Carlton’s VFL affiliate, the Northern Bullants, have levelled their season on five wins, five losses after a 75-point defeat of Collingwood on Sunday at Princes Park. Senior coach David Teague shares his thoughts on the match and gives a summary of how some of the senior-listed players performed.
THE BOYS played really well against Collingwood, and we were impressive in how we started, which has been a trouble area for us this year.
Even though Collingwood got the first goal, the boys played a really good first quarter and won the contested ball and got their hands on it early, and played some really good footy to move it well.
We had already played – and beaten – Collingwood earlier in the year when we got over the top of them earlier, but it was a lot closer this game, although we got out to a good lead early and were able to finish it off with a good last quarter as well.
We learned a little bit about a few of their players, about how they played, in the first game. They seem to counterattack the first time against us really well, so that was an area we needed to work on to make sure that when we got into our forward half, if we didn't take catches, we had to make sure we applied pressure on the way out.
We got them with our tall forwards the first time and we got them again this week. Our talls were marking the ball well and the pressure was good.
For the Carlton-listed boys, it was one of those games where everyone played well, which was a pleasing thing, as before the game, we just asked everyone to contribute.
The standouts were Mark Austin across centre half-back. He was very strong in the air and he gave us some run and real drive. Luke Blackwell was really good around the stoppages and had an excellent first quarter and really set us up.
Adam Hartlett at centre half-forward gave us a real target to kick to, and Steven Browne, after the disappointment of missing out on a senior game because someone was coming back from injury, played really well and showed really good signs.
Sammy Jacobs in the ruck pushed forward to kick some goals and had 14 possessions in the first half, which was a great effort by a ruckman, and Cain Ackland played a bit forward and was very dangerous down there.
The afternoon was soured when Clint Benjamin got hurt at the start of the last quarter. He's got a slight adductor strain, so it's very small, and he had it scanned and it didn't really show up but he'll probably miss a week.
Even though it was the Northern Bullants versus Collingwood instead of Carlton versus Collingwood, there's still a big rivalry there and everyone loves to knock off Collingwood when they get to play them.
It was a really good weekend for the Carlton footy club with a win over the Magpies in the seniors as well, and some of the young players in both sides played some really good footy, so there are some good signs there.
The win levels us at 5-5, so we've really got ourselves in a position now where we've got an opportunity – if we can string a few games together – to have a real crack at the finals and give some young guys a chance to prove themselves when the game steps up to another level again.
This week, we've got Geelong down at Geelong, which will be a good challenge. They were the premiers last year and they're probably not firing but they're starting to get some players back now, so it's going to be a great challenge for our young guys.
Collingwood 2.1 2.1 5.3 6.6 (42)
Northern Bullants 8.1 8.4 12.6 18.9 (117)
GOALS
Collingwood: B. MacAffer 4, C. Dawes, C. Wood
Northern Bullants: A. Hartlett 3, C. Ackland 3, J. Edwards 2, A. Joseph 2, S. Jacobs 2, A. Iacobucci, P. Colbert, C. Benjamin, S. Browne, D. Pfeiffer, D. Ellard
BEST
Collingwood: R. Frost, K. Pendlebury, C. Dawes, B. MacAffer, P. Licuria, D. Stanley
Northern Bullants: M. Austin, L. Blackwell, C. Ackland, A. Iacobucci, J. Anderson, S. Browne
