By JARROD POTTER
VFL WOMEN’S – ROUND 11
WELL-LAID plans kept Cranbourne alive throughout most of Sunday’s 83-point loss to Darebin.
The Eagles clamped down on the Falcons’ forwards – with Kristy Roche taking the tricky task on Darcy Vescio while Hayley Wildes, Bianca Jakobsson and Ash Fennell mopped up across the defensive-50.
The plan was to get in Darebin’s face, make the hits count, the tackles hurt and strike back when the time was right.
It worked at first – they held the reigning premier to two goals at the half, as the Eagles went in confident of carrying on the ensnarement through the second phase.
Striking back was the toughest part of the equation, as Cranbourne took a ton of forward entries but failed to cash any of their hard work from the last line.
With the ball constantly rebounding between the half-forward lines, eventually something had to give.
You can’t keep Darebin down forever – at least not in recent seasons – as even on its bad days it’s still an extraordinary side and Sunday sadly was no different.
Eventually the defensive mesh snapped and Darebin flooded in with Lauren Arnell (three goals) and Georgia Hammond among others cashing in late to run out 12.15 (87) to 0.4 (4) victors.
Cranbourne’s heavy focus on defence gave plenty of midfield opportunity to the younger brigade as Kayla Ripari and debutant Shayla Marsh helped move the Eagles out of the middle.
While it wasn’t a win, it certainly wasn’t a repeat of the round one loss by 197 points as Cranbourne knew it couldn’t bring the same intensity this time around.
“We had to bring the fight to them – we talked a lot in the pre-game about not being intimidated or overawed or overwhelmed by the situation and that was the focus all day,” Cranbourne coach Kris Smith said.
“We had to take them on, put the pressure on them and get in their face – we did that against Diamond Creek and brought that to the Darebin too.
“There’s a lot to like in the whole game – it’s the same old thing where the back end of the third quarter we drop our guard and their forwards have enough class that they go whack, whack, whack and have five goals on the board instantly.”
It was the transition work from the centre to the forward half that had Cranbourne unstuck with some of its best ball winners doing the hard-yards down back.
“People probably think of the score line and think we flooded, but we won a fair share of our footy,” Smith said. “It was just turning possession into scoreboard pressure that we couldn’t do.”
Smith praised Roche and second gamer Kelly Thompson – who took the run-with role on AFL star Katie Brennan – and mostly kept her out of the action, while he thought Leah Olsen showed the big steps forward she’s taken this season.
Cranbourne heads away to VU Western Spurs and Smith thinks this might be the week they get a “Premier” scalp.
“Hugely winnable game this week – we might’ve even been in front of them last time and the girls will be looking to turn the tables on them,” Smith said. “We want to beat one of these top six sides from last year.”
VFL SCOREBOARD
DAREBIN 2.3 2.6 7.10 12.15 (87)
CRANBOURNE 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.4 (4)
CRANBOURNE
Best: B. Jakobsson, H. Wildes, K. Roche, L. Olsen, K. Thompson, T. Thomas.
DAREBIN
Goals: L. Arnell 3, J. Lange 2, G. Hammond 2, L. Pearce, D. Vescio, K. Brennan, D. Pearce, K. Paxman.
Best: D. Pearce, E. O’Dea, L. Arnell, N. Callinan, G. Holden, S. Hogan.
