picture: michaelklein scotthasnoanswers€¦ · chapman’s premiership teammates corey enright...
TRANSCRIPT
54 NT NEWS. Wednesday, July 17, 2013. www.ntnews.com.au
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Victorian twins rule the BaySAILING
VICTORIAN twins have wal-ked away with a one-twofrom the youth sailing cham-pionships held in Darwin.
Hayden and Laura Hard-ing from Blairgowrie YachtSquadron in Huey Blossomwon the Minnow nationalsfrom his sister Laura at Dar-win Sailing Club last week.
Hayden, 13, only discardeda fifth place in the 31-strong
open fleet of 2.4m single-handed dinghies.
The top Territory sailorwas Kieran Schortz, 12, fromBrinkin, Darwin, who fin-ished third.
Huw Wiltshire from Fan-nie Bay, Darwin, was theonly non-Harding to win arace, which he did in the 10thand final race — landing himin seventh overall and at thetop of the Junior division.
—CONORBYRNE
Chapman comeback continues in Cats’ reservesGEELONG’S triple-prem-iership player Paul Chapmanis set to resume in the re-serves after overcoming ahamstring injury which haskept him out of action in theAFL since Round 4.
The 31-year-old broke downfollowing Geelong’s win overSydney on April 19.
Geelong club physio MikeSnelling said yesterday thetwo-time All-Australian wason track to play for the Cats’VFL side against Collingwoodat Simonds Stadium on Fri-day night.
‘‘He’s been able to completetraining in the past week,’’Snelling said.
‘‘He’s still got this week’straining to get through andwe’d anticipate that if he getsthrough all of that withoutany issues, then we shouldhopefully see him on the parkthis weekend.’’
Chapman’s premiershipteammates Corey Enright(foot) and Territorian Math-
ew Stokes (groin) face fitnesstests ahead of Sunday’s AFLclash with the 12th-placedCrows in Adelaide.
‘‘Corey also has to make itthrough a full training loadthis week to prepare him forthis weekend, so we’ll be as-sessing him later on,’’ Snell-ing said.
Snelling said Stokes hadchronic groin issues.
‘‘We anticipate that heshould get up to complete fulltraining and be available thisweekend,’’ Snelling said.
Onballer and fellow Territ-orian Allen Christensencould miss another game witha hamstring problem.
Joel Corey and NathanVardy also face tests after gconcussions. ‘‘They face a testto assess their cognitive func-tion,’’ Snelling said.
The Cats will be withoutstar midfielder Steve Johnsonwho yesterday accepted aone-game ban for kneeingMelbourne’s Nathan Jones.
Cornes’plea forleniencyignoredPORT Adelaide’s KaneCornes has been rubbed outfor one match after a pleafor leniency because hisgood playing record failed tosway the AFL tribunal to re-duce his penalty.
Cornes contested hislevel-two charge of roughconduct last night and ap-peared via a video link fromAdelaide to give evidencethat he had bumped Haw-thorn’s Sam Mitchell in theback during the third quar-ter of Saturday’s game atAAMI Stadium.
The 260-game veteran,who had never been re-ported previously at AFLlevel, said his intention wasto impede Mitchell’s pro-gress and prevent him frommoving to the next contest.
Midfield tagger Cornesclashed with Mitchell abouteight metres off the balland a free-kick was paidagainst Cornes for contactto the back.
Cornes said only minimalcontact was made in whatwas just a standard bump.
A three-member jurychaired by Wayne Schim-melbusch deliberated foronly four minutes before an-nouncing Cornes had beenfound guilty of the offence.
He had sort a reductionfrom 168.75 points to under100 points.
The 30-year-old Port star’splayer advocate Mark Grif-fin QC argued the level-twocharge should have been alevel-one grading and alsothat Cornes’ fine playing re-cord should afford him alighter penalty under theclause of exceptional andcompelling circumstances.
However the tribunalneeded only seven moreminutes to find the penaltyshould stand.
It means Cornes will nowmiss Saturday night’s im-portant clash betweeneighth-placed Port Adelaideand 16th-placed St Kilda atEtihad Stadium.
A thoughtful Brad Scott fronts the media before a Kangaroos training session yesterday Picture: MICHAEL KLEIN
Scott has no answersAFL
NORTH Melbourne coachBrad Scott concedes theKangaroos aren’t gettingbetter at stopping otherteams producing game-turning rushes of goals, des-pite their best efforts.
The Brisbane Lions’ week-end comeback against theRoos, when they reboundedfrom 33 points down in thethird term to win by 12, con-tinued a frustrating trend.
It was the sixth time this
season that a seeminglymatch-winning lead hasturned into a narrow defeatfor the Kangaroos.
Had North won all thosegames they’d sit only percent-age off top spot.
Instead they’re 11th andnearly out of finals conten-tion ahead of Friday night’scrunch clash with ninth-placed Carlton.
Scott expected a spiritedresponse from his playersand has no plans to stop theup-tempo gameplan which
has helped the Kangaroosregularly build leads againsttop-class opposition.
But he said the ability toslow the game down when thetables turned was also im-portant and despite constantwork, wasn’t improving.
Scott said when the Kanga-roos were dominating games,too frequently the oppositionwould change styles andNorth couldn’t cope.
‘‘The opposition haschanged and we haven’tadapted,’’ Scott said.
‘‘The disappointing thing iswe’ve seen common themesin being scored against andwe’ve worked on that and wehaven’t improved.
‘‘So we’ve got to keep work-ing on that . . . and ittakes time.
‘‘Players take time to ad-just to different systems.
‘‘We think our systemswork really well but they’vebeen letting us down at timesas well because we haven’tfollowed through on them.
‘‘That is disappointing. It is
a trend and we’re not shyingaway from that.’’
Adding to North’s worriesis a series of minor injuriessustained against the Lions.
Captain Andrew Swallowdid little at training exceptjog along the boundary,although Scott was confidenthe would front the Blues.
Jack Ziebell (knee), LachieHansen (concussion) andAaron Mullett (ankle) mustall prove their fitness.
Forward Lindsay Thomaswill return from suspension.