No champagne celebrations at Demons Ladies Day

Originally published in Dubbo Photo News

Disappointment was the flavour of the day at South Dubbo Oval this weekend with all three Demons teams going down at their combined Sponsors and Ladies Day weekend.

A strong first half from the women saw them ahead of the Giants in a their much-anticipated rematch following the Demons round five win.

It wasn’t meant to be though with the team struggling to maintain momentum following the devastating loss of key midfielder Kristen Coady just three minutes before halftime.

Going down in a pack tackle, Coady suffered a compound tibia and fibula break to her left leg.

Unable to move from the field, play was halted for more than 45-minutes while waiting for Coady to be taken to hospital via ambulance.

Demons coach Peter Martinoli said it was a rough ask for the team to return to play following the incident.

“It is hard to mentally reset, and, and just keep in mind on the job at hand. But having said that, the girls did their best, and didn't take a backwards step all day.

“The big thing we had to do is just keep everyone moving, we don’t want anyone standing around for too long, so we just got the footy in our hands and went for a jog, did a few warmup drills, but as mentally, it is very hard to get players to focus again because there does become that panic of ‘am I next’?”

Alongside Coady the team lost her partner and fellow midfielder Kaitlyn Waldie, who left the ground with her.

“You take two key midfielders out of any squad and it's very hard to replace them. It made it difficult as a coach, to then start throwing magnets around the board to try and see who might work in their places,” Martinoli said.

Martinoli also faced a huge bench, one of the biggest in the team’s history.

“I kept having to apologise to the girls that I couldn't get them on the field.

“It was just it was one of those things that I spoke about before the game that, you know, I warned them that this is going to happen because one person trying to manage 10 people on the bench as well as the other 15 on the field, it does become overwhelming but they are very understanding of very supportive of decisions made, but I was trying to give everyone as much game time as possible.”

Also fighting for a spot on the field was three new players, pulling on the blue, red, and yellow for the first time.

“We had three debutants which takes us well into double figures for debutants for the year with a majority of those playing their first ever games of AFL. All three did extremely well: Claire Joshua slotted into the backline and just seemed to have loved it; Caitlin Pluta on the forward line just slotted in well too. Anthea Joshua, I kind of threw her into the deep end and put her on the wing but she did the best she could and I’ve got nothing bad to say about any of them.”

Martinoli said that despite delays and injury concerns the game was a good sign of what the Demons are capable of. Keeghan Tucker was best on field, filling in holes across the midline all day.

“Tucker really ran herself into the ground and was struggling to get back up towards the end of the game. Mikaela Cullen on a return game played really well as well and hasn't played since round one after the chest injury. So, I was a bit cautious about putting her on the field as well, but she had a great time as well.”

Coming off after the loss there were some disgruntled players with concerns about poor umpiring late in the fourth quarter, which Martinoli echoed.

“It another very physical, evenly contested game and the final score doesn't really reflect how the game was particularly.

“A few poor decisions from umpiring late in the fourth quarter directly led to Giants goals which shouldn't have shouldn't have happened but overall, the girls gave their heart and soul in every tackle, every kick, every handpass.”

The final score had the Demons 14 down, 4.1.25 to 6.3.39. Men’s tier two went down to Cowra Blues 3.1.19 to 15.12.102, the men’s tier one side made the day zero from three in an extremely narrow loss to the Bathurst Giants 5.14.44 to 6.9.45.

The Dubbo Demons, and teams across the Central West, took time on Saturday to remember the life of Hannah Howard. Hannah was a Dubbo Junior AFL player in 2021 who passed away earlier this month.

Teams joined together in a minute silence before their games to remember her and come together as a football community in her honour.

The Demons will be back at South Dubbo Oval this weekend with the women and tier one men’s sides facing the Orange Tigers and the tier two men’s team start the day off against the Bathurst Bushrangers Rebels.