Pleased to announce the Perth Boltz coaching staff for season 2012/13.

Offense:

• Jonas Curic-Roth
• Scott Smith

Defense:

• Paul Mamotte
• Stephen Armstrong

All coaches are current WA Raiders representatives who recently won the Australian Gridiron League national championships, So they all will bring a wealth of knowledge to the team.  Congratulations to the four on their appointments.

These appointments signal the start of the recruitment for the Blitz Juniors (Boltz), stay tuned for news about our upcoming registration day, soon to be announced, and ongoing plans for the team.

Coach Paraic Reddington (pictured right, with Defensive Coach Steve Mathews), after leading the club to their first title since their formation in 2006, has been appointed for a further two years at the helm of the Blitz’ coaching staff.

In a departure from the regular way they’ve handled previous coaching nominations, the head coach position is now handled on a two-year basis, rather than just as needed role during the pre and playing season. This decision comes in the wake of the recent successful season and a desire to maintain consistency for the players in the offseason as well as providing a method for contact directly into the player core at all times regardless of the time of year.

With the role now filled for the next two years, the board can now get down to focusing on the season to come; the defense of a title.

From my point of view the 2011-12 season was a rags to riches story. The Blitz were coming off their worst season ever from a performance point of view, a semi-final loss to the Steelers. The only other time we hadn’t reached the Grand Final was in our first year as a club. But the fundamentals of the club were never sounder and off-field the foundation was in place for success.

The Blitz lost several key players in the off-season on both offense and defense and so some key holes had to be filled. None was more fundamental to the team than losing starting quarterback Rohan Williams who went to Japan. Up stepped receiver Locklan Gilbert, who had backed up Rohan the year before. Of course gaining Locklan at quarterback meant losing him at receiver, and Locklan is an Australian representative so he was a big loss out wide. Luckily for the Blitz, Terry Niessen returned from Canada to play receiver, boosting our receiving corps immensely. We also lost running backs Loko Thompson and D Kahuroa so both the running and passing games were hit hard.

On the defensive side our squad was decimated in the off-season, losing 9 starters!!! (Mike Rose, captain Dave Cox, Darragh Farrell, Tyson Hornby, Matt Dulaney, Toby Hall, Nic Nottingham, Basti Ruediger and defensive MVP Mark Gaffney). Dudley Taylor stepped up to assume the captaincy and so the defense was effectively built from scratch around Dudley by new defensive coach Steve ‘Dozer’ Mathews.

Luckily for the Blitz we had recruited hard in the off-season and had a batch of excellent new players, many of whom became instant starters. The Blitz have always recruited strongly and this year was no exception.

I missed the first 2 games of the year as I was in the US but we won both in unimpressive performances, 22-14 over the Broncos and 14-12 over the Jets. Understandably our new offense was slow in gelling. The surprise was how well we played on defense. Despite losing so many players we were very strong defensively and all the credit goes to Dozer and Dudley for their leadership with this young unit.

Another narrow win, 30-24, over the Saints put us at 3-0 but we knew we were not a good team at that point. And we were about to face the Vipers and Steelers. Sure enough, they showed us up and we lost both games 0-38 and 6-10 respectively. We knew we had a lot of work to do. Subsequent losses to the fast improving Broncos (6-32), Saints (30-40) and Vipers again (18-28) put us at 6-5 and in a terrible position. We were staring down the barrel of potentially a losing season and missing out on a playoff spot (which would surely have seen me dumped as coach – and rightly so).

We needed to win our remaining 3 games to ensure a place in the finals. Our defense delivered, allowing just 12 points in those 3 games, giving us a regular season record of 9-5 and getting us into post-season play. It wasn’t a pretty regular season and we were still very inconsistent on offense, averaging just 22 points a game, but in the playoffs anything can happen and we knew what we were capable of.

We had beaten the Steelers 22-6 in the penultimate regular season game so we knew we had the formula to beat them in the semi final. We stuck to the game plan and deserved our win 18-8. That put us in our 4th final in 5 years and up against our old enemy the Vipers. We had not beaten the Vipers all season so it was only right that we should have to beat them to become champions.

As it turned out we had 2 weeks to prepare for the grand final. That was a double edged sword for us as, although it gave us time to heal, it resulted in us losing a couple of key players who were unavailable. But it did allow us plenty of time to gameplan for the final and we had lots of game film of both prospective opponents. Once we knew it was going to be the Vipers we worked very hard to come up with a scheme that we thought would stop their offense while giving us the best chance to score. We worked bloody hard that week at training and it didn’t come together until late on the last session but when the game started it was pretty clear from very early that we had a formula to stop the Vipers offense.

Meanwhile our offensive line had been steadily improving all season and as a result our running game was strong. Lui Luaiva pounded the ball hard all day and ran for an astounding 222 yards on 23 carries and 2 touchdowns in an MVP performance. That allowed Locklan Gilbert room to run himself and he notched up another 85 yards on the ground and a score. He also completed 6 passes for 93 yards and 2 touchdowns, with both going to Terry Niessen. We jumped out to a 20-0 lead until the Vipers finally got things going and started to move the ball. But as they scored, so did we and so the scores went to 26-6 and then 32-12 before they made a final onslaught with 3 unanswered scores to make it 32-30. Luckily for us we held strong at the death and took away our first ever championship.

The fact that we had such a high turnover of players this season and were still successful is a credit to Scott Smith and the Blitz committee who have placed the club in an excellent off the field position. Specific credit also must go to Steve Mathews who had to balance playing and coaching the defense.

This championship was a long time coming and I’m delighted for the players who have put in so much effort for the Blitz. They deserve this win. The Blitz have a short but proud history and it is fantastic to finally have our first win. I am so proud of our guys and delighted to have been a part of it. I look forward to many more successful Blitz campaigns to come. This really is a team of champions.

Paraic Reddington
Head Coach
Perth Blitz Gridiron Club

32-30.

Two points is all it took to secure the Perth Blitz their first ever title and at the same time, stopped the Rockingham Vipers from taking their fourth in a row. The hardest, most dominant effort from anyone ever in blue was left on the field on Saturday night. And was rightly rewarded with the spoils.

The game was thrilling, the Blitz offense scored almost every time they took the field in the first half, setting up a blistering second half that saw the Vipers almost return the deficit to zero. However, the Blitz defense stood up to stop their conversion attempts and when time ran out, the Blitz were ahead by two points, securing their first ever title.

With the memory of the Giants title win back in 2004 fading from memory for some of the current roster, those still around can now say that they were a part of the first ever championship for the Blitz. Head Coach Paraic Reddington, linemen Aaron Allingham, Steve Mathews and Josh “Moose” Goldsmith were among those in that Giants roster who are still playing. Having played through 4 grand finals in the Blitz era, it’s now all worthwhile as we take our long overdue bask in the championship glory.

All of the players who played on that field on Saturday will go down in history as the first team to take home the trophy for the Blitz. No one can change that. Any player that has ever suited up for the Blitz, past or present has played their part in getting us to this point. Without them, we couldn’t have pushed as hard as we did.

No one is better than us this day.

Champions!

That’s right kids, we’re in. After playing a brutal game against the Westside Steelers and finishing with a scoreline of 18-8, the Perth Blitz are heading back to the big event of Gridiron West. We’re giving ourselves another chance to take home the biggest prize in gridiron in WA. The title.

After a week’s extra break because of unforeseen lighting issues at Kingsway Sporting Complex in the game after ours, the Perth Blitz take on the Rockingham Vipers for the Gridiron West Grand Final on the 18th of February at 6:00pm.

Come one, come all and support your team in blue. Help us to bring home that wonderful trophy.

Our sometimes receiver (and all the time beautiful man), Jonas, has done up a promo for this weekend’s game, enjoy:

A win over the Westcoast Wolverines was all that was needed to guarantee another year of finals football for the Blitz and a win was what they got. It was ugly, had lots of penalties and even a request to tone down the language but in the end, the boys in blue and white prevailed to ensure their chance at securing a title was as strong as ever.

After going down 6-0 in the first half with a long bomb to a Wolverine with nothing but space in front of him, the Blitz rallied behind QB1 Locklan Gilbert to give what he needed to put the scores up. Despite the early concession, defense stood up to display a solid effort in containing the Wolverines to that one score.

The Blitz secure their place in the top four to play the finals series against an opponent to be confirmed.

Other results in Round 14:

• Claremont Jets 70 – 0 Gosnells Fire
• Curtin Saints 32 – 12 Westside Steelers
• Perth Broncos 6 – 36 Rockingham Vipers

After a loss against top side, Perth Broncos last weekend, the Curtin Saints will be looking to regain a potential top 4 finish with a win against a resurgent Blitz, who are coming off a confidence boosting shutout against the Claremont Jets in Round 9. Having beaten the Saints earlier in the season, the Blitz will be looking to take their season to 2-0 against the Saints but as always, it’s never that easy. With a solid running game and good choices to throw to, their offense will be working hard to gain early scores but this will be made difficult with the Blitz defense to contend with.

Both teams won’t have the oppressive heat to deal with today as with last weekend, a later game kick off coupled with a much lower temperature will hopefully see off the chances of heatstroke. The game kicks off at 4pm at the Kingsway Sports Centre.

Further to this, after this game is the semi-final of the Gridiron West Juniors competition, come on down to support the future of the game!

The Blitz dominated the jets on Saturday with a crushing 32-0 win. Lui Luaiva was unstoppable all day pounding the ball and ran in 2 scores. Locklan Gilbert added 3 TD passes to Terry Niessen, Connor Liddelow and Dennis Savic. The Blitz defense shut the Jets down all day and gave them no room to breathe in oppressive heat. That takes the Blitz to 6-3. Next up – the Saints.

With the Blitz suffering under a recent downturn in form, a win against the Jets is vital. The green and white have been a surprise unit this season, containing more teams than expected, it won’t be an easy outing for the Blitz with the offense expected to put in a larger shift in order to make sure the game is put away early. With the expected temperature to be hovering in the mid to high 30′s, frequent water breaks and player hydration will play a bigger than normal part in the performance for both teams.

Head to Kingsway Sport Centre at 2pm for kick off.

Expected to be harder than in seasons past, the Curtin Saints put on a strong start to their clash against the Blitz, scoring on their first drive as they have every game this season, and denying the Blitz offense the chance to do the same. Leading the Blitz into the half, the Saints defense was worn down by a hard fought Blitz offense to finally put the game out of reach, closing it out 30-24 in the end. The Blitz’ undefeated season continues to 3-0 but with a meeting against an also undefeated Vipers in the next round, only one will come away with their records unscathed.