1st Qualifying Final

Sandringham vs. Williamstown

Saturday 1st September

Trevor Barker Beach Oval at 2.00pm

SANDRINGHAM

Backs Monaghan Biddlecombe Frawley

Half backs C Liddell Warnock Paterakis

Centreline Hughes Summers Martyn

Half forwards Valenti Crowe T Johnston

Forwards Gilchrist Sautner S Martin

Followers Neaves M Johnston Poyas

Interchange (from) Buckley Dean Garland Gribbin Neville McGettigan Wheatley Zarra

WILLIAMSTOWN

Backs McKenzie Toovey Cox

Half backs Picken Lonie Iles

Centreline Davies Br Johnson Lockwood

Half forwards R Cook Reid Rose

Forwards Dick Dawes Williams

Followers Meyer Licuria Holland

Interchange (from) Beaumont Boyd Brown Crawford Langlands Stanley Stretton Wellingham

I am off to see Sandy on Saturday and get away from the thoughts of Coaches and Tankers. Who might I see at the game?

I'll be there!

I am off to see Sandy on Saturday and get away from the thoughts of Coaches and Tankers. Who might I see at the game?

No horses running?.....I'll be there ( she who must be obeyed permitting )

I won't.

I'll be at the 'G' on Sunday though...

No horses running?.....I'll be there ( she who must be obeyed permitting )

Heard of Equine Flu ?

I am off to see Sandy on Saturday and get away from the thoughts of Coaches and Tankers. Who might I see at the game?

I'll be there, Dean ..........?

ME! (results of dentist's pending...)

I am off to see Sandy on Saturday and get away from the thoughts of Coaches and Tankers. Who might I see at the game?

Are you sure you remember how to get to TBBO? Better come with Jack, or at least follow him

Heard of Equine Flu ?

Well now... what's this equine flu thing all about?

Are you sure you remember how to get to TBBO? Better come with Jack, or at least follow him

Ha Ha ! Jack will be in the passenger seat. Bring a spare chair for me.

Scoop Jnr. may tag along as well.

Zebras went down gallantly today by 2 points, just got back from a sun-drenched TBO. We were up at half time by 2 or 3 goals, but conceeded 10 to 3 in a disastrous 3rd quarter to be trailing by 30odd points at the last break . After a stirring speech by Mark Williams at the huddle, and inspired by a spectacular one-man show by Nick Sauntner the Zebs came back to hit the front, but were unable to hold on for the win. Which means we now play North Ballarat next week, who came from a mile down to beat the Bendigo Bummers. There werent too many shining lights for the Demons listed players, Garland was barely sighted, Neville would've had 2-3 touches, Warnock was just OK, Neaves had a heap of the footy but was wasteful at times, Hughes was lively and provided a good target all day across half forward and thats probably it.

Sandringham 3.5.23 6.7.43 9.8.62 16.15.111

Williamstown 2.2.14 4.8.32 14.9.93 17.11.113

Goals

Sandringham Sautner 7 Martyn Poyas Valenti 2 Buckley Dean Summers

Williamstown Licuria Williams 3 Lockwood Rose 2 Beaumont Davies Dawes Dick Holland Iles Stanley

Best

Sandringham Summers Sautner Paterakis Buckley Valenti Biddlecombe

Williamstown Iles Stanley Davies Picken Toovey Licuria

ah well can pick best side for next weeks match

who we play out of?

ah well can pick best side for next weeks match

who we play out of?

Players I think are available for Sandy next week -

27. Chris Johnson 29. Michael Newton 34. Lynden Dunn 35. Ryan Ferguson 48. Jace Bode ®

Players I think are available for Sandy next week -

27 Chris Johnson 29 Michael Newton 34 Lynden Dunn 35 Ryan Ferguson 48 Jace Bode ®

And a few more. PJ & Pickett off the top of my head.

Pj hasn't played enough games...so he's out...Pickett won't be playing...the other 5 mentioned Ferguson,Johnston,Bode,Dunn and Newton will be available..that came from the horse's mouth in the form of Chris Johnson!...and he is dead keen to smash Carlton tomorrow...no thought of this lovely new phrase ..."tanking" happening with Melbourne tomorrow

Pj hasn't played enough games...so he's out...Pickett won't be playing...the other 5 mentioned Ferguson,Johnston,Bode,Dunn and Newton will be available..that came from the horse's mouth in the form of Chris Johnson!...and he is dead keen to smash Carlton tomorrow...no thought of this lovely new phrase ..."tanking" happening with Melbourne tomorrow

You're right. It's Jamar who will be available.

BTW. I think the Zebras are still a good chance to win four in a row despite losing today. They had virtually no AFL experience behind them while Williamstown had a strong contingent and yet they managed to scrape in on the strength of one big quarter when they produced some amazing accuracy for goal. Againt a Sandringham with half a dozen extra players with AFL experience, they would have struggled.

Question for Barry, Jack, Zebraman or anyone else who was at the match...they obviously had 6 Melbourne player in today, 16 VFL listed players. What sort of changes would you expect they'll make next week? How many Demons will they go with? If so, who might be some of the Zebras listed players who get dropped?

Conventional wisdom is that they're still on course following a brave loss, but I reckon they could be in trouble.

It's the VFL listed players who lead from the front for Sandy; Gallagher and Lamb are already two big losses, plus a couple of other VFL listed players seemed to be playing out the match with very tired/sore bodies. Will be interesting to see if Jamar does actually return. Neaves and S Martin were very good as tap rucks today, and I'm not sure Jamar adds all that much else around the ground. Even with MFC players returning next weekend, they will still carry some very inexperienced footballers into the Semi-Final.

Their next opponents (North Ballarat) staged a truly astonishing comeback today. They're the most schizophrenic side in the league (either brilliant or dreadful), and have already knocked the Zebras off once this year. Could be a fascinating contest.

Question for Barry, Jack, Zebraman or anyone else who was at the match...they obviously had 6 Melbourne player in today, 16 VFL listed players. What sort of changes would you expect they'll make next week? How many Demons will they go with? If so, who might be some of the Zebras listed players who get dropped?

Good question and, since I'm probably the only early riser in the group you mentioned, I'll take first go at answering it and I'm trying not being disrespectful to some of the players who were out there yesterday because they all had a crack and the comeback was absolutely sensational.

But …

There was one thing that was patently clear if you were watching the game and that was the value of AFL experience and of having the benefit of the intensity of training at AFL level. Williamstown had 12 AFL listed players including three 100 game AFL players in Licuria, Lonie and Holland as well as a number who have played a part in the Collingwood surge of 2007 – the likes of Cook, Cox, Iles, Stanley and Toovey have all been contributors to their AFL campaign this year. Davies who was terrific also deserves to be in that group. You would expect these guys to have an edge in terms of experience and skill over a team like Sandy which was virtually bereft of players with games at that level. I don't know much about their VFL contingent but skipper Brett Johnson alone has played 70 games with Hawthorn and Carlton.

This was in stark contrast with the Sandy team - here's the list with AFL experience, if any, in brackets (broken up into AFL lsited and VFL listed):--

AFL Listed

Simon Buckley (6), Colin Garland (2), Daniel Hughes ®, Shane Neaves ®, Heath Neville and Matthew Warnock (4) i.e. six players with a total of 12 AFL games experience.

VFL Listed

Andy Biddlecombe, Rod Crowe, Tom Dean, Rennie Gilchrist, Daniel Gribbin, Marc Johnston, Tomi Johnston, Chad Liddell (29), Stefan Martin, Guy Martyn, Sam Monaghan, Tom Paterakis, Ezra Poyas (9), Nick Sautner, Peter Summers and Shane Valenti.

As it happens, two of the Zebras with the most AFL experience – David Gallagher (33) and Chris Lamb (21) were out injured with Gallagher (knee) unlikely to play again this year.

This is a case of where the statistics don't lie and where the enormity of Sandringham's achievement in coming so close yesterday starts to sink in. There are ten players on the above list (including Neville) who played a fair bit of this season as Sandringham reserves players. Demon rookie Hughes was out for several weeks with a groin injury and this was his third game back in the seniors after restarting in the reserves. Gribbin was taking part in his first senior game, Dean, his second. Most of the others only got their promotions out of the reserves in the second half of the season as the Melbourne injury woes started to bite. I think the difference in intensity between their training regimes and that of an AFL player would be like cheese and chalk.

So to answer your question about who to replace, you'd have to build up your AFL contingent with players like these who are due to play for Melbourne today but are eligible for the rest of the VFL finals (see http://demonland.nozzs.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=7220) –

27. Chris Johnson 25.01.1986 188 87

29. Michael Newton 27.04.1987 193 87

34. Lynden Dunn 14.05.1987 192 90

35. Ryan Ferguson 29.09.1981 195 93

40. Mark Jamar 09.08.1983 198 103

43. Clint Bizzell 28.06.1976 188 85

48. Jace Bode ® 14.09.1987 183 80

73. Byron Pickett 11.08.1977 179 86

If you added four of those eight players to the list who played Willi yesterday, it would have been a five goal win to Sandy. On this basis I don't share Minka Beaver's pessimism about Sandy next week. In fact, there's every likelihood that they'll win well against the Roosters and set up what could well be the biggest game of the season in the Preliminary Final against the Cats in a fortnight's time.

I would bring in as many of the above eight players as are fit to play and I'd drop Garland, Hughes and Neville from the MFC list and drop Dean, Gribbin and M. Johnston from the SFC listed players. The other two to go would be stiff but that's finals football!

(as far as Zebraman's comment that Byron won't play, I'd be disappointed if he didn't but it would probably demonstrate his lack of professionalism and motivation and not only vindicate his decision to retire but also cast doubts on the wisdom of his decision to play on at all this year)

Also heard that Jamar won't be available as he is having some surgery done,...but that's yet to be confirmed....I guess the players that would make way at this stage would be Dean,Gribbin,Gilchrist,Marc Johnson and possibly Heath Neville....I don't think Clint Bizzell will be available although we'd love to see him at Sandy as he reallyy puts in..

"This is a case of where the statistics don't lie and where the enormity of Sandringham's achievement in coming so close yesterday starts to sink in. There are ten players on the above list (including Neville) who played a fair bit of this season as Sandringham reserves players. Demon rookie Hughes was out for several weeks with a groin injury and this was his third game back in the seniors after restarting in the reserves. Gribbin was taking part in his first senior game, Dean, his second. Most of the others only got their promotions out of the reserves in the second half of the season as the Melbourne injury woes started to bite. I think the difference in intensity between their training regimes and that of an AFL player would be like cheese and chalk"

Fully agree with the above...I went home yesterday disappointed that we lost but rapt with the effort that the Sandy guys put in against a side that really should have won by a lot more...I still reckon we are a good chance this year with at least five players available from Melbourne...barring injuries of course...and Melbourne have been hit hard with the injury stick this year...

GO ZEBS....GO DEES

Whispering Jack - you're spot on in that VFL matches are won by experienced players with hardened bodies. The kids that aren't on AFL lists will likely never have the requisite stamina or conditioning when they are part-timers who train usually no more than three times a week. Matches are won by those guys that are 'in-betweeners': not good enough to be regulars at AFL level, but experienced enough (both physically and mentally) to excel at VFL standard.

I don't think Sandringham will lose next week, but there is a risk in undermining their opponents, even with the Zebras being bolstered by AFL inclusions. North Ballarat's finish to their match yesterday was even more astonishing than Sandy's - 11.5 to 0.1 in the final term, 17.14 in a half of footy. With the Kangaroos also involved in the finals, they don't have the luxury of bringing back AFL players like Sandy do, but they do now have some semblance of a settled side. Their VFL listed players (Moloney, Stephenson, Ayden George, Lachie George, Gregg etc) are among the best non-AFL listed players in the comp. (If anything, the flaky performances that I've seen have usually been because of the Kangaroos' players letting them down). That's why I think it will be a more even contest than many here are expecting.