After a long, but very productive pre-season, the season finally got underway for the State League boys, with an away game at Monash. The university teams are subject to year to year variations, with the rotation of students through their ranks, so there was a bit of the unknown in planning for Round 1. Only so much you can do about the opposition anyway and the boys looked really sharp at training in the week prior to the game. Bring on the season.

Game day came around, with a beautiful, warm Autumn day. A perfect test for the fitness of the team. The game started well, with an early goal from Rowan Yeo, followed quickly by scores from Mark Scully and our latest Kiwi, Jesse Workman in the first 20 minutes, setting up a nice buffer that was never relinquished. At half-time the score was 4-0, but the message from new coach Andrew “Dos” Aldons, was very clear: “a 5-0 result is not acceptable after this start”. The second half was just as strong, with a complete domination of possession, resulting in another 4 goals, even with a packed Monash backline making penetration into the D difficult. Monash managed one goal on the break, with a full-time score of 8-1. Probably just a par score, as it’s hard to see Monash troubling many of the top teams in this grade, but it was more the way the team played that was really pleasing. Shane Campbell and Mark Tesoriero controlled the backline and distributed well to the mid field who patiently built the play to the forwards, who finished off the strong platform, with well constructed attacking moves. Communication all over the field was excellent, something both umpires commented on after the game, a clear sign of the cohesion that the team is building.

Most pleasing were the efforts of Josh Ephraums in his first full game in the top team and the impact that Jesse made on the team. Josh was very composed at left half and worked well with the guys around him Good signs for the future. He will only get better and better with these opportunities to develop.

Jesse bagged a hat-trick, but more importantly he was extremely creative and was instrumental in building patient and incisive attacking moves. Excellent signs of things to come and we all look forward to seeing this new forward line take on the rest of the competition.

Brunswick next week at Farm Rd. A tougher test, I’m sure, but the boys have a strong platform to buildon and go into the game with plenty of confidence. Should be a good game, so get along to Farm Rd and cheer on the boys on Saturday.

Mike Campbell
SUHC Men’s Section