“The Colts side were hoping to turn around some recent poor form against a strong opponent on Saturday. It was a must win for Collegians if they were to make finals and a win for De La would make a path to finals a lot easier. The Colts knew that Collegians would come out firing and that they would have to match the intensity.
De La was able to bring the heat early and dominate most of the first quarter. Tyquin and Dannaoui were looking dangerous up forward, while Prezens and Murray were creative through the centre of the ground to give us the advantage. Unfortunately, some bad decision making with and without the ball meant that De La only had a 7 point lead to show for their control.
The second quarter was an extremely disappointing one for De La. Broken tackles, poor work rate and loose manning was the story of the second quarter. Collegians were able to get 9 scoring shots to 3 allowing them to go into half time with a 14 point lead.
Unfortunately, De La weren’t able to bounce back in the second half and the same trend continued. Anthony Liakakos finally started to have a big impact on the game, Declan Minnett hit the scoreboard showing his continued growth and McMahon and Hele fought all day. Unfortunately, contributors were too few and far between and Collegians ran away 29 point winners.
Although this was a frustrating loss, the signs of a resurgence by the Colts are starting to show. Numbers at training are up, levels of commitment have risen and the boys know they must hold high standards of each other. It will not happen over night but hopefully these improvements start to show on the field as well. The Colts must now win all three of their final games to guarantee finals. A loss in any three of them could potentially allow finals to be decided by percentage. This is a special group and hopefully the boys get the chance to prove it in September.”
