THERE is nothing more Hawkish than a bloody Hawk. A wounded Hawk.<\/p>\n
To alter this line from Tom Hafey\u2019s famous three-quarter-time speech in 1975 would almost be blasphemous had it not been such a fitting metaphor for Tatyoon\u2019s first half of the season.<\/p>\n
Beneath the surface of nine consecutive wins to start the Mininera season lies a list of injuries as long as the club\u2019s honour board; a situation which has seen 35 different players run out for the seniors over the first two months.<\/p>\n
But despite dealing with several absences, a wounded Tatyoon only knows one way.<\/p>\n
And that is winning.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I had to pinpoint something [that\u2019s impressed me] I\u2019d say it\u2019s our ability to play with a squad mentality between the seniors and reserves. We\u2019ve used around 35 different players with things like COVID and quite a heavy injury list,\u201d senior coach Zac Tunbridge said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ability for that to happen I think speaks volumes about the systems we\u2019ve got in place and about how everyone in our group can step up and play a role.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur ability to use that amount of players is one thing, but to have those boys coming to training and having that will to learn has been the most impressive thing I think.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u2018next man up\u2019 mentality in times of crisis is a trait cherished by the best teams and one Tatyoon has clung to this season as injuries, the flu and COVID plague the squad.<\/p>\n
As if anticipating this crisis, the last six weeks of the club\u2019s pre-season was dedicated towards implementing and perfecting what would be this season\u2019s gameplan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a really good buy in,\u201d Tunbridge said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started pre-season in November and we had 30 guys completing each running session which went from November until February. It allowed us to then spend a good six weeks focusing on gameplan and structure with everyone already fit and having done the work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan is one that\u2019s quite simple. I think it\u2019s easy, especially in country footy, to overcomplicate things and that\u2019s when people turn off because they come to play footy to enjoy it and they don\u2019t want to be sitting around listening to some intricate game plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
A big second half of the season looms for Tatyoon, which will meet several fellow premiership contenders on its way to the finals series.<\/p>\n
The Hawks overcame Lismore-Derrinallum by 19-points last week and are scheduled to face an undefeated Ararat Eagles side in a fortnight.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a few strong teams in the league this season and I think the focus is going to be spread around the top four or five. There are a few teams that will be hunted this year,\u201d Tunbridge said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THERE is nothing more Hawkish than a bloody Hawk. A wounded Hawk. To alter this line from Tom Hafey\u2019s famous three-quarter-time speech in 1975 would almost be blasphemous had it not been such a fitting metaphor for Tatyoon\u2019s first half of the season. Beneath the surface of nine consecutive wins to start the Mininera season […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Beneath the surface of nine consecutive wins to start the Mininera season lies a list of injuries as long as the club\u2019s honour board; a situation which has seen 35 different players run out for the seniors over the first two months.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"coauthors":[38],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Anthony-Rosato-Handballing-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqUu4-mO","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1414"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1414"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theadvocate.net.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}