ORFFA Round 12 - teams and chat

DEFENDER
John Noble, Lachie Ash, Josh Daicos, Bodhi Uwland - Sam Taylor

MIDFIELDER
George Hewett, Xavier O'Halloran,Tom Sparrow, Finn Callaghan - Nik Cox

RUCK
Darcy Cameron

FORWARD
Seth Campbell, Ben Keays, Jack Lukosius, Jacob van Rooyen - Cooper Trembath



INTERCHANGE
Liam Baker, Samuel Cumming - Lachlan Cowan

 

Cradle Mountain Devils Round 12 team

Out: J Dalton (knee), J Lever (omitted)
In: S Pendlebury, D Zorko

Def: D Zorko, R Laird, D Byrne-Jones, N Vlastuin (J Lever)
Mid: J Steele, S Pendlebury, J De Goey, D Wilson (S Banks)
Ruc: T Nankervis
Fwd: P Wright, T Greene, E Langdon, R Marshall (S Mannagh)
Inter: T English, L Schultz (A Naughton)

With the return of Zorklebury the Devils have named their strongest team of the 2026 ORFFA season for the Round 12 home game against @chris88 ’s Nareewillock Nuffers. Dayne Zorko has been named at defender 1 and Scott Pendlebury has been named at midfielder 2. A calf injury kept Zorko on the sidelines from Round 8 to Round 11. Pendlebury was a late out last week due to a calf injury. Zorko and Pendles rank fourth and fifth respectively for SuperCoach points per game for the Devils in 2026 and both have player options to sign with CMD for 2027 to extend their respective careers to a 16th ORFFA season

 

Unofficial Round 12 final score

Cradle Mountain Devils 1,399
Defeated
@chris88’s Nareewillock Nuffers 1,371

The 12th placed Nuffers on the road led the fourth placed Devils for most of the game and looked likely winners for much of the Round 12 contest. In the pre-game press conference Nuffers Head Coach @chris88 had identified the ruck and forward lines as his areas of concern for the game against the Devils commenting “If someone could lend me a forward line and/or ruck that would be great.”

Nareewillock narrowly won the tons count 7-6 against Cradle Mountain but it wasn’t enough to get the victory. The Nuffers best two players were midfielder Ed Richards (133) and defender Harry Himmelberg (129) from the Interchange 1 position. HH played against several former teammates, having spent the first five seasons of his ORFFA career from 2016 to 2020 with the Devils after being selected by CMD with pick 44 at the 2016 PSD. At the most recent ORFFA draft the Nufers selected midfielder Joel Fitzgerald with pick 4 at the 2026 mid-season draft. In his second game for NN Fitgerald scored 106 from the interchange 2 position against the Devils. Other Nuffers to reach triple figures were defender Bailey Dale (110), midfielder duo Errol Gulden (109) and Caleb Serong (104) along with forward Ryle West (100) who thrived with increased midfield time in Round 12.

In addition to their seven tons Nareewillock also had four 90’s and two scores between 65 and 89. The Nuffers top 13 scorers for the game combined for 1,311, a tally most teams would be happy to reach in a game with their full complement of 15 players. However the Nuffers required a full 15 player team performance to get a victory against the Devils and Nareewillock Head Coach Chris’ pre-game fears were realised with the output falling away in two positions with ruck Lachlan Blakiston (8) and forward 4 Patrick Voss (52) scoring 60 points between them. Halfway through the last quarter the Nuffers were well positioned, leading by 60 points and were on track for a score of 1,490. The tide changed swiftly, with the Nuffers getting obliterated in the ruck and losing the clearances the Devils dominated the second half of the last quarter, the Nuffers scoring slowed substantially and they had a 28 point loss.

Cradle Mountain’s winning score of 1,399 against the Nuffers was their second highset score of 2026, only being surpassed by a Round-high 1,473 against the Cows in Round 7. Two Devils players, defender Rory Laird and forward Lachie Schultz suffered ankle injuries in the second quarter against the Nuffers and took no part in the second half.

The late Terry’s nickname for Cradle Mountain was the ruck hogs. In the second half of the 2026 season the Nuffers and Devils each four ruck eligible players on their list which is significantly more than a typical ORFFA club. In terms of the quantity of ruck eligible players the scales tip heavily in favour of CMD and against the Nuffers in terms of quality of each club’s ruck division. When both sides initially named their Round 12 team none of the four Nuffers rucks were in the 15 player team and all four players in CMD’s ruck quartet were named in the 15. On game day the variance wasn’t quite as pronounced as this, both sides made a late change which reduced the Devils ruck advantage over the Nuffers to three against one. Nareewillock were able to field an in position ruck with ruck Lachlan Blakiston brought into the team. On the flipside the Devils made a late change with ruck Tim English being ruled out due to a back injury and forward Aaron Naughton being brought into the side. Two of Cradle Mountain’s best three players against the Nuffers were rucks – Rowan Marshall (122) and captain Toby Nankervis (116). Peter Wright scored 75 and is a ruck/forward like Marshall, resulting in the Devils trio of ruck eligible players amassing 313 points at an average of 104.3 points per player. Spiritual leader and former captain, pure midfielder Jack Steele scored a team-high 123 points.

Cradle Mountain had six tons, one less than the Nuffers and each team had four 90’s in a high quality entertaining contest. Thia resulted in 21 of the 30 players in the Devils vs Nuffers game, equating to 70% of the players in the game scoring at least 90. Only one Cradle Mountain player scored less than 75, forward Lachie Schultz (34) who played only 30% game-time due to his ankle injury. Rory Laird (78) was best afield in the first half but took no part in the second half due to his ankle injury. Whilst the Devils had no rotations in the second half they were able to rotate six dual position players between positions which helped them lift their scoring rate late in the game. The midfield/forward quartet of vice-captain Toby Greene (106), Jordan De Goey (106) Ed Langdon (104) and Darcy Wilson (96) were very effective to score 412 points at an average of 103 points per player.

Given the fact that the Devils were on a two game losing streak and were undermanned in the second half, the ability to overrun a quality team in the Nuffers and get the fightback victory in front of a passionate home crowd was even more impressive than the score of 1,473 in Round 7. The Round 12 victory improved CMD’s record to eight wins and four losses to consolidate their position in the top four.

After Round 11 the Nuffers ranked sixth in the ORFFA with 1,200 points per game but this did not translate to their ladder position, being 12th on the ladder. Round 12 is only going to amplify this imbalance with Nareewillock exceeding their 2026 average score by 150 + points to score 1,371 yet they had a 28 point loss to the Devils in a shoot out. CMD’s 1,274 in Round 11 was the highest losing score of the round, having a 51 point loss to the Uglies. With the top two sides, the Grasshoppers and Spelunkers playing each other the Devils might not have passed the baton of highest losing score of the Round to the Nuffers. Thanks for a great game chris88 with an aggregate score of 2,770 and all the best for the rest of the 2026 ORFFA season. The Nuffers have been unlucky in head to head games this season and I expect the Nareewilloc and Cradle Mountain to return to being close to each other on the ladder in 2027.