THEY not only missed out on a chance to claim first place on the Central West AFL ladder, but failed to kick a goal – so it is no surprise Bathurst Giants coach Mark Kennedy wants to put Saturday’s match behind him.
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Though enjoying the best season in the history of their senior side, the Giants went down 13-18-96 to 0-8-8 to Orange at George Park 1.
The Giants went into the top of the table match without the injured Sam Sloan, Nathan Belbin, Frank Bright, Julian Larsen and Dave Manning. On top of that Alex Cuttiford plus brothers Nic and Josh Broes were unavailable.
Missing players of that experience and quality against the competition leading Tigers certainly hurt the Giants.
But Kennedy was not using that as an excuse. He said the Tigers, led by five Tim Barry majors, were just too good.
“We played the best we could with the team we had and got done. It’s as simple as that. We’ve just got to put that one behind us and move on,” he said.
“What I had to do was focus on stopping the haemorrhaging and throw a lot of guys behind the ball. We didn’t have a very experienced forward line, so as soon as we did get it out to our half forward line, they repelled us quite quickly.
“Everyone gave as much as they could on the day, they were just a bit too strong for us. We just need to regroup and get over this one quickly.”
While his side was well beaten, Kennedy was happy with the way two of the Giants’ junior players performed after stepping up in the senior league.
“We played young Jack Packham who had a pretty solid game for us, first grade debut, and Ryan Cooke had a good game as well,” Kennedy said.
“Actually Ryan ended up winning our players’ player, he had a really good game. He played in the back line for me on the half back flank, then I tried to push him forward as bit of a target in the last quarter, but we just couldn’t get the ball down there consistently enough.”
