The final regular round of Gridiron West Season 2012/13 has landed. Both teams have secured their positions in the finals and on the ladder. Regardless of the result, neither team can be moved from 1st (Broncos) and 2nd (Blitz) on the ladder. So, for both teams, this game comes down to momentum, how will a positive or negative result affect each team.

The Broncos go into this game undefeated, having snatched a draw from a definite loss earlier in the season against the Wolverines, the result not affecting the rest of their games of the season. Taking them to now, still without a loss. The Blitz are a different story, having lost 3 games against opponents they’ve previously (Curtin Saints, West Coast Wolverines, Perth Broncos) beaten in seasons gone past (but beat them later in the season) and doing the double on teams they’ve struggled against similarly in seasons past (Westside Steelers, Rockingham Vipers). Overall, a season of differences, with more teams vying for the top 4 than ever before. A positive sign of the times in GW and potential for the future.

With a thin schedule during the month of January, the extended break could be a curse for the Blitz but at the same time, wounds and injuries have been given time to heal, something the Broncos could be wishing for with their injury depleted squad. Whatever the result though, both teams will be aiming to meet each other again on the 9th of February in the Grand Final and will no doubt have an eye on their next opponents in the Semi Finals.

Come down to George Burnett Park in Karawara at 7:30pm to see the Perth Blitz take on the Perth Broncos in what will surely be a fantastic match for the round. Canteen and bar facilities will be available as well as undercover and indoor areas for supporters. Facilities will be open from 6:30pm.

Game 2                                13/10/2012

Perth Blitz v Westside Steelers

12 – 0

Unstoppable Blitz Defence Dominates Again

The Perth Blitz defensive team continued to shine after a shutout, multiple interceptions, and returning the ball to the end zone twice in a low scoring affair.

After a first round loss to the West Coast Wolverines, the Perth Blitz were egger to get points on the board early. Strong drives from the Blitz running game, combined with tough Blitz defensive pressure and strong outside contain, kept the ball deep in Steelers territory for most of the first quarter. A fumble was returned for a Blitz touchdown late in the first, all thanks to some very aggressive defensive pressure.

The second quarter continued to be dominated by the Blitz defence, with the Steelers being forced to punt early into their drive, only to see the punt returned for yet another Blitz defensive touchdown. The second half saw much of the same ferocious defence that the Perth Blitz have become famous for. Combined with a few injuries and minor ball movement for the game, the Westside Steelers were ready to call it a night.

The Perth Blitz face the Claremont Jets next week, with focus on their offence bouncing back and putting some points on the board.

MVP – Jonas Curic-Roth

Game 1                                06/10/2012

Perth Blitz v West Coast Wolverines

8 – 12

Shock Loss In Season Opener

A solid defensive performance from the Perth Blitz was not enough to save the first game of the season, with the West Coast Wolverines intercepting a deep pass to steal it in the final seconds.

The Perth Blitz started the game on the wrong foot, with the first kick return of the game finding its way through to the end zone. Determined to make up for the opening mistake, the Blitz defence came out strong, stopping the Wolverines advance just inches from their end zone. This continued all game, with numerous defensive players breaking through to the Wolverines backfield and limiting their running game.

Blitz offence on the other hand failed to find their scoring groove, struggling to finish strong drives for most of the game. A deep pass during the second quarter from quarterback Rohan Williams was the only Blitz touchdown for the day. In a game that could only be called rusty at best, a total of 4 turnovers were given up, with fumbles and interceptions proving to be the downfall for the Blitz offence.

The Perth Blitz face the Westside Steelers next week, looking for their first win of the season.

MVP – Greg Blake

With the launch of our inaugural juniors team for season 2012/13 the Perth

Blitz would like to announce that we have been approved as a KidSport club.

KidSport is a brand new Western Australian initiative that will make it possible for children to participate in community sport and recreation, no matter their financial circumstances. If eligible youth aged 5-18 years can apply for financial assistance to contribute towards their club fees.

More information on KidSport can be found here: http://clubsonline.dsr.wa.gov.au/kidsport

31st of July. That’s the date for the return of gridiron to the current state champions, the Perth Blitz. Never in the club’s history has there been something to fight to retain, only to try and achieve. Now, the pressure is on to not only win again but to do it against a rising skill level within the league on the back of the recent national championship win of the WA Raiders at the 2012 Australian Gridiron League.

Never a team to back away from a challenge, the Blitz supplied almost 25% of that championship winning side. The majority of which sat within the ranks of the offensive line, at times four at of the five positions filled by white helmets. With all the enthusiasm from the win and skills learnt in that campaign, it will be a race to see who can translate the skills learnt during that campaign back to their club.

This season will also see the beginning of the future, with the Blitz juniors preparing to take the field. For both seniors and juniors, preseason will represent the start of the skills work to add to their off-season training which many should have already been doing.

So, if you’re interested in playing for the Blitz, already a player or just an interested party, the club starts it’s title defence on the 31st of July, attendance details are at the end of this post. If you’d like to register your interest before preseason starts, please head over to the seniors and juniors pages to enter your details.

Training

7:00pm at George Burnett Oval, Karawara.

View Larger Map

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: