Match Reports

Supers v Harrisdale Piara Waters Bears Supers

Friday night football under lights (for 3 quarters) was back and Wembley Vets Supers were keen to put on a show for the home crowd. There isn’t much else happening in Piara Waters…

Greg “Stewy” Stewart was asked in a post-match interview how the team went. He replied, “Stew kicked 5. That’s all you need to know.” Thankfully Stewy isn’t writing this report so we will dive a little deeper into the game.

Pre-Game

The Supers were again coming into the round low on numbers. With Luke “Danners” Daniher sidelined with a broken thumb and the team lacking the Sam “Whitey” Whitehead chase, things were looking grim. Day’s out from the game, it was brought to the groups attention that the game had been moved from 7.20pm to 8.5pm, meaning Duncan “Dunc” Lane was a late out due to chasing tail (on a date). We look forward to the updates on his evening. Ben “Tayls” Taylor missed yet another training session due to attending the Grease Musical and Ben “BP” Powell, who was committed to playing all three games over the weekend, tore his calf during the first drill.

It was truly going to take a heroic effort to see the supers start the Friday Night Spectacle with a full team. Thankfully the heart and soul of the team was able to produce the recruiting goods again, obtaining 4 players from Jandakot Jets and the 35’s State Ruckman from Eastern Hills Cats.

Game

There was very much a chill in the air along with the remnants of smoke from the Indigenous Round smoking ceremony. It truly was the perfect night to be curled up on the couch, binge watching episodes of Outlander!

Our fill-in ruck, Brett “Bretta” Jeffrey started the game winning his first of almost every knock. The pressure was intense and it didn’t take long to work out that there was going to be very little room to
move and no time to showcase that “Wembley Wow”. HPW started well, with plenty of stocky bodies to hit hard and tall timbers to take marks. Their ability to convert was also impressive. If it wasn’t for the boys in the backline, the deficit could have been one of no return. In fact, the likes of Dol, Plonk, Burgo, Benno, Chidgzey and Troy were able to keep HPW Bears goalless for the second half of the game. Although a free kick was awarded against Plonk, his hip and shoulder in the first set the tone. Over the past couple of rounds, the intercept marks from Ben “Burgo” Burgess has been an absolute highlight. Ben “Benno” O’Leary has found his legs since the game against the Whalers and continues to burst his way out of the defensive fifty. Dan “Dol” O’Leary is becoming a bit of a Shannon Hurn, making use of his lovely boot on kick-outs. Any shine on the Wembley midfield in any game is only possible thanks to these back-men!

Wembley was due to get one between the big sticks and there was enough talent in the forward line with Stewy back and Ryan “Ryno” Melling moved up to half forward. Luke “Tayls” Taylor was also in some form after helping out the Masters in the game before. He was dancing around players, turning them inside out. The style of game really did suit the solid, tough lads and Ryno, now spelt “R.H.I.N.O”, clunked one before finishing off a sensational set shot. This not only turned Stewy’s goal kicking on, it gave Rhino the confidence to burst through packs and start creating that well needed space for his teammates. It was a joy to watch!

You guessed it…Stewy went on to kick the next 5 goals of the game, making some questionable inside entries look very good. For someone that has knees that shouldn’t be playing footy for another season (or two), it is scary to think what this team is capable of with the likes of Stewy, Cogs and even Scotty floating around the forward 50. Ben “Tayls” Taylor continues to play his role all over the field, and again found himself with the opportunity to put a score on the board. He has a lovely kick on the run and only last round was popping them through from 45m out. It’s a slightly different story for the set shots 20m out. Tayls explained to the Saturdays papers that the ‘out on the full’ was a result of stubbing his toe. Turns out he is a journalists dream and should have stopped communicating with the report writer on Saturday night. He messaged:

“Melksham just missed a shot easier than mine. So I’m pretty much AFL standard.” – Ben Taylor via Messenger

Although a low scoring game, the intensity made it difficult to keep track of the score…because Friday night footy against HPW isn’t just “Footy for Kicks”. Thankfully we have our very own scorekeeper. When Chris “Bassie” Bassett isn’t playing his role as ‘quarterback’, and bouncing the young blokes around the park…he is keeping track of the score. Although not behinds, just goals. Thanks to the Chris “Bassie” Bassett Scoreboard, we can report to all that Wembley Supers were winning the game when…

The lights went out!

That’s right. Early into the final quarter, the field went to instant darkness. It was almost identical to the GABBA outage of 2023. However, there was no transformer on-fire, the shire simply cut the lights out at 9pm. HPW were quick to blame the council and explained they pay their rates…which is questionable. It is highly likely that someone spent too much time getting the DJ sorted, that they forgot to check the lights could be left on after pushing the games back an hour. Fortunately for all, we had an extra 15 minutes to have a drink!

Post Game

A huge thank you to Micky, Timmy, Troy, Double J and Brett for throwing on the mighty black and white jumper for the night.

Well done to Dol for winning one of the prizes in the raffle. It appeared to be a big tub jam packed with random goodies and covered in just as much cellophane.

Some confusion had occurred around this very report with Criag asking Dahmen “Doc” Higgs and Burgo asking Tayls (Luke). Fortunately, the boys sorted it and you have landed with this phenomenal piece of writing.

There were murmurs from teammates that Higgs and Tails (Ben) were very much disliked by the umpires due to calls made and not made. Umpire Keith knows both lads from Masters State training and explained after the game that being a 62-year-old man umpiring Supers for the third game of the night is not ideal. Fair to say there is some work to be done on the fixtures and scheduling of games.

Huge shout-out to the committee for organising the Wembley Vets indigenous jumpers. Perhaps 2025 will see a Wembley “Big Freeze” jumper added to the mix.

– Dahmen “Heart & Soul” Higgs

Masters v Harrisdale Piara Waters Bears Masters

The Wembley Masters headed down the freeway to Piara Waters on Friday night for the now traditional NAIDOC Week blockbuster with HPW Bears.

A Welcome to Country and smoking ceremony set the scene, and the capacity crowd of 73 was on edge as the teams lined up for the first bounce and the opening bars of ‘Enter Sandman’ blasted out over the Rossiter Pavilion sound system.

Speculation had been rife all week that coach Vulinovic would adopt a defensive style, drawing the Bears into a low scoring arm-wrestle on their home ground. But Dan was having none of that, stacking the Wembley forward line with tall targets and instructing his team to play through the corridor at every opportunity.

It looked like that plan had backfired early on, as HPW dominated field position and put the undersized Wembley back line under more sustained attack than an inner-city ALP electorate office. But inaccurate kicking let Wembley off the hook, and the Magpies soon settled with two goals of their own before quarter time.

The second quarter was exactly the kind of high quality, high pressure contest expected from these two sides. Led by Bassie and Brock, the Wembley midfield were laying more gang tackles than special service agents at a Donald Trump rally in Pennsylvania.

Coach V’s half time address was inspirational. He reminded his team that with the Geelong v Collingwood broadcast now over, the eyes of a footballing nation would be on this game. Wembley responded accordingly, slingshotting the ball from defence to attack through Wal on the wing, who consistently ran off his opponent to spend more time on his own than Fatima Peyman at an ALP Caucus meeting. Rookie slotted one from an impossible angle, and even Sarge went forward to kick one from inside the goal square. When HPW tried to attack, Wembley’s stifling team defence made their ball movement less coherent than Peter Dutton’s nuclear energy policy.

The fourth quarter saw Wembley go up yet another gear. Tayls, Cogs and Uni were providing strong targets in attack, their sophisticated leading patterns leaving the HPW defence more discombobulated than Joe Biden at a NATO summit press conference. At the same time Wembley’s defence, led by Ben O and Chidgzey, was more impenetrable than a Sydney University campus protest. Irish closed proceedings by slamming his HPW opponent into the turf with a bone crunching tackle, although the resulting head clash left the Magpies ruckman looking like Barnaby Joyce after a night on the turps in Canberra (pictured below). The final result showed yet again that Wembley always performs best when the stage is biggest and the lights are brightest – which does not bode well for next Sunday afternoon’s game in Bayswater…

– Daniel Clery

Seniors v Northern Warriors Seniors

I arrived at the ground to see a vacant goal umpiring gig. This would suit me and my torn calf perfectly. Five minutes in I was terrified. Clearly the ball was the hottest, slipperiest, heaviest object imaginable. If it was to come my way I expected it to slide through my hands and break my nose. Wayward kicking ensured this never happened. Joffa, Bass and Space showed their class in quarter number one.

Quarter number two saw Macca and Eppy auditioning for the Wallabies. Muzz was accurate from long range and a tight angle. Macca’s fantastic chase allowed Bryn to make one of the great half time remarks: “He learnt it all at training.” It was worth going along today for that moment of mirth alone.

Quarter Three was defined by inaccuracy, great kick ins by the opposition full back, economical forward thrusts by the Warriors, a Sicily like soccer goal to Bom, the goal line generosity of Sarge allowing Space yet another goal and a good talking to for Bryn by the field umpire for an enthusiastic bump, tackle, charge, hit, assault, attempted murder. He was designated Area 51 by the opposition for the rest of the game.

Now sometimes you need to focus on just one thing. I watched my beloved North Melbourne play at Marvel Stadium recently and focused solely on LDU. 100mins of watching Luke Davies – Uniacke was quite the experience and I predict that he will be hard to beat for next years Brownlow. At three quarter time when coach Mike said “Irish to centre half forward” I knew that another LDU opportunity had arrived. I watched Sean’s every move and there were many:

• Strong over the ball.
• Decisive leads.
• One disgruntled mumble.
• Evasive skills.
• Disciplined biting of the tongue when Sarge stole his mark.
• And that goal – to shape the ball like he did from deep in the pocket was an image that will linger long in the minds of those who saw it.

With the crowd salivating and only seconds to spare the ball came to Sean again only for the siren ton sound leaving him agonisingly short in second place for Centre Half Forward displays in senior footy
this century.

Apologies to AJ, Joffa, Bass, Space and a number of others who have not received the due attention that they deserved!

– Wayne “Magic” Coffey