MU19D2 PENNO Vs Manly

MU19D2 -R1 11 Apr 2026 Sat - 12:30 pm - MKO lower
G B Score PENNO 8 9 57 Manly 9 10 64					G B QT ST 0 3 3 3 3 4 22 22					G B QT ST 2 1 13 16 2 0 12 34					G B QT ST 1 2 8 24 3 5 23 57					G B QT ST 5 3 33 57 1 1 7 64
Best Players Nicholas Price Hunter Gaunt Lincoln Kellett Hugh Lucas Maximus Baker Matthew Orchard
Goal Scorers Hugh Lucas - 2 Hunter Gaunt - 1 Noah Hoffman - 1 Lincoln Kellett - 1 Nicholas Price - 1 Ethan Spratt - 1

Wowee! Round 1 was a long wait but well worth it, but although we didn’t come home with the chocolates, we’ve learnt a lot and achieved some important things as a team – belief.
The D2 squad is in it’s infancy when we think about it – many on debut with the senior club from U17s, quite a few from the D1 squad that missed out on selection and our experienced stalwarts returning from the 2025 season – our job this early in the season is to learn about each other under match pressure, gel as a team and make sure we all feel like we belong. Players that trust each other do the hard things for each other, and that’s what we needed a bit more of today right from the get go. Our last quarter gave the coaching staff and supporters strong hope for a strong season.
The match in a nutshell: we were jumped early by an undermanned Manly but if we could only have bought another 3 minutes, our steam rolling last quarter would have seen us victors.
1st Qtr: An attacking team structure took to the field and received a wake up call from the Manly side who wanted the ball and were prepared to go body on body more than we did. The Dees could only manage 3 behinds for the period and conceded 3 goals 4 behinds – some due to rookie errors like not manning up, tentative kicks across the face of goal in defence, and the devil 666 rule = my bad, but we’ll learn. I’m guilty of going in more confident than I should have, but we adapted, made some moves and reset for the second quarter.
2nd Qtr: A far more composed and earnest Demons team took to the field and narrowly won the quarter kicking 2 goals 1 behind to 2 straight. This was somewhat settling going into half time anticipating that the limited Manly bench would see them fade away in the premiership quarter…
3rd Qtr: …but alas that wasn’t to be, with a refreshed Manly side slamming on 3 goals 5 behinds to our 1 goal 2, leaving us 33 points down at the last change. Seemingly insurmountable if you didn’t ‘believe’ like the lads didn’t know they did yet!
4th Qtr: At 3qtr time we asked the lads to dig deep and focus on doing 2 hard things each; that’s 40+ contest winning & team support efforts that would add up. The depth of our bench was a god send as the hot dry conditions cramped up some lads who ended up on the physio bench. Notwithstanding the deficit, more and more lads were really starting to play to their strengths and winning contests that mattered. Hunter was winning taps, Nicky P winning the pill off the ground and making the oppo earn every touch, Hughey Lucas going for a trot on his wing & bagging some sausage rolls, Brad P putting his body on the line, Spratty and Maxy presenting leads and creating scoreboard opportunities, Julian’s forward pressure keeping us in the game, Lincoln turning it on in the middle and doing some of those ‘Linc’ things he does, Ryder running his guts out, Matty O & Phoenix showing mongrel in defence, Lukey setting up some flows into attack, Noah Lucca imposing himself up forward and down back. A key turning point for me was a gutsy grab from Noah the Hoff running back into the pack and then setting up a major – we’d already pegged back a couple of goals to that point but the whole team lifted from then on with us kicking 5 goals 3 to 1 goal 1 for the quarter, but alas we ran out of time. We should believe that we can match it with the bigger bodied boys and believe we can run down a deficit – bloody well done, we’re really proud of the turnaround!
An exciting finish indeed; hence the ‘Wowee’ at the start of the report
Majors racked up by: Hugh 2, singles from Lincoln, Hunter, Ryder, Spratty & Nicky P
Best: NickyP, Hunter, Lincoln, Maxy and Hughey Lucas and the News.
Big thanks to Kylie C and Lucas K for stepping in to get us on the paddock and Noah, Harry for their D2 experience on the sidelines.