By JARROD POTTER
UNIFIED at last, Cranbourne Women’s Football Club took its first step onto the field in the VWFL’s Division 1 competition.
After a tumultuous last month – with Berwick Women’s Football Club folding and the players heading over to Cranbourne – the newly merged team took to Casey Fields on Sunday to face its first challenge against the St Kilda Sharks.
But there were still remnants of Berwick’s history – many players donned Berwick’s navy blue shorts instead of Cranbourne’s royal blue – however the effort on-field highlighted the best of the south-east as desperate tackles, booming kicks and high-flying marks were still on display as they were at Berwick.
The first point for the new club was registered late in the first term through a long-bomb behind off the boot of Alicia Heins, bouncing through to the left for a behind.
The first goal took a little longer, but Alice Barfoot’s work in the goal square found the first major registered in the history books for Cranbourne in Division 1 before Ash Fennell would kick the second-and-final goal of the afternoon.
Goals were a precious commodity and most came late in the game for the Sharks as Tamara Hyett booted two to push St Kilda ahead by seven points by the final siren in the horrible conditions.
Cranbourne coach Shaun Smith said even with a highly chaotic pre-season and switching clubs at basically the last minute, the new team had gelled excellently.
“It’s been fantastic since we’ve gone there,” Smith said.
“We’re really working hard to get things right and we’ll have our teething problems like every team does, but all in all I can’t thank the Cranbourne Football Club enough for the way they’ve embraced us all coming across.”
Smith said the inability to score, despite having the ball up forward most of the match, proved the only major chink in the Cranbourne armour.
“We basically had it in our forward line for 80 per cent of the third quarter and we just didn’t score,” Smith said.
“That was our major problem for most of the game… plenty of possessions and inside 50s but we just couldn’t put them away.”
Smith said he could have used another two Heins-clones to run through the midfield and set up goals as she was exceptional, while the captain Hardiman stood tall across half-back and was given some opportunity up forward as well and for a player only in her second year, Sam ‘Buddy’ Franklin starred in the ruck to smash a number of hit-outs to advantage.
Cranbourne’s Division 3/4 team fared much better as it defeated Jacana 12.11 (83) to 0.2 (2). ANZAC VWFL representative Kirsten Macleod smashed five goals to put her hand up for Division 1 selection while Melanie Held snared a brace.
Hallam started its season in stellar fashion, brushing off a horror 2013 with a 7.14 (56) to 4.5 (29) win over Melton Centrals.
Pippa Attard (2) starred in the win with newly recruited Hawks Amanda Hancock and Maria Pickering also picking apart the Centrals.
