Seven youngsters answered the call of Melbourne University’s Open Day last Sunday, leaving frustrated Castlemaine Goldfields men’s coach Terry Attwood pulling out his hair and screaming, “Why don’t they hold open days on Saturday?”

His depleted squad took on the might of Warrnambool at Morshead Park, Ballarat, with five players having to play both the Division One and Two games on the same afternoon.

Having lost 0-1 in a hard fought Division Two encounter, Castlemaine players entered the field for the Division One match with a simple game plan: defend vigorously and get the ball quickly to strong forwards Bear Hackenberger and Brendan Connelly.

The plan worked well and within 15 minutes the ‘Maine was 1-0 ahead after Bear used his pace to break through the ‘Bool defence and calmly slot the ball under the keeper’s body.

But a reply was in the offing as Warrnambool peeled paint off the crossbar with some powerful shots before a deflection finally hit the back of the net shortly before half time, leaving scores tied at 1-1.

At the break, Coach Attwood urged his team to maintain concentration and stick to the energy-conserving game plan (by now, five players had already clocked up two hours of football).

But Warrnambool subverted that plan by scoring twice in three minutes after the restart.

This setback did not dampen Castlemaine spirits, however, and Bear popped up to score again after some hard work from his fellow striker Brendan.

The score remained 2-3 well past the hour mark as the ‘Maine defended doggedly but players tired towards the end of the match and the ‘Bool took advantage, striking once, twice then thrice within 15 minutes to snare a convincing 6-2 win.

Afterwards, Coach Attwood tipped his hat to his hard-working squad, particularly noting the efforts of two-game tyros Jim Kourkoulakos, Otto Van Pagee Anderson, Dom Crinson, Sam Doolan and Jake Bovill. Congratulations were also offered to Shooter (Aaron) on coming off the bench for his Division One debut.