(Photo: A fun trip home for the Roos)
The Yass Roos are now seven wins from as many games, but Saturday’s assignment against the Cootamundra Blues was one of their most challenging to date this season, eventually prevailing by just 10 points in a game that saw Coota stalwart Blake Basham play his 100th match for the Blues.
The Round 7 clash between the two sides at Clark Oval proved a close one in the AFL Canberra Community Men’s Division Three competition, with the Roos defeating the Blues 9.14.68 to 8.10.58.
Both sides kicked two goals each in the first quarter, with the Roos holding the same 10-point lead at half-time, three-quarter time and full time.
Ryan Ulrich, Taylor Doyle, Darcy Paine, Jake Collins, Joven May and Rex Stacey were all among the best on ground for the Roos on Saturday.
There were seven individual goalkickers for Yass against the Blues, with Ryan Ulrich and Geordan Whitton both booting two, while Dominic Johns, Lachlan Cossins, Jake Collins, Rex Stacey, and Captain Sam Williams all kicking one each.
Yass Roos playing President Jarrad Forlonge said the game on the weekend was played at a finals like intensity.
“It was tough, physical, like finals game. I think Cootamundra were very good, they certainly played a lot better than their recent results have showed,” Forlonge said. It was a genuine finals-like game, a really good intensity and we’re pretty happy to come away with the win.
“Cootamundra were never in the lead, the closest they got was around three points, but they just kept coming. In the third and fourth quarters, we came out and kicked early goals and extended the lead, and they came right back to evening it up each time.
“Credit to Coota, they kept trying all day. That’s one thing that we expected for them, we knew that they weren’t going to give up at all and that definitely kept them in the game.
“One of the things that coaches really did signal at the end of the game was just how happy they were with our resilience and to keep weathering the storm every time they kept coming back.
“I think it can be a bit tricky at times when we’ve had some of the results over the previous weeks, we’re not probably as used to teams coming at us as hard as what Cootamundra did and for what Murrumbateman did a few weeks earlier.
“To be able to weather that storm and to be able to counterattack and kick goals of our own going the other way when our back was up against it, that was definitely a really pleasing point.”
Yass currently sit top of the ladder at the halfway mark of the season going into the mid-season bye and are almost all but confirmed to be playing finals footy in 2023.
“We’ve played everyone once now so we know that we can beat everyone. I think the problem now is the fact that it’s pretty clear that everyone’s going to be wanting to try and knock us off every week, so we need to get used to playing games like we did on the weekend, because teams are going to come out are they’re going to come out fast,” Forlonge continued.
“They’re going to try and be the ones that that beat us which we accept, and we are ready for and we’re looking forward to the challenges. There’s still definitely a lot of things that we can work on, and we will moving forward. I’m really proud of the efforts for the first half of the year, but it’s a long way to go. Obviously, we’ve got the end goal in mind and hopefully keep working towards that.”
Following the game on Saturday night, the Roos players had a mid-season get-together and night out to celebrate their efforts in the first half of the season.
“We organised a bus down to Coota and there was an optional dress-up for the bus ride home. We stopped in at a few pubs along the way and it was just a good way to get together as a team in a not-so-formal environment.
“We could all just enjoy each other’s company, a bit of a mid-season bonding experience. It was a good night all round and good dress up and good way to go into the bye week off the back of that.”
The Roos will have a bye this weekend for the King’s Birthday long weekend before taking on the Goulburn Swans at Goodhew Park in Round 8 on Saturday June 17.
Ladder:
- Yass – 28 points – 355%
- Murrumbateman – 24 points – 316%
- Goulburn – 16 points – 115.19%
- Southern Cats – 16 points – 115.14%
- Cootamundra – 8 points – 92%
- Eastlake – 8 points – 48%
- Belconnen – 8 points – 43%
- Tuggeranong – 4 points – 32%
Tim Warren