Wembley Masters V’s Central Crocs
18 April 2010


So what makes some games more enjoyable than others?

Is it.......
•    the near spring like weather
•    the quality and sportsmanship of the opposition
•    the fact that everyone got a kick and had a positive contribution to the game
•    that you have a resounding victory (although we don't score of course)
•    that Aravinda leaves his ice pack for me behind the goal posts as he is leaving for home
•    the fact that after 44 years my mother is still watching my football games!!!!
•    the fact Ben and Jimmy tell you from the sidelines that your Mum is not happy about you playing in the back pocket in the last quarter and is going to talk to the coach
•    or most importantly you have an absolute day out kicking five goals and you get sweet revenge on Rookies write up about the shocker I had last week in the Supers

Now, I’m no wordsmith like Rookie, my esteemed colleague and team mate, but after some deep consideration I have to say I enjoyed the game for all of the above ...................but mostly because

•    the game was played in great spirit by both teams,
•    everyone and I mean everyone without exception had an influence on the game and
•    the team played as one unit with extreme unselfishness

Before I go onto the description of the game, due thanks goes to the Supers who helped out on the day. Thanks big Baz, Irish, Creedy and Aaaron. Apologies if I've missed anyone else out. Also thanks to Fev on his umpiring debut in the Masters.

The game started with a bit of a rush a few of us, in particular myself and Big Andy. Traffic congestion from the Red Bull Air race on the freeway!!!!!! I had barely enough time to get the boots on while Big Andy started during the first term. In saying that the Masters had a great first quarter with us piling on the goals with unselfish play from the likes of Kogsy who won possession several times and laid off two handpasses to yours truly in the goal square. Magic began well and had a dominant day across the half back line and appears short odds at this early stage to take out the Masters MVP award.

The first quarter also saw the birth of the “Twin Towers” of Vinnie and myself up forward playing out of full forward and the pocket respectively. The two of us combined well and provided a formable combination all day against the smaller opposition players. I think we got around 8 or 9 goals between us for the day.

The second quarter was again a dominant performance all round by Wembley with the main highlight coming from Sarges attempt at ballroom dancing with the locking of arms with his opposite number in a not too subtle manner in the centre when trying to win possession. The low light was Big Andy’s attempt at a specky which resulted in a sickening blow to The Presidents kidneys!!!!!!

The third-quarter was much the same with us finally working out the Crocs short chip and pass game plan, although fatigue was well and truely setting in. The warm weather showed its full effect on big Baz's face who appeared absolutely shattered after a big effort having played in the Supers prior to our game.

The final quarter started with Coach Self deciding to switch the backs and forwards. Now as I have mentioned many times, no respectable forward ever ventures past the half forward line!!!! Thankfully the backs played well, although a little inaccurately, with the ball virtually not coming down the back line all quarter. When it did, young Vinnie repelled it back down with dash.

The highlight of the day was the solid performances from the likes of Magic (Mr dominant), Newboy before and after his kidney replacement, Nunzio in defence and with a couple of way ward kicks at goals in the last and Creedy through the centre and his torpedos in the last quarter. Brainy took a great grab in the last quarter and Selfy had an outstanding three quarters stopping most forward thrust in the last line of defence with many strong marks. The Bev as always picked up a tonne of possession.

The new starters this year also played well with the likes of Paddo certainly being an added weapon to our attack with some beautiful foot skills and pin point passing to all in the forward line. Jason or Ned Flanders, as we will now call him, kicked his debut goal. Well done Ned.

To be absolutely honest everyone had a good day. One of the most even performance I have seen by the Masters in my one year and two games at the club.

Now the “turkey of the week” as awarded by the captain of the day was appropriately given to Selfy, who saved many opposition goals and prevented many of our goals when playing at full forward. Well done coach and enjoy your meal.

Finally hats off to Central Crocs for their sportsmanlike approach to the game and competitive nature on the day.

Big Joey Agnello

Supers v Brentwood Booragoon

18 April 2010

Mondegreens

Put your hand up if you’re a fan of the ABC musical quiz show Spicks n Specks? 

Okay, now put your hand down Creedy – people are looking through your office window and you look like a complete tool with your hand in the air for no apparent reason. 

One of my favourite segments of Spicks n Specks is when they play the mondegreens game.  For the uninitiated, a mondegreen is the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase, typically a standardised phrase such as a line in a poem or a lyric in a song in a way that gives it a new meaning.  There are some classics, such as:

"There's a bathroom on the right" instead of "There's a bad moon on the rise."
Bad Moon Rising, Creedence Clearwater
 
"Excuse me while I kiss this guy" instead of "Excuse me while I kiss the sky."
Purple Haze, Jimi Hendrix

"The girl with colitis goes by" instead of "The girl with kaleidoscope eyes."
Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, The Beatles

"What a nice surprise when you're out of ice" instead of "What a nice surprise bring your alibis."
Hotel California, Eagles

Of course you’ll now be thinking of your own made up lyrics for particular songs.  For me, I still have no idea what Morten Harket from A-ha is singing in the song Take On Me after the line “I’ll be gone....” I think it’s ‘in a day’ – and that’s what I belt out when it comes on in the car.  But I really have no idea.  Perversely, I deliberately won’t Google the lyrics to find out because I want to figure it out for myself.  Looks like I’ll be singing ‘in a day’ for a long time. 

How does it happen, I hear you ask.  Near homophony is the answer.  I’ll leave you and the 8th wonder of the world alone to find out what ‘near homophony’ means.

No Fev, it has nothing to do with being in close proximity of a gay man.

But what on earth does this have to do with the Supers game last Sunday?  Have you been reading my match reports long?  When has any of the content in them had anything to do with what happened in the game? 

Well this week it does.

We had our own version of the mondegreen among the players that took to the field against Brentwood Booragoon this week. After a very good first quarter, where we played strong team footy, rewarded the run of our team mates, used the first option and hit our targets, it appeared as though the instructions became lost in translation.

‘Use your first option’ became ‘try and beat 3 blokes and have 4 bounces before disposing of the ball.’  ‘Reward the run of your team mates’ became ‘ignore your team mates and kick it to a 1 on 3 contest’ and ‘hit your target’ became ‘hit any target’.  It was ugly.

And yet somehow, we were the ones enjoying the beer after the game.

We got rolled by Brentwood Booragoon on the postage stamp oval in Middle Swan last year, so we were expecting a challenge.  We weren’t expecting the additional challenge of having no water bottles however, especially on a 33 degree day. 

Of course, the challenge of understanding what the hell Nelmesy is talking about is confronted each and every week, but we soldier on.

The first quarter saw the on-ball division of Glen ‘Jane’ Austen, Brad ‘Benno’ Bennett and Mark ‘Halfa’ da Silva have the lion’s share of the pill.  They made good use of it and with Leigh ‘Junkie’ Junk and Steve ‘Reedy’ Reed providing reliable targets up forward, we made a strong start to the game.

My old baseball coach used to always say that offence gets the glory, but defence wins the game.  He was a wise head.  Ian ‘Trigger’ Booth, Johnny ‘Poohbah’ Phaceas, Sean ‘Irish’ Delaney, Aaron ‘Deluxe’ Brinkworth and Holmesy, were joined by Brett ‘Flicka ‘Althorpe to form a formidable back six.

How effective were they?  More effective than Baz’s sunblock – and that’s bloody effective.  Brentwood Booragoon trudged to the quarter time huddle having not bothered the scorers.

The second quarter saw Brentwood kicking with the aid of a 2 – 3 goal breeze.  It also saw the unleashing of David ‘Creedy’ Creed.  With ‘Jane’ racking up possessions and ‘Benno’ released forward, ‘Creedy’ waltzed into the middle of the ground and proceeded to take the game by the scruff of the neck.  It was inspiring stuff.  Just as inspiring was the continued good work of our backline.  ‘Flicka’ continued his good form of last week and was taking many strong marks across the backline, while ‘Deluxe’ negated the Brentwood Booragoon full forward with devastating effect.  ‘Poohbah’ put himself in all the right spots and between him, Nathan ‘Clear’ Colgan and Holmesy, mopped up anything the big fellas didn’t catch.  ‘Halfa’ was playing the link role well, and Benny ‘Super’ Mann presented strongly across half forward.  Baz and Dale worked tirelessly in the ruck and Nelmesy provided some strong run. 

I don’t know what Jimmy and Fev were doing, but I am assured they were out there.  Somewhere.

Unfortunately, we were as accurate as a Benny Powell roof dismount in front of the big poles, which cost us the chance to put the game away by half time.  Having said that, the defence had held Brentwood Booragoon scoreless for the half.  A supreme effort from the boys down back.

Half time is always interesting in the huddle.  Usually it’s because we are trying to fix Nelmesy’s field placement when we end up with 7 half forwards and no one on ball. Lately though it has been the time that we are informed of the latest ‘injury’ suffered by Mark ‘Halfa’ da Silva – so named due to his inability to last any further than half a game thus far this season.  This week’s injury was apparently an ACL.  Upon further inspection by one of our qualified physios, it ended up being a severe case of ‘dirt on the knee’. 

The second half was where we started to really butcher the ball, miss targets and play some very selfish footy.  It allowed Brentwood Booragoon to start to claw back the lead and if not for the hard work of our backline, they may have caused us much more grief.  Bevan ‘Squeaky’ Sturgess-Smith came on for his first run with Supers this year and showed just how easy it is to find space.  I’m sure ‘Squeaky’ must tell his opponent he has leprosy, because they just will not go near him.

In the end, we hung on and the beer tasted good.

A couple of special mentions this week to Ben ‘BP’ Powell and Tony ‘Newboy’ Newnham.  Earlier this year, BP broke his femur in a tragic accident during his audition for Australia’s Got Talent.  Being the trooper he is, he has fronted up to training and has re-appeared at the games to help us out.  Newboy drove all the way to Mandurah early as it appeared we may be short on numbers after training on Wednesday.  His efforts were unrewarded, but not unnoticed.

Pick of the Bunch:  Jane, Creedy, Deluxe, Poohbah

Turkey of the Week:  This week the dinner voucher goes to the man who gobbled up the footy all day long and used it with precision.  Glen ‘Jane’ Austen played a blinder on the weekend and, more importantly, he had the footy smarts to kick it to me whe n he did get it.

Enjoy the dinner, Jane.