Eastern Eyre Football League
A Grade
COWELL v RUDALL…It was an ideal day for football, with just enough rain to soften the oval during the week and no more than a three-goal breeze. It was evident that Rudall were lacking numbers in both senior sides when reading the budget and this was a proven fact when they took to the oval.
Cowell won the toss and unlike Robinson in year’s past, Piggott chose to kick with the breeze. The first goal of the game didn’t come until five minutes in, through Nick Franklin. For the first ten minutes the game was untidy and indirect from both sides, until J. Siviour scored a major thanks to some solid movement from Cowell’s backline. The star in Jack Burton began to shine and someone flicked on the switch to Johnson. These were the early warning signs that Cowell could dominate if things didn’t change as they settled down and began to score quite steadily.
By quarter time after a steady start Cowell had made good use of the breeze and had 9-8 to zip on the board thanks to the back line combining very well. Whilst Rudall had no real stand out players Grey, Burton and T Evans all tried hard. At the start of the second quarter Rudall were under the pump and they dropped numbers back to stop the flood gates from opening despite the fact they had the breeze. This made for a very scrappy quarter of footy. It did hold Cowell down a little but also meant that when Rudall did push forward there wasn’t any real target for them to hit. With such a solid backline Piggott, Mercer, D. Franklin with the aid of the on ballers, just run the ball out with ease. Cowell’s endeavour seemed to be growing as the Rudall boys were going through the motions. At the long break Cowell had an inaccurate 13-13 to just three behinds.
It was obvious the Rudall lads copped a bit of a rev at half time. They scored the first goal and especially the young players showed a bit more endeavour. Unfortunately for them Cowell’s hunger for the ball grew. With Wildman showing a flash of the past with a spectacular mark, it just lifted the Cats to another level.
With Fiegert dominating the ruck contests it made it easy for the on ballers such as the Edwards boys, Matty Franklin, Burton and the two wingmen in Siviour and Nick Franklin to get first use of the ball. By the end of the third quarter it wasn’t writing on the wall for Rudall it was an ugly scene of graffiti, at 23-20 to just 2-4.
To their credit Rudall started the last quarter as well as they could have showing a little more consistency but still struggled to hit targets due to the immense pressure applied to them. Jason Burton tried very hard but was playing on a very in form Johnson who would be stacking up medal votes from his last few games. With Wildman and Johnson kicking goals and Henderson, Josh Siviour and Matty Franklin all pumping the ball into them Rudall could only watch as the final score blew out to an inaccurate 30-22 to 3-5.Cowell’s best were many with young Jack Burton playing an impeccable game, Matt and Nick Franklin, Piggott was a brick wall again, Johnson, Fiegert and Wildman to name a few. For Rudall Burton, Evans and Noble all tried hard.
With three players in Paul Franklin, Chris Ramsey and Jono Hunt to come back in for the Cats one would think that they would be unstoppable, and for Rudall’s sake lets hope they can get some numbers back before the finals hit or it will be a long last round for the club.
Cowell 29-22 (196) d Rudall 3-5 (23)
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