May 12, 2007
From Bendigo Advertiser
THE Metricon Bendigo Bombers face a difficult task to get their VFL season back on track tomorrow when they take on one of the form sides of the competition in Geelong at Skilled Stadium.
The Bombers have lost their past three games, while the Cats have won their past four games by an average of 61 points to be sitting in second position on the ladder after five rounds.
THE Metricon Bendigo Bombers face a difficult task to get their VFL season back on track tomorrow when they take on one of the form sides of the competition in Geelong at Skilled Stadium.
The Bombers have lost their past three games, while the Cats have won their past four games by an average of 61 points to be sitting in second position on the ladder after five rounds.
"Geelong has a healthy list right across the board and no doubt they have some quality players in their VFL team," Bombers coach Matthew Knights said yesterday.
"When you look at different parts of the ground and you see Charlie Gardiner and Todd Grima up forward, then in the midfield you see a Steven King, Mathew Stokes and and James Byrne, and in defence you see a Tim Callan, Josh Hunt and Max Rooke and players like that.
"The quality in their line-up suggests they are going to be very hard to beat, but in saying that, we played the best we had for the whole year last week against Williamstown.
We played with terrific team chemistry and had 30 shots on goal - we believe we are on the up as a team, so we are at least going to go down to Geelong with good form.
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And we have four players back into our line-up that will assist with our experience in Mark Bolton, Ricky Dyson, Chris Heffernan and Scott Camporeale, who was a late withdrawal last week.
And we have four players back into our line-up that will assist with our experience in Mark Bolton, Ricky Dyson, Chris Heffernan and Scott Camporeale, who was a late withdrawal last week.
"We're going to have a really good plan and strategy to win the game, and I expect my boys to be really buoyant and confident because we did play very good footy last week."
The Bombers lost to Williamstown by three points last week after kicking an inaccurate 5.9 in the second half.
While the Bombers have only won one of their first five games of the season, they are still only one game outside the top eight.
A win over the highly-rated Cats would not only keep the Bombers knocking on the door of the top eight, but would do an enormous amount for the confidence of the young side.
'`It can make the season very exciting when you happen to pull off a win against one of the steam trains of the competition," Knights said.
"It can give players a lot of confidence and set up some momentum and form, which is really important.
"This is a huge game for our footy club, and I've got no doubt at some stage during the game we're going to be in a position to win it.
"I'm not saying it's going to be early when it's three goals all, I'm saying at some stage during the second half we're going to have a good opportunity to win the game."
Tomorrow's game was originally scheduled to be played at the Queen Elizabeth Oval.
However, it has been rescheduled to a 9.40am start at Skilled Stadium because officials from the Bombers, Geelong and VFL didn't deem the QEO surface to be in a satisfactory condition.
Tomorrow's game will be a curtain-raiser to the Geelong versus West Coast Eagles AFL match.
The Bombers reserves take on Werribee at Werribee at 11.10am today.
