After a few days of heavy rain, football looked in grave doubt until the sun shone through on the Friday preceding round three.
The opening round of the "celebrity" team, the Ramettes, was scheduled for Mona Park against Auburn Tigers, but with the ground closure was transferred to Monarch Oval at Macquarie Fields. The team had a meeting on Wednesday, after training was cancelled due to the heavy rain and set a target of kicking four goals in their clash against Auburn, who were 1-0 after their opening win against UTS Shamrocks. Two trial matches against strong opposition had seen the girls unable to kick a goal, so it was a quite ambitious target.
A few late withdrawals saw the team reduced to 20 players as they arrived at a sodden Monarch Oval. Monarch is regarded as the biggest ground in Sydney AFL and the match looked likely to be a very low scoring affair. In the opening minutes, the ramettes got the better of play with Kate Easthope having first opportunity to goal but the shot went wide for a behind. Soon after, Nat Camilleri, one of many playing their first game, wrote herself into the history books with the teams first ever goal. The Tigers fought back and grabbed the next two, before Easthope went one better with her next kick to add the second six-pointer to the tally. A late Auburn goal saw them go to a narrow 6 point lead at the fisrt break.
Auburn started to open the game up in the second quarter with elite player Kirrily Boyd causing havoc and being the mastermind of their three goals scored in the quarter. Penrith however, were going hard into the contest and withstood the attack with Camilleri posting her second, the teams going to the sheds with Auburn extending their lead to 18.
Enthusiasm was high at the break with coaches John Rix and Jake Sultana full of praise at the commitment and endeavour under the tough conditions. The team was aware of the Tigers key players that needed to be controlles, Stephanie Kostic putting up her hand quickly to play on Boyd as the play resumed in the third session. It was an arm-wrestle for the next twenty minutes with Auburn collecting 1.1 whilst Kayla Badger put a nice kick between the big sticks in reply. Defence was the story as both teams went hard at the ball. A serious knee injury saw vice-captain Vanessa Geisler carried from the field in agony as her day ended after a sterling performance. Auburn took the quarter by a single point to lead by 19.
The final twenty minutes saw some sparkling moments from both teams with Auburn grabbing three goals and it was the young guns Lauren Bozic and Sarah Rowley who joined in the action with a goal apiece. The more experinced Tigers running out 25 point winners to keep their unbeaten record intact.
Last Modified on 28/01/2013 11:12