With anywhere up to 15 of our best side missing, it was always going to be a tough ask against the one time ladder leaders in Mazenod.  But with a chance to move into outright 2nd on the ladder, what more could we need as motivation to get up and going?  So with our depleted list we had to trial a few blokes in positions that were unfamiliar to them and we also called on 3 year 12 boys to have a crack at Old Xavs footy.  With our limitations apparent to us at the start of the week, our theme for the week was a bit different and we were going to beat Mazenod with tempo footy and by clogging them up with our wings and mids playing behind the ball.  With our style all year being quite free flowing, this was always going to be a challenge for us, but we thought a necessary one as we develop our game into one that can stand up in finals.

Again our warmup was flat unfortunately, we’re scratching our heads a bit to try and work out what it is going to take for our boys to really ‘get up’ for a game.  And not surprisingly Mazenod jumped us early with a few quick goals which had us on the back foot for the remainder of the game.  One of the early positives was the form of Matt Jenkinson from the school team who we put on the leagues leading goalkicker and had not let him get a touch, unfortunately for Jenks he didn’t have the support that he should have deserved from our senior players and he was left on his own against 2 or 3 players on more than one occasion.  Luckily for us Mazenod did not really put us away as they should have and our small forwards in Vlahos & Ghattas managed to scrounge some much needed goals.

Quarter time gave us a chance to regroup and talk about so many of the things that we simply hadn’t been doing.  Our focus of mids and wingers rushing back had seemed to be forgotten, as Mazenod players had continually rushed forward unmarked and our backs were under siege with no support coming.  Having started with only 4 on the bench, we were light on rotations already, so when Healey went down early with a shoulder injury our depth was really stretched.  But we couldn’t use this as an excuse, as it was again our attitude and inability to stick to team rules which let us down in the 2nd quarter.  By half time we had not improved in the slightest and our heads were held low, at a time where we needed some leaders to step up and take control of the group we were instead found wanting.

So with a season defining quarter ahead of us we were hopeful for a lift – but it never came.  We walked through the quarter with our heads held low and let Mazenod extend the lead to 5 goals by the break.  At 3 quarter time all we could do was plead to the lads to play 50% of what they were capable of and the game would have been ours.  Luckily, things started to click in the 4th quarter and we rallied for 10 minutes and bridged the gap to a margin which was within our reach.  Unfortunately Mazenod then kicked a few easy goals and put the nails in the coffin.  Our last quarter was encouraging but it was just too little too late.  We were extremely grateful to Charlie Woodley, Matt Jenkinson & Robbie Ralph who all volunteered their time to come up from the year 12 side – funnily enough they were our 3 best on ground and will all be stalwarts of the Old Xavs in the years to come I am sure.