Warriors vs Peninsula
by Dusty
The Eastern Warriors hosted the highly rated Peninsula Raiders on a cold and blustery day at Edinburgh Reserve on Sunday. It was the kind of day that prompts such unhelpful observations as, “Well, footy is a winter sport.” It was the kind of day when attiring oneself in a pair of shorts and a thin, sleeveless, nylon top seems absurd – but that is what we do. After winning the toss, Killer pretended to think for a moment before deciding we would kick with the wind. I trotted into the backline, lining up against a suspiciously lithe individual. I always choose the pocket closest to the Macedonian church if possible – it is comforting to know that Saint Dimitri (patron saint of Warriors and the city of Thessaloniki) is looking over me. And the Gods were smiling on us as we started brightly – we dominated possession for the first ten minutes of the quarter.
Sammy was urging his aging bones from contest to contest, Nugget was digging the ball out of packs and delivering the ball to the vivacious Eddy who pumped it into our forward line. Unfortunately we lacked a little bit of connection and tended to find opposition packmen rather than our own forwards. I’d seen a bit of the ball, had a few clearing kicks and connected up well with Hulk and Grunta at one point. At quarter time we were a goal down, due to some very precise ball movement from the Raiders. But Louie, our hairy and inspirational coach was pleased with our effort. It was just our execution and lack of accountability at crucial moments that cost us.
The Raiders used the ball well when kicking with the wind. The Warriors seemed intent on kicking it to the opposition. Costly mistakes mounted up and the game started to slip away from us. Clint, part man part Lamborghini, took some stunning marks and was well supported by the relentless run of Frenchy. (Who I was very surprised to discover only recently is not French!)
I had been shifted to the forward line for the second quarter, and had not seen a lot of action. With two minutes to go I thought that if I moved downfield I could pretend that I was adopting a defensive stance with little time left on the clock. I was actually trying to get closer to the clubrooms so that when the siren for half time sounded I would be able to get somewhere warm quickly. It was in the dying minutes of the first half that I ‘copped one in the moosh’. As the taste of blood filled my mouth from my rapidly swelling lip I assumed that the umpire would have noticed that the player I had endeavoured to tackle had hit me in the face. Apparently not. As I left the field a spectator observed, “you copped one in the moosh.” This is a very common phrase in footy parlance – but I wondered how to correctly spell ‘moosh’? Should it be ‘mush’ or perhaps a francophilian ‘mouche’?
Determined to get our game back on track in the third quarter we switched a few things around and it seemed to work for a while. Pogsy was finding space on the wing – despite his seeming inability to run in a straight line, he was causing the opposition problems. Robbo was desperate in his attack on the ball and Killer was getting plenty of the pill. Munga kicked a goal from the impossible angle which briefly gave us hope. Many attacks were repelled by the courageous Bruiser, a man who has the build of a medieval executioner but the heart of Saint Panteleimon. (The Macedonian patron saint of mercy and care.) But again, poor disposal let us down. Whether it was the wind, the impending rain or the cumulative exhaustion of a long season, we kept missing targets and at times seemed hell bent on kicking it to a grateful opposition.
