WITH a howling southerly and no rain, the mighty Margaret River Hawks Year 9's faced off to Dallyelup Purples. After winning the toss, captain Gus Wrightson opted to go with the wind.
The quarter was a scrappy affair with clean possessions hard to come by. Wrightson’s strong marking and steady kicking in the forward line saw the Hawks take a two-goal lead into the second quarter.
With the wind in their favour, Dalyellup brought the score back to within one goal of the Hawks in the second term.
The tough conditions saw many high tackles and very few easy disposals, but the hard runnning from Connor Barrett-Lennard and Ben Znidarsich kept Dallyelup from taking full advantage of the wind allowing the Hawks to maintain their lead going into half-time.
The third quarter belonged to Hawks as they marshalled their defenses and their forwards and mid-fielders peppered the goals scoring one goal and five points. With a goal to Aeodhan Bailey the Hawks went into the final quarter with a fairly good lead.
In the last quarter, tensions rose as Dalyellup kicked two quick consecutive goals, but thanks to some great defensive work from Charlie Hart, Zac Dronow, Josh Warwick, Blair Collison and Arian Wilson, as well as two sensational goals from Kalani Brookes and Luke Furlong, the Hawks were able to extend their lead and take the game with a final score of Hawks 7-10-52 to Dalyellup 5-8-38. It was an excellent all round team effort. Well done to the lads.
The Hawks Year 9’s have had quite a long preseason with five-six weeks of training, and this is the first time many of these players have played together. The team is made up of players from four Margaret River teams and one team each from Cowaramup and Augusta.
They won their first game for the season last week against Harvey Brunswick and are displaying great teamwork already. The game was played in front of a crowd of vocal supporters, and even the blustery wind did nothing to quell their cheers.
Next week’s game will be in Collie starting at 11.30am, so come along and support the boys.