Undefeated Magpies ahead of schedule

IT’S BEEN a season where North Geelong have been on the right side of close games in the GDFL competition.

They beat Inverleigh by four points, East Geelong by two and Geelong West Giants by 11 points.

Coach Peter Riccardi said the Magpies got lucky against Inverleigh and implemented changes against East Geelong, which resulted in shutting the game down well.

“Although it was two points, we didn’t seem like we were ever going to lose that game.”

North Geelong survived another tight one against Bannockburn in Round 8, emerging 21-point victors.

The ladder-leading Magpies could have another close finish in their away clash against reigning premier Thomson tomorrow (Saturday, June 14) at 2pm.

The seventh-placed Tigers have had an up-and-down season and have a 4-4 record.

It’s Riccardi’s second year at the club, and the Geelong Cats great reflected on the Pies’ trajectory from winning one game two years ago to now being undefeated after eight games.

“When I took the job on, we had to change a few things and the club was on board with that.

“We’ve got no under-18s to come up with the juniors.

“So I thought if we can get some kids into the team and try to teach them; in two, three, four years’ time, we might be okay and challenge for what we think is going to be maybe a flag.

“But we’re probably two years ahead of schedule at the minute.”

He said the club picked up handy recruits for 2025 and got some players back such as Charlie Farell (ACL) and Tom Davis (foot).

The coach said it was good to have some hype around the club but the team still had a long way to go.

“Although we look advanced, we’re still immature … we have lapses in games where we haven’t played a four-quarter game this year.”

Riccardi provided some insight into his side’s approach to the game.

“When the proverbial hits the fan, where it looks like we can’t get back to the way we want to play; we’ve got to wait until half-time, quarter-time or three-quarter-time, for us [coaches] to let them know what’s going on,” he said.

“And to their credit, they take it on board and we go out and we seem to go all right.”

He said the next step was to lift the communication on-field.

The Magpies’ injury list includes centre half-forward Mark Paramonov (ankle), recruit Jasper George (knee), Charlie McDonald (broken toe), Jorden Bertucci (hamstring) and Paddy Cleary (broken finger).