West Coast Cowan's A Reserves side went down by a solitary point at home to North Fremantle in a thrilling yet heartbreaking contest in front of the ladies at City Beach Oval on Saturday.
This will be looked at as the one that got away from the previously undefeated Tiger Two's who dominated the contest for long periods yet failed to put away a plucky magpies side that used a second half comeback to drag themselves across the line.
The game started brightly enough with the Tigers leading by 4 goals to 1 at quarter time. Centre Half Forward T.Arch was terrific, dragging them in from anywhere and contributing 3 goals in a dominant first half, whilst the midfield and high forwards led by Jossy, Hendo and Oggie were on top. However the danger signs started to appear in the second term, with the tigers giving away a couple of loose goals, but the boys were still 16 points up at half time.
The third term was sloppy, with North Freo pegging back the lead to just 8 points at the final break. Big Stephen was rucking his heart out in a BOG display but the momentum was swinging. The last quarter was a real arm wrestle, with the lead changing 4 times, but a couple of costly coaching mistakes combined with skill errors and loose checking on the park gave the visitors the ascendency. Even still, with 5 minutes to go and the coasters leading by 7 points with the match ball sitting in the tree courtesy of a bit of quick thinking by young Clark, we should have brought home the bacon.
However the new ball lost its bearings and remained glued inside the Magpie 50 for the remainder of the match, and 3 scoring shots later they were in front by the barest of margins, and the game was over. The stats from the second half were telling: 4 scoring shots to 11 in the second half, while the last quarter showed 6 inside 50's to a massive 14 to the visitors.
Assistant Coach Roberts was at his phlegmatic best. "We shouldn't have let them back in it-simple as that. Now piss off."
When asked to elaborate so as to fulfill his media requirements he gave an Avram Grant esq grunt before continuing in his best impersonation of the short sentence fond Israeli "We were complacement after hitting the front. The boys on the park know what they did wrong. We were a bit reactive in the coaches box. We'll learn from this one. All of us MUST learn from this one. So did you see the Force last night?"
