ORFFA 2018 Finals Weeks 1 & 2

Cradle Mountain Devils team for semi final 2, vs Iron Knob Codpiecs

In: T Nankervis, P Seedsman
Out: J Roughead (omitted), B Cox (omitted)

Def: M Hurley, N Vlastuin, H Himmelberg, P Seedsman (B Cox)
Mid: S Pendlebury, D Heppell, D Zorko, J Redden (J Hopper)
Ruck: T Nankervis
Fwd: T Lynch, J Gresham, T Membrey, A McDonald-Tipungwuti (B Daniels)
Int: D Zaharakis, J Steele (J Roughead)

Cradle Mountain are in the very fortunate position of having 24 players from their squad of 28 available for selection for their semi final against Iron Knob. After missing last week’s final with a quad cork home-grown Tasmanian ruckman Toby Nankervis returns to the side, replacing Jordan Roughead who played his role against the Vultures to score 81, he will be the interchange emergency this week. After missing two weeks with a hamstring strain defender Paul Seedsman has been recalled, replacing 20 year-old swingman Brennan Cox who scored 79 against Venus Bay and has been demoted to defensive emergency. Seedsman still needs to pass a fitness test tomorrow before taking his place in the side against the Codpieces.


Cradle Mountain injury list:
P Seedsman, hamstring – test
T Boyd, back – 2 weeks
L Picken, concussion - season
J Lever, knee – season
L Spurr, knee – season

Picken and Spurr haven’t played In the Devils seniors at all this season and Boyd wasn’t able to establish himself in the best 15 when available. Lever was cemented in the CMD back-four when he suffered his season-ending knee injury in Round 11. Lever’s injury opened up a spot in the backline and after the mid-season break, Himmelberg, Naughton and Cox were all tried in defense. With scores of 81, 110 and 137 in the last three weeks Himmelberg is in career-best form and has grabbed his opportunity with both hands.

In the first seven rounds of the season CMD only scored above 1,275 once and had a record of two wins and five losses. They were a different side form Round 8 onwards, only having one sub 1,275 score in their next 11 games, culminating with the Devils scraping into the finals and scoring a club season-best 1,434 to defeat the previously undefeated Venus Bay by 215 points in the first week of the finals in a massive upset to record the Devils maiden finals victory at the third attempt. After looking unlikely to make the finals for much of the season the Cradle Mountain Devils now have a far-shorter injury-list than their rivals for the premiership, have scored over 1,295 in 10 of their past 11 games and are just one win away from a grand final berth.

 

Will post the team later, but kinda chuffed at having a couple of interesting "ins." The question is "should. I trust RtB?"

 

Iron Knob go into the Semi a few blokes down, hopefully we can surprise and pull of an upset here against the favoured Devils.

D - Harbrow, Hodge(c), Scott.D.Thompson, Mihocek(r) - (Jake Kelly)
M - GodJr, Shuey, Macrae, Burger - (Murdoch)
R - Waite (oop)
F - Riewoldt, RGray, Broooooost, Darling - (Castagna)
I - deGoey, Sinclair - ( Waterman(r) )

Outs
Stanley - my only ruckman boo
Henderson - he has been solid
Ben Jacobs - gone awol
Dylan Roberton - Is this guy still alive?

Really need huge games from Robbie Gray, GodJr and Macrae at the very least to be in it with a chance.

 

In - M Hibberd, N Fyfe
Out - D Gardiner (injured), D Prestia (injured)

Probable line up:
D - J McGovern, J McVeigh, R Burton, H Morrison* (M Hibberd)
M - T Mitchell, S Menegola, D Thomas, N Newman
R - S Jacobs
F - T McLean, M Robinson, J Dunkley, T Papley (M Wood)
I/C - N Fyfe, D Hannebery (B Parfitt)

Best of luck Len, lets hope there are no late outs.

 

Silence broken! After our first loss for the year we've been in hiding the past few days, dissapointing to go out with one of our worst scores for the season, however with Howe missing again this week as well as Hogan now out for the year, we would have required some luck to win the whole thing. Congrats to @dmandrews, I'll be quietly supporting you from here on out.

Good luck to those left! Hopefully there are some high scoring affairs.

 

My assessment @jimbowan is that semi final 2 between the Iron Knob Codpieces and the Cradle Mountain Devils shapes as a 50/50 game. Very little separates the defense, midfield and interchange for both sides whilst CMD have a significant advantage in the ruck with Toby Nankervis against the out of position Jarrad Waite. IKC have a sizable advantage in the forward line, with five players in the 15 man team that are eligible to play in the forward line who average over 90. The Devils number one forward, Jade Gresham averages 81 and he is one of only two Devil forwards to average more than 75 along with Tom Lynch. On the season average of both clubs 15 man semi final side, halving OOP ruck Waite, IKC have a narrow advantage 1,314 and 1,308 which gives a guide as to how evenly matched the two teams are.

For the second week in a row Cradle Mountain captain Scott Pendlebury has won the toss and kicked with the wind. After the Friday night game the Devils are 507/6 = 84.5 Ave. Two inaugural CMD players scored tons - D Zaharakis (109) and D Heppell (105). Cradle Mountain have a total of six players from the inaugural ORFFA draft from 2012 still on the list, the half-dozen are all playing in the semi final and are averaging over 90 to rank in the top eight at the Devils in 2018, M Hurley scored 83 last night, Pendlebury and D Zorko are two of six Devils to take the field today whilst J Redden is one of three CMD players in action on Sunday.

Jack’s super-powers only lasted a week, and after a double ton last week Iron Knob key forward Riewoldt was held to two goal and 83 SC points, being the only IKC player to feature on Friday night. One of these goals was a precision pass from Devils defender N Vlastuin who lost his bearings and thought that Riewoldt was a teammate. Various other Jack’s can have a significant influence on the outcome of this semi-final. Riewoldt is one of three Jack’s in the Iron Knob team along with midfielder Sinclair and forward Darling and IKC’s best player in 2018 has been midfielder Jackson Macrae who finished fourth in the 2018 Les W Medal with 43 votes. The Devils have two midfield Jack’s of their own, Redden and Steele with the latter starting on the interchange. So all up five players with the Christian name Jack are playing in the semi final between Iron Knob and Cradle Mountain which equates to 16.67% of the players in the game, throwing in Jackson would increase this figure to 20%. Only nine ORFFA players with Jack in their first name average over 90 in 2018 including five players from semi-final 2 being:

Jackson Macrae M IKC 126
Jack Redden M CMD 95
Jack Riewoldt F IKC 93
Jack Darling F IKC 91
Jack Steele M CMD 91

Hopefully none of the above Jack’s/Jackson's emulate ex-ORFFA player Kristian Jaksch who was a state-league star but had a Zac Dawson-esque output when called up to the ORFFA, if this occurs or alternatively if we see a super-Jack performance from one of the four remaining players above or IKC inclusion Jack Sinclair who averages 81 it could make all the difference between that players team winning and losing.

 

On Saturday the Cradle Mountain Devils had another six players take the field and have increased their tally to 1044/12 = 87 Ave
The two tons today were J Steele – 121 and the captain S Pendlebury 100.

The CMD trio in action tomorrow are J Redden (Ave of 95), T Lynch (80) and P Seedsman (80).

Iron Knob’s nine players on Saturday have taken their total to 838/10 =83.8
Centuries were scored by two veterans in S Burgoyne - 124 and GAJ – 111

IKC’s Sunday players are J Macrae (Ave of 126), S Thompson (79), J Waite (OOP 85/2 = 43), L Shuey (90) and J Darling (91).

If the remaining players played to their season average to date the Devils would win by 32 points.

Overall both teams are giving consistent performances without being outstanding. IKC midfielder Jackson Macrae’s performance in the early game tomorrow might set the tone for the rest of the day.

 

Is that you in the distance Len? Miles ahead and one hand on a berth in the grand final?

Looks like our season has been undone by a poor choice of opponent and some poor selections. I don't count the poor performance as I put those players on the park. Looks like chels's antic disposition was no match for your happy disposition.

 

It's closer, but not that close. I keep looking at the bench with Parfitts 117 and Hibbo going well and wondering "why?" I have it as
Misfits - 48 + Venables + Greenwood
Cows - McGovern + Jacobs

 

Well done Len; it did get close but not close enough (from my perspective). This is a nice rivalry we are building; seems who wins in the H&A series loses in the finals. Best of luck next week amigo.

 

Cradle Mountain’s three players today – T Lynch, P Seedsman and J Redden were all Michael Slater-esque getting to the 90’s but being unable to reach the ton, allowing the Devils tally to reach 1,330, extending the club’s sequence of 1,300 plus scores to eight games after the mid-season break.

Iron Knob suffered a major set-back with Jack Darling getting concussed just before the half-way mark of the first quarter and being ruled out for the rest of the game. Macrae was the best IKC player today, scoring 111 to become the third Codpiece to reach the ton. OOP ruck Jarrad Waite had a raw score above 100 which had to be halved, reducing it to 57 and Iron Knob finished on a total of 1,173, to finish 157 points behind the Devils. Commiserations on the loss @jimbowan and your bad luck with ruck Stanley getting injured last weekend and Darling getting concussed early today. Those two events played a key role in Cradle Mountain winning our semi final.

The plot twists after the mid-season break of the 2018 ORFFA season were amped up even further during the finals series with two teams – The Marble Bar Misfits and Cradle Mountain Devils that had to rely on other results to go their way in the final round of the home and away season just to make the finals, filling the last two spots in the eight and then riding their luck and late-season momentum all the way to an unexpected Grand Final.

Whilst there are some similarities in the way the Devils and Misfts have turned their seasons around there are also some differences. A key factor in the Devils consistency in the last two thirds of the season has been a short injury list, the Misfits on the other hand have progressed to the GF despite several key players spending time on the injured list. One of the Misfits and the Devils will become the fifth team to win an ORFFA Premiership, joining the Foul Bay Chickens (2012 & 2013), Iron Knob Codpieces (2014), Larrikin Lagoon Lefties (2015 & 2016) and the Waikikamoocow Incorrigibles (2017) on the honour roll.

The Misfits lost the 2017 Grand Final to the Cows by 20 points and whilst the Misfits and Devils were considered likely finalists on the eve of the 2018 season this quickly changed with the Devils losing four consecutive games from Round 2 to Round 5 and the Misfits having a long injury list and a winning percentage of around 50% for much of the season.

For so much of the season Marble Bar and Cradle Mountain have been able to release the shackles and approach their games with nothing to lose and few external expectations. How both teams respond to the pressure of playing for the prestigious ORFFA premiership cup in a 50/50 contest will be crucial.

In a strange coincidence Cradle Mountain and Marble Bar met in Round 1 of the 2018 season, the second season in a row that the eventual Grand Finalists met in the opening round of the season. In 2017 the team that lost the home and away encounter won the GF, with Marble Bar winning by 378 points (1,261 to 883) against an injury depleted Cows in Round 1 before the Cows won a thrilling Grand Final in which both sides scored in excess of 1,300 points. Whilst the Misfits did field a 15 man side against the Devils in Round 1, 2018 some early injuries left them short of rotations and they were defeated by the Devils 1,295 to 1,118. The Misfits and Devils have some finals history with Marble Bar comprehensively outplaying Cradle Mountain in the first week of the 2017 finals to record a 182 point victory 1,398 to 1,216. More details on these previous encounters between the Devils and Misfits will be provided later in the week.

Congratulations on making back to back Grand Finals @Len, hopefully both sides are as close to full strength as possible.