Kew dominate T’s as Melbourne Uni look right at home

Kristin Sims

It was a mixed round to start off the 2022 William Buck Premier Women’s season. Kew were dominant against Trinity with a massive win, while Melbourne Uni looked right at home in the top division, coming out on top of Old Xaverians. West Brunswick were strong in defence but were unable to push offensively to overcome St Kevin’s, and Caulfield Grammarians picked up where they left off last year to keep St Mary’s scoreless once again.

Kew were strong from the first siren, taking the ball in the first clearance and getting it straight into their forward line. This would be the story for the first quarter, where Kew were able to lock the ball into their front half and dominate the possession for the quarter. It was a tale that would continue for much of the first half of the game. In the third quarter, Old Trinity seemed to gel together a bit more and took control of the possession for the early half. Trying to capitalise on having the wind Trinity had a few shots at goal, but were unable to make an impact on the scoreboard. It was a better quarter overall for Trinity though with them tightening up on Kew and putting on some pressure acts, and moving the ball across the ground more than earlier in the game. The last quarter followed the trend of the first half and once Kew got the ball in their forward line it spent majority of the time down that end of the ground. Kew came out 93 point winners, a great debut for Jess Burger as new head coach. 

Melbourne Uni came into the Premier division this season and did not look out of place at all. From the first bounce they were able to match Old Xaverians in a game that could only be described as an old-fashioned arm wrestle. The two teams traded possession in the first quarter but neither were really able to make an impact on the scoreboard with Melbourne Uni managing to get 2 behinds on the board. Old Xaverians came out firing in the second and overtook the play early on, tying the game in the first few minutes and intercepting play from Melbourne Uni. Breaking the drought 7 minutes into the quarter, Old Xaverians were the first to score a goal but Melbourne Uni responded with a quick return. After halftime the game broke open somewhat and both teams continued to trade goals and scored another 2 each. The final quarter continued on the same path as the whole game and the ball went end to end but no team was able to hit the scoreboard and Melbourne Uni came out winners by 6 points.

St Kevin’s coming off a strong season last year, they were looking good early on and controlled a lot of the play with multiple forward entries early on to put pressure on West Brunswick. Making the most of their opportunities St Kevin’s opened the scoring in the match to lead in the first quarter 2 goals 6 behinds. West Brunswick wasted no time in the second quarter and took advantage of the wind scoring early on. St Kevin’s stepped up to take back some of the possession and scored a great team goal later in the quarter. It was the accuracy of West Brunswick that kept them in the game at half time. The third quarter saw St Kevin’s get back to their strong offensive display early on but it was some slick footwork out of the ruck that got them their 1 goal for the quarter. The West Brunswick defence withstood the multiple forward entries and didn’t let the rain get in the way of their strong marking. Unfortunately for West Brunswick they were unable to bring a strong offensive pressure to the game and with St Kevin’s scoring another goal in the last quarter they took the game out 5.9.39 to West Brunswick 2.1.13

It is year 2 of the rebuild for St Mary’s and they had to start the year off against the strong Caulfield Grammarians side who kept them scoreless previously. Caulfield were as tenacious as they were in the previous match up seeing them keep St Mary’s scoreless once again. St Mary’s had some patches throughout the game where they had some good ball movement but the strong pressure of Caulfield forced errors and they were unable to convert onto the scoreboard. Caulfield were dangerous with the ball for the whole game and St Mary’s were unable to match them in the one on one aspect of the game. It was a one sided contest for much of the game, with St Mary’s still working to bond together as a team. Caulfield on the other hand have shown in the first round why they made it to the prelim last season and that they will be pushing towards that again.