HDFNL – Senior football

HARROW Balmoral pulled off one of its grittiest victories in its round two Horsham District League clash with Laharum.

Laharum had brought half a dozen good players into its 2024 finals side and some believed that they could be the club to end the Harrow Balmoral Roos winning streak and at quarter time the visiting Demons led the Roos by a point.

As the challenge built in the second quarter, key position players Simon and Michael Close suffered game ending injuries, it was going to take a big team effort for the Roos to stop the determined Demons with just one interchange player in the 30-degree heat.

Despite being undersized and undermanned, the Roos system, tackling and determination saw them kick four goals in each of the second and third quarters to Laharum’s two in each, to have a 23-point margin at three-quarter time.

The last quarter saw Harrow Balmoral kicking two goals and two behinds, while Laharum kicked one goal, seven.

If the Demons had kicked a bit straighter it could have been tougher for the Roos, as the Demons had one more scoring shot for the match, but the Harrow Balmoral pressure may have contributed to the opposition’s misses.

The Roos kicked 13 goals for the game; Cody Deutscher got eight of them in a mercurial performance as the sole tall forward to lead Harrow Balmoral to victory by 24 points.

It was a brilliant display of strong marking and accurate kicking.

Mitchell Grant is becoming a young team leader on ball and as a forward who works hard to keep the ball in the Roos’ forward line, Coach Jai Thompson just goes all day, as tough as he is skillful and the return of Pete Staude and Will Plush saw them work hard to contain Laharum coach Robbie Miller and still give their usual drive.

The big ruckmen Noah Hildebrand and Anthony Close didn’t get any shorter in the heat and both had key moments and the skillful Harrow Balmoral youngsters Josh Grant, Alex Rees, Henry Wardlaw and Maddox Blake. all played their roles.

Simon Close’s 150th game for Harrow Balmoral didn’t end well for him, but the durable Dalton Burns has been a great servant of the Harrow Balmoral club as he clocked up 200 games.

Burns joined the club in 2013 when it was at a low point and has travelled from Horsham and has made the back pocket his own to be part of four premierships, after 150 games for the Horsham Saints.