By John Thomson
On Monday 6 March Lilydale’s section two level play side hosted Woodash, a combined side of Ringwood and Monash.
This week the Lilydale side had a different look as Craig McCracken was away in Tasmania on holidays. This week’s team consisted of Alan Jones (C), Ron Green and John Thomson. Ron is playing his first season of competition in quite a few years.
The first game as always is the doubles and with Craig McCracken not there to team up as usual with Alan Jones, John Thomson took his place. Lilydale got off to a good start and were a couple of hoops ahead, but then a couple of missed hoops and some poor decision making let Woodash back into the game, momentum is a marvelous thing and Woodash were able to take advantage of these poor decisions and take the lead and were able to hang on and win, Monash 7 hoops Lilydale 5 hoops. This game showed that you just have to take your chances when they present themselves.
The next four games were singles games.
The game started off with Lilydale again winning the first couple of hoops but the Woodash player was also playing very well especially with being so new to the game. John was able to eventually pull a couple of hoops ahead and go on to win, Lilydale 7 hoops Woodash 5 hoops.
The next game was Ron Green’s first game of competition for a long while and it was naturally going to take him some time to settle back into the flow of the game. The Woodash player took full advantage of this and won the game, Woodash 7 hoops Lilydale 3 hoops.
At the lunch break Woodash were in front, 2 games 19 hoops Lilydale 1 game 15 hoops.
With two singles games to come after lunch the day could go either way, but Woodash were holding the upper hand at this stage.
In the first game after lunch Ron Green came out and had obviously got rid of any nerves he may have had in his first game and played very well making a couple of nice jumps along the way, going on to have his first win for the team, Lilydale 7 hoops Woodash 5 hoops, congratulations Ron, may there be many more.
This really put the match on a knife’s edge, Lilydale 2 games 22 hoops Woodash 2 games 24 hoops. Even on games 2 hoops in it and the last singles to come, it was anybody’s.
Alan Jones, who was out playing in the last singles game, was not aware of how tight the scores were at this stage. Alan, himself was playing a very good game and went on to win, Lilydale 7 hoops to Woodash 4 hoops.
Everyone was scrambling to get a look at the final score sheet after it was checked, rechecked and checked again.
The final result, Lilydale 3 games 29 hoops to Woodash 2 games 28 hoops.
Lilydale could finally breathe a sigh of relief, this win keeps them on top of the ladder.
There are no games next week due to the long weekend.
The following Monday, 20 March, Lilydale travels to Ivanhoe.
