Mens PC v Altona (R1)
Men’s 3s – Saturday 3.30pm vs Altona
In surprisingly warm autumn sunshine Kew Pennant C, defending champions, made the trip across the West Gate for the clash with Altona.
Altona had been premiers of Pennant D last year, which meant they were going to use this as a chance to quickly measure themselves in a new grade.
Handing third grade debuts to Steve Coutts, Sebastian Fuentes, Ash Casey, Mitch Cairns and Sam Nelson meant there may be early teething problems as were learnt each
others wares. Lalor McMahon also kindly deputised for us as a substitute, enjoying the short trip from his Point Cook home (it shows his passion for Kew that he continues to
make the trip to Elgar to play in the Blue ‘n White).
James Tyson was also making a return to his beloved third grade team after some injury frustrations and the inconvenience of a few seasons of seconds hockey.
The match settled into a very fast open game, with chances all over the place.
Altona opened the scoring before Damon Hartung did his thing and scored another from a superb one-on-one with the goalie. However we were 2-1 down at half time.
A quick half time re-jib from Captain Matthew Lumb and we were ready for action.
Michael Doherty brought us back into the game with two incredible goals, including lobbing the goal keep and a tomahawk, to give us the lead. This was followed by a Chris
Alderman corner hit and we thought we were home, leading 4-2.
The A’s however are always good for a fight, and brought it back to 4-3 with a quick reply.
The pattern continued. A Kew goal to Lachie Walmsley after a great Matty Lumb build up followed by a quick answer to Altona. Scores were 5-4 Kew’s way with four minutes left.
Goalie Mitch Cairns, who had been superb all game, then produced a superb close range save to keep the scores at 5-4.
Then, as he’d done all last year, Damon Hartung slotted the game breaker with 90 seconds on the clock.
All the new players acquitted themselves superbly and showed they will be good club players for years.
A cracking game, played in good spirits by two evenly matched teams. Plenty to work on for us, but we’ll take the win and run.
