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Caulfield  9 – 9 – 63    Defeated      Old Melburnians   8 – 11 – 59

A big game playing unbeaten Old Melburnians on Friday night under lights at Sportscover arena.

Kicking into a 1-2 goal wind towards the Glenhuntly road end the game started evenly, however as the quarter progressed OM’s were playing the better footy. Xav Jordan was dominate in and around the clearances but we found it hard to get past our half forward line to create a genuine scoring opportunity. Our backline was under constant pressure however Nick Blaich and Max Simpson were strong.   Matt Ball kicked our only goal for the quarter while OM’s were wasteful and kicked 2 -7. We were 8 points down at quarter time, which considering the breeze and not playing that well was not such a bad result.

With the start of the second quarter we started to run, carry and use the ball much better. McClelland, Jordan, Lewis, Diggle, Nixon were giving could service to our forwards. Steve Manos was dangerous up forward and kicked goals with Ball and McClelland  while Zac Amos having spells in the ruck was dominant in the stoppages. The backline held tight and again Blaich, Simpson and Collins repelling attacks. We had kicked 5 for the quarter and were up by 2 points at half time….great effort.

The 3^rd quarter was an even affair but OM’s did enough to win the quarter again using the breeze. Xav Jordan was creative and unlucky not to kick a goal from breaking away from the centre with a couple of bounces but just missed the goal to the right  Myles Spielvogel drifted from midfield to mark and kicked a nice goal to keep us in touch for the final quarter.

The final quarter was tense as we kept attacking but could not get reward for effort. The backline was tight and any OM’s attacks were repelled, special mention here for all the backline players. Manos and Kuang kicked goals and we had another couple of chances to get a clear break on OM’s however we couldn’t. Leading by 4 points and 30 secs to go O’M’s won the ball on the wing and moved it up to half forward and then with a high kick to full forward (this could have been a disaster) however Chris Diggle took a safe chest mark between two OM’ s players and then the siren went.

A great result and contributions from everyone, irrespective of being named in best players or not.

Goal Kickers: S. Manos 3, M. Ball 3, B. Kuang, M. Spielvogel, J. McCLELLAND
Best Players: N. Blaich, M. Simpson, X. Jordan, Z. Amos, S. Manos, L. Nixon, C. Diggle,