WILLIAMSTOWN CYMS was wary of the threat posed by the erratic Melbourne High School Old Boys in the Victorian Amateur Football Association division 1.
MHSOB showed their unpredictability in Saturday’s game with sample sizes of their best and their worst on the one day.
CYs ended up with a 49-point win but experienced a gamut of emotions in doing so.
They went from cruise control calmness in the first half to rip-your-hair-out frustration in the third term.
An old fashioned, three-quarter-time spray from Mathew Montebello acted as a timely wake-up call for the CYs players, who steadied in the last to run out big winners.
“Although they’re sitting second last, they’ve thrown up some interesting results,” Montebello told the Weekly.
“They got within 10 points of [ladder leader] Hampton, but they only beat [bottom side] Glen Eira by 10 points.
“We sort of identified them as just waiting for an upset, so we were very conscious of them.
“The first half I was really happy with our boys, who did everything that was asked, but in the third quarter we fell asleep. We thought they were going to roll over and they came and had a crack and got to within 16 points of us. Three- quarter-time I gave them a firm talking to about what was expected and to the boys’ credit, like a good team should, they responded and pretty quickly made it unattainable for MHSOB to get near us.”
Steven Puhar had the enormous task of being the lone ruckman for CYs and thrived on the extra responsibility.
The playing assistant coach capped a fine week with best-on-ground only days after being named in Spotswood’s team of the decade and added to the VAFA’s interleague squad.
“His leadership and ability to be able to direct traffic is sensational,” Montebello said. “He’s like another coach out there on the ground. He just took a lot of marks coming across packs and made sure the ball wasn’t going to go any further than we wanted it to go.”
With centre half-forward Ben Gray double and triple teamed at times, the CYs had to find more avenues to goal.
Spencer Davis, who a week earlier had been dropped to the reserves for poor form, bobbed up with four goals. “He was really proactive, not just kicking goals but helping set a few up and defensively it was the best he’s been all year,” Montebello said. Gray still managed to kick three goals, as did Chris Cini.
