Big performances from Calder Cannons captains in win over Northern Knights

Calder Cannons secured their first win of the NAB League Girls season with big performances from their captains and a debutant.

Calder Cannons co-captains Reece Sutton and Olivia Manfre ensured their team secured their first win of the season on Saturday.

The Cannons earned a 10-point win over neighbouring rival Northern Knights at Highgate Reserve, a strong response after going down in the NAB League Girls opener.

Sutton and Manfre led from the front in the 6.2 (38) to 4.4 (28) victory.

Sutton collected 22 disposals and five tackles, while Manfre finished with 21 touches, seven tackles and two goals.

Coach Ross Smith was particularly pleased with their leadership in difficult conditions.

“That was Reece’s best game I’ve seen her play for the club,” Smith said.

“Consistent across the four quarters, her leadership – she’s co-captain with Olivia – I mentioned them both at half-time for the leadership.

“Olivia was solid, 21 touches is really good and she kicked two important goals for us – she was very accurate.

“We had a couple of late outs, which were problematic, so it was pleasing to perform the way we did with some disruption.

Abbie McDonald and Tahlia Read both finished with 21 disposals and four touches to continue their strong starts to the campaign.

Amy Gaylor had a match-high 14 tackles as Calder made a staggering 90 tackles, backing up 95 from Round 1, while Kayley Kavanagh had 19 touches and a goal in her debut.

“Abbie McDonald did a really good job on (Rylie) Wilcox, who’s their best player,” Smith said.

“Both those girls are Vic Metro squad players, so we threw the challenge down to Abbie, and I think recruiters and AFL powers want to see the good players playing on each other.

“Tahlia continues to improve, she was our best last week and had another 21 touches and four tackles, playing a different role on the wing.

“Kayley played her first game for the club and had 19 touches, she’s a powerful, strong girl with a basketball background who takes them on and has a lot of confidence in her game.

A commanding first-quarter performance set up the win.

Kicking with the breeze, the Cannons piled on three goals straight before holding Northern to 2.2 in the second quarter to take a four-point lead into half-time.

Holding an 18-point lead at the final break, Kavanagh booted the only goal of the game against the wind to all but seal the result.

Smith said he wanted his team to keep attacking against the wind and not park the bus.

“We knew they had the breeze in the last quarter, they’d kicked two in the second quarter,” Smith said.

“My message was to keep doing what we’re doing but we actually needed to score, I wanted them to kick at least a goal and not play that negative last quarter and hold on.

“The game last week was 33 degrees, so that was a tough game and we’ve had some hot training sessions.

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“The girls have been terrific, we’ve had record numbers, we’ve got 54 on our list and we had 51 at training both nights last week.

“I think that’s a really good sign that the girls are enjoying their time and looking forward to training.

“Particularly after last week, Eastern were too strong for us, it was nice to be able to bounce back.”

Calder has a bye in Round 3 and Smith will celebrate his 57th birthday happier for the early present.