Anzac Day game a cliff-hanger

By Pte John Wellfare

DEFENCE Aussie rules players came back from trailing by 30 points in the first half of the Anzac weekend game against National Emergency Services to win by four points.

The closely-fought match was held at the Sydney Cricket Ground as the curtain raiser to the Sydney Swans vs Melbourne Demons game.

The ADF team earned all its first-half points in the first quarter of the game and the two teams seemed fairly evenly matched at the beginning. Then in the early stages of the second quarter things started to go downhill for the Defence team, while Emergency Services picked up the pace to reach a five-goal lead by half time.

ADF assistant coach Sgt William Armstrong attributed the slow start to the Defence team members having not played together before and needing time to develop into a cohesive side.

“We only came together in the last two days after the [ADF] national carnival,” he said.

“We were pretty slow out of the blocks, the boys hadn’t worked together ... but as the game slowly progressed we started to adapt.

“In the last couple of minutes of the second quarter you could see the ballmanship and the workmanship start to come out and it started to develop from there.

Some timely changes to the team structure at half time gave the ADF side the rejuvenation it needed to close the opposition’s considerable lead. Capt Shaun Dwyer and Smn Matthew Cavedon played a crucial part in swinging the game back in the ADF’s favour during the second half, while LAC Michael Kemp was named as the consistently high performing player of the match.

“Obviously by the end of the game the boys pushed forward and took control of the game and won it by four points.

“[But] the emergency services guys put on a really good side this year and gave us a run for our money.”

Sgt Armstrong said all members of the team “gave it everything”.

The ADF team will go on to represent Defence throughout the Aussie rules season.