The Woden Blues defeated Yass Roos 9.8 (62) to 3.4 (22) in Round 8 of the Canberra Times Fourth Grade Men’s, which marks the official halfway point of the competition.
It was a wet and cold day which saw a tough match with several veteran players out with injuries or other commitments leaving some greener players to pick up the slack.
Assistant Coach Jarrad Forlonge said missing some key players certainly didn’t help on top of crappy weather and some inconsistent performances from the Roos side.
“Not much went right last week,” he said.
“I think probably the only thing we can take out of it is that we’ve got games into a few of those inexperienced players.”
In a positive turn the Club had three members play their first ever Aussie Rules game over the weekend.
“From a club point of view that’s always positives to continue to get games into new players and then obviously the longer it goes the better they’re going to get.”
Jarrad said the Roos should have most of their players, who were off with injury, back after the Queen’s Birthday long weekend when the competition takes a break.
Yass is up against the Ainslie Tricolours on Saturday, June 4 at 12pm at Clarke Oval in Cootamundra.
Jarrad said if they had their full team, he would feel confident of a win but the Roos still have a few players out.
“I think it’s probably going to be a lot closer than what people probably think but the fact is we probably should beat them, and we would be expecting to beat them.”
“We’re going to prepare this week to try and help out these new players as best as we can,” he said.
“But look, we’re definitely going in to try and win the game.”
He added that the team is looking forward to the bus trip out to Coota and spending some time enjoying each other’s company.
On June 18, the Yass Roos are preparing to celebrate their Indigenous Round at Joe O’Connor Park with specially designed uniforms, a welcome to country address and a smoking ceremony.
The new jerseys feature a maroon and yellow dot painting design with a kangaroo across the abdomen and back.
The Roos game against the Bateman Bay Seahawks begins at 2pm and the ceremonies, performed by Scott Bell, will begin shortly before at about 1:45pm.
Earlier in the day, the Cootamundra Blues are playing the Seahawks Third Grade team at 12pm in Yass.
Brianna O’Rourke