General News
7 June, 2022
Bombers brave in defeat
COBDEN senior coach Dan Casey could not have been happier with his players effort and determination when they played flag favourites North Warrnambool on Saturday.
COBDEN senior coach Dan Casey could not have been happier with his players effort and determination when they played flag favourites North Warrnambool on Saturday.
“I could see what we’ve been trying to do all season, at training, on and off the field, and I think all of our supporters could see it too,” Casey said.
“I wanted them to pull the trigger and play to their strengths, and they did just that."
“I’m really proud of how they responded after quarter-time.”
The Bombers fell behind early, going into the first change down 0.2 to 6.3.
“It was a bit intimidating for some of the younger boys standing back and having a look at Nathan Vardy, Billie Smedts, Dion Johnstone and all these guys and lining up against them,” Casey said.
“They took a little bit to get going, but once they realised they could match it with them we pretty much won the rest of the game."
“I was really rapt with the second, third, and most of the fourth quarter.”
After being shell-shocked through the first period to trail by 37 points Cobden scored nine goals to five through the next two and a half quarters to get within 18 points with around fifteen minutes of play left.
However, former West Coast Eagle Nathan Vardy booted four goals late in the game to seal the game for North Warrnambool, who finished in front 15.15 (105) to 9.4 (58).
“Vardy kicked those four or five late to put it out of reach, but Christian Koroneos did an amazing job on him right up until then,” Casey said.
“Obviously that’s why he played AFL, but I thought Christian beat him all day.”
In addition to Koroneos’ performance against Vardy, Casey praised the efforts of midfielders Charlie Darcy, Grady Rooke and Matt Kemp and young forward Luke Smith.
“Charlie was probably our best on Saturday, we had the GPS tracker on him and he covered 19 kms,” he said.
“He was leading the midfield, and Grady Rooke and Matt Kemp as well. All our midfielders stood up after quarter-time."
“And Luke Smith, he’s 17 and getting better each week. He’s rotating through the midfield and up forward, and we put him in the backline as well when we had some guys come off."
“He takes a good contested mark, he moves across the ground really well and his skills are really good.”
Casey was also impressed at the way Louis Cahill and Oliver Darcy worked together to cover for regular ruckman Tyler Humphrey, who was unavailable.
“We had a couple out, we didn’t have a ruckman, but Louis Cahill and Louis Darcy did really well against Vardy and Ben Mugavin,”he said.
“They were completely undersized, but out midfield got on top in those contests.”
Casey said the belief and energy his players would take away from the performance was huge.
“After the game our captains (Jack Hutt and Paul Pekin) had them in the middle talking about how proud they were of the fight back against quality opposition, flag favourites, and getting within striking distance,” Casey said.
“And the way they played and held themselves, we were really disciplined, played some really good footy and were really entertaining to watch."
“You could see at three-quarter time they knew they were a chance to overrun North. It didn’t pan out that way, but you could see that belief, that we can match it with the best.”
Casey said this week’s match against Terang Mortlake would be an important one to capitalise on and continue to build the momentum that his side was building.
“We want them to enjoy what they’re doing and play 110 per cent, and now that we know what 110 per cent looks like for our team we’ll be pushing for that each week,” he said.
“We play Terang Mortlake this week, who are in the same position as us, and we’ll be saying it doesn’t matter who the opposition is, you’ve got to treat it like you’re playing a top sideevery week."
“As a coach you just want to see reward for these players who are training hard and playing hard. Hopefully we can get that over the nextfew weeks.”
