LIVESTREAM Australia: Gridiron Victoria – Western Crusaders vs South Eastern Predators, Jan. 29, 06:00 am CET (4 pm AEST in Australia)
Gridiron Victoria heads into its third weekend of play with three great matchups.
The Western Crusaders and Geelong Buccaneers are both undefeated after two rounds of play while the South Eastern Predators and Croydon Rangers have won one and lost one. The Warriors Gridiron Club and Melbourne University Royals are both winless.
Saturday, January 29 (6 am CET, 4 pm AEST)
Western Crusaders (2-0) vs South Eastern Predators (1-1)
This is one of the eye watering match ups with the Western Crusaders (2-0) taking on the highly fancied South Eastern Predators (1-1), who are coming off a huge win over their archrival Warriors. A first in their Gridiron Victoria lifetime. We can’t forget though that the Crusaders are just touching the surface after a 34-6 victory over Croydon last weekend. With two ex Crusaders playing major roles with the Predators, this will be an interesting game. QB for the Predators, Brad Furgeson and WR Prince Coleman, are both former Crusaders players.
Watch the game live here.
Geelong Buccaneers (2-0) vs Warriors Gridiron Club (0-2)
Speaking of archrivals. They don’t come any bigger than the Geelong Buccaneers (2-0) who take on the Warriors Gridiron Club (0-2). With a history of Vic Bowl defeats at the hands of the Warriors, the Bucs look better placed this year to lay some punishment on their foes. The Bucs running game, with FB Daniel Tinitali will be the big difference here. The guy runs like Derrick Henry and loves to land a blow on the defenders on his way to scoring. RB Daniel Barnett has also been great, averaging about 80 yards rushing a game in 1.5 games. I see the Warriors defence having issues with the powerful Geelong O Line.
Sunday, January 30
Croydon Rangers (1-1) vs Royals (0-2)
The third game is the Croydon Rangers (1-1) taking on the Melbourne University Royals (0-2) in Parkville.
Not the ideal start for the Royals who had to forfeit game 1 due to COVID reasons and last week forfeited again at half time, due to not lodging a team sheet and playing unregistered players. Not a good look for the club. So we will actually get to see them in FULL action on Sunday afternoon. Fingers crossed. The Rangers called upon QB Jared Stegman to fill that role while their starter waits for a broken arm to heal. Back up QB Joshua Long is unavailable for the next few Sunday games. Stegman looked rusty due to only having 1 training session with his new team mates. We know Stegman can throw and scramble, something he did a lot of last week against the scary Crusaders D Line. He did find a connection with TE Anthony De Benedictis and WR Christian Toy. He needs to find one with star WR James Fountain if they’re going to outscore the Royals here. Don’t know what to say about the Royals for the sheer fact I haven’t seen them play a full game as yet. We know they have a young man mountain at QB in Declan Ramage and a fast paced, magic hands WR in Jacob Kerin. We need to see that connection often if they’re going to win. The defence looks ok but got beaten by the Bucs far too easily last week.
