and were rewarded numerous times during the game. Quick ball movement from the mids found Rishi “The Wiz” Vasih, who put his opponents under a spell with a duck and a weave and kicked a great early goal. 

Our opposition parked the bus in the second, 30 odd players in the forward 50 made it tough to find some clean ball. We pulled our players out to create space, but it was a quarter of exits and re-entries to our forwards. 

Fantastic unselfish play in the 3rd opened up scoring for us. Jack “General” Clampett took a great intercept mark 30m out, squared it up to the Wiz, who then found Justin “Stinger” Moretti in the goal square for an easy set shot. 

The next centre clearance was as clean as they come, Taylor “Citta” Cittarelli with a strong first ball win, a quick handball to Jack “JJ” Sacco, a clean forward entry landing with Isaac “Flash” Caoduro and with some balanced, surge footy finished with a classy goal. 

In unbelievable scenes, an unfortunate and unnecessary premature end to the game early in the last, when the opposition coach pulled their team off the ground in response to a scuffle between two players and feeling ours deserved a send off and not theirs. A compete overreaction given the nature of the scuffle, and the ego of the coach penalising the players from playing footy. 

Probably the coaches frustration of having two St Bernard’s teams come to their ground two weeks in a row and walking away with easy wins.

U9 Team Round

Bye

U8 Team Ryan

We had a feisty clash on oval 1 at the snake pit against west Footscray.

Our co-captains Felix and Rio Orlando drew an early crowd and didn’t disappoint with their pre-game speeches.

Liam Stapleton and Billy Ryan were both in the wars at various stages but managed to brush themselves off to get back out on the field to have an impact for the team.

Some excellent passages of play throughout the game with Tom Demaria and Harry Lancashire both showing a clean set of hands.

Felix Orlando was dodging and weaving everywhere before getting him mself a well deserved goal and Aston Genticoglou continued his good form with a couple of majors.

Another highlight was Billy Ryan scoring his first goal and the whole team joining the celebrations.

U8 Team Cameron 

The rain held off and we were treated to perfect conditions looking for our third win in a row as we hosted West Footscray.

We dominated right from the beginning with brilliant teamwork across all parts of the ground. 

Our kids wanted the ball more and were very unselfish sharing it around to teammates in better positions which has been a major focus in recent weeks.

Today was easily the best game we’ve played and it showed on the scoreboard, ending up 49 point winners. 9 different goal scorers out of 11 players is a great team effort but wanted to call out young Alex Lawton who broke through for her first goal of the season to complete the set, everyone now has kicked a goal!

Today’s win makes it #ThreeOnTheTrot as we’re finishing the season with a wet sail, building great momentum for next season when all of these kids remain in under 8s.

U8 Team Mirtsis 

Played a great game today, scoring 6.6.42, defeating Sunshine Roos  5.6.36. An amazing effort for our boys, especially in muddy conditions. They played with heart and dug deep in the last quarter, after a surmon was delivered at 3 quarter time. The ball spent the last quarter in our forward half to power over the top of the "infamous Roos," led by captain Charlie who was in the thick of it all game, hungry for the ball, and "King Cary Harper" with a boundary line dribbler on half time. Spencer Lancashire's work rate was unmatched. The T-Train Thomas pushed through with 2 late goals to put the result beyond doubt. "Jack the tank" could also not be passed when in defence. Good round of footy for our boys with 2 games remaining. Proud efforts boys!