The Yass Roos come into this weekend’s game against the Molonglo Juggernauts off of a freshen-up, having had a rain-induced bye last weekend, rather than their scheduled clash against the Ainslee Tri-Colours.
The Roos will see the game as a great opportunity to advance themselves up the competition table, with the Juggernauts only having one win in their 2025 campaign. Roos President Jarrad Forlonge is optimistic his side can produce the goods after disappointingly sitting out last week.
“Normally, earlier in the year, when it first starts raining, they are a little bit more lenient, and then as we get deeper into winter it’s normally a bit wetter and a bit harder for it to dry out and there’s been a bit more use on the oval, they’rea bit more strict on it, but I think because we just had so much rain in a fairly short amount of time, it was just too wet,” Forlonge said.
“It wasn’t just us. It was all the Canberra grounds closed as well. So, I guess once one’s closed, they have to shut them all down.”
They may have only won one game but in it, they beat ADFA, who were short on players that week from what we’ve heard, still, they beat ADFA, which, to this day, is the only game that they’ve lost.”
Forlonge says that the Roos have a great chance of doing the double over Molonglo this weekend, “It was Molonglo who they beat in their first-ever win there a few weeks ago. So I think they’re mindful that maybe Molonglo might pick it up a gear and try and get one back on us. At the same time, I think with that win and then the win the other week against Cooma as well, confidence is slowly getting higher, it was disappointing to not get to play a game last week because the girls looked at that as a pretty winnable game as well.
“Certainly we feel as though it’s a good chance to get a third win on the board and keep building and just that confidence is just getting higher and higher each week, which is just really cool to see.
“I think the problem that some of these Canberra clubs had a few years back when us and Goulburn and Cootamundra, one team was coming to Yass, but one team was going to Googong, but then their women’s team was playing somewhere else. It was entirely possible to have three teams playing in three different locations. I think for the most part, they’re pretty content with how things are because they’re only having their team split up here or there rather than sort of every second-week type of thing.
“A problem that they’ve (AFL Canberra) have had is that in their quest for every team to have a men’s, women’s and reserve grade side is teams having to sacrifice their lower grade teams because there’s simply not enough players. We’ve seen with Cootamundra this issue already. They’ve had to forfeit a game and they’ve been pretty short on numbers therefor a couple of others. Eastlake who came up with us, who beat us in the grand final, brought in a Div three side this year, but again, they forfeited and they have been short on numbers as well, so I think even the teams who have tried to get two men’s teams that hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing for them.
“It’s one thing in theory, but it’s another thing to put it into place.
“I think a lot of the Canberra clubs, too, can be pretty territorial and try and hang on to their numbers as much as possible as well, which doesn’t help to try to entice people to come out and drive and play country footy without paying them and stuff like that, it can make it tricky. It’s just part of it.
“If we can make finals this year, then that’s a massive win in our eyes.
“The losses that we had against Bateman’s Bay and ADFA, whilst the scoreline looks not that close, we beat ADFA in the second half of the game and we were in front at quarter time and were even with Bateman’s Bay for two other quarters. It was just one bad quarter that sort of let us down.
“We feel confident that we can match it with the teams, it’s just the young boys having to figure out how to play good footy for the whole game and doing that every single week.”
The first bounce will commence at 4:00 pm for the women and 6:00 pm for the men at Joe O’Connor Park.
-Tully Potts
