Northern FL: Coach Singh signs on as Cougars stay in third position

In off-field news to begin, Northcote Park playing coach Harmit Singh tweeted out last Tuesday night that he would remain at the club until the end of 2016.

 

 

As we are at the business end of his first season in charge, Singh currently has his Cougars in third position with a win-loss record of 7-6. Everyone associated with the club is thrilled to have the backman involved for another year, best of luck Singy!

 

 

Back to the weekend’s game against Macleod, it was a huge game for the Cougars as they were hoping to create a gap between themselves and fourth placed Heidelberg, as the Tigers were facing the top side in Greensborough.

 

Northcote Park started the stronger side, and early first quarter goals to Brock McLennan, Joel Donaldson and Lachy Boscarini saw the Cougars jump out to a quick three goal lead.

 

The Kangaroos managed to get one back before quarter time, and it was just what they needed to give themselves a bit of confidence heading into the quarter time break.

 

Macleod began the second term in fantastic fashion and were all over the Cougars for the majority of the quarter. They booted six goals in a row during the quarter to open up a healthy lead, before Brandon Brown ended the Cougars’ drought and goaled just before half time to reduce the Macleod margin to 21.

 

The home side needed to come out after half time and hit the scoreboard early, and they did just that as Patty O’Connell ran on to a long kick to the goal square to give the Cougars the opening goal in the third.

 

Minutes later, Aaron Shaw marked and goaled from the square to reduce the Macleod lead to nine points, and bring the Cougars well and truly back into the game.

 

Macleod responded however and managed to snag two goals of their own, and draw the quarter with Northcote Park, meaning that their 21-point half time margin now became the margin with only one quarter to play.

 

The Cougars just couldn’t get anything going in the final term, and Macleod were able to kick six goals to one to record a convincing 52 point win. The win sees the Kangaroos retain the Melican-Anderson Cup, a trophy honouring Macleod’s Tom Melican and Northcote Park’s late John Anderson.

 

Luckily for the Cougars, Heidelberg were unable to record a victory against Greensborough, so both sides are still tied for third place with seven wins each. They were also joined on seven wins by Eltham after their thrilling one-point win over Bundoora. Northcote Park’s percentage is reasonably better then both sides, meaning that they are in the box seat to hold on to the all important third position and the double chance come finals time.

 

With the Panthers now joining the race for third spot, it makes the Cougars’ final five games even more important. As the top two are now 14 points clear of the chasing pack, there’s only one more double chance spot remaining.

 

My prediction for the final five games for the Cougars goes as follows; North Heidelberg (Win), Bundoora (W), Greensborough (Loss), Montmorency (W) and Heidelberg (W)

 

This would see Northcote Park sit on 11 wins to finish the season. Having a look at Heidelberg’s and Eltham’s final matches, I believe that those clubs will both finish with 10 wins, meaning that they will battle it out for fourth place.

 

With still over a month of footy to play anything can and most likely will happen, and there’s a good chance I’ll get those predictions completely wrong.

 

Let’s just hope those Northcote Park ones don’t change too much.

 

 

For more information on the Northcote Park Football Club, please head to http://www.northcotepark.com.au

 

 

Comments

  1. Trucker Slim says

    Thanks Stephen, let’s hope Northcote Park Cougars can win the last four or five games and hold third spot. And great news that Harmit has been retained. He also coaches one of the Preston Bullants JFC Colts side and we love his style, attitude and nous. Cheers

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