Maulers win! 129 to 49
The Footy Record doesn’t show who kicked the behinds, but, as usual, Simmo is probably responsible for half of them. But 4.8 wouldn’t be a fair reflection of his importance for the score board. The Maulers dominance in the first quarter, which set us up for the match, was largely a result of the early straight kicking out of the centre, including by Simmo – I’m guessing he was 2.0 or 3.0 at the end of the first quarter even after a solid winding. He also selflessly passed off a couple of real goal scoring opportunities to team mates Will (i.e. me) and Matty to ensure the 6 points, and, most importantly, that Matty scored a goal in his 150th club match (I still need to check that…) on The 4th of July. God Bless America.
I’d say that it was all won in the centre. Simmo, Chris Mårtensson, Conor and Ryan in the ruck, and of course, Best on Ground Matt Byrne, tore it up. And that’s B.O.G. despite a solid corked thigh from a hit in the first quarter. It’s hard to give these guys enough credit for how well they set up and controlled the match. It wasn’t individual heroics, but just always being there and always winning the contest to then share it off to team mates that won us this match. In fact, this summary pretty much sums up the whole team; going for and winning the ball, and supporting our team mates. It was a great all-round effort that by the end of the match saw us enjoying on field freedom you only get when you play like a team.
A personal highlight was an ‘inspired’ (i.e. lazy bastard) interchange by myself in the 4th quarter that saw Adis come on and quickly score an impressive end-to-end goal. He was straight into the action with a perfect intercept in defence, a neat kick over the centre square back into attack, a string of one-twos, then a soccer kick in the goal square for the 6 points! (all immediately followed by a return to the bench). Brilliant! The Basovic lesser (Haris is only 195cm tall) was the substitute, and inspired by big brother almost did the exact same thing, but unfortunately only made it into our forward 30 before it was intercepted. There was no immediate interchange.
A few other individual highlights were: Jonas’ 2nd career goal won through hard, persistent fighting; me finally laying a tackle on Andy Svensson only to put the goal attempt out of bounds on the full by about 10m; Toby’s run in general; Decann’s impressive uptake of the game; Matty not going too overboard for 150; the flow of water (so important!).
After the match, a few people admitted their concerns for the heat and run Helsingborg should have brought to the match. Fortunately the heat – it was hot, so damn hot… – seemed to impact us a lot less than them. A few ankle injuries to Hgbs key runners also helped our cause. The Footy Record shows a 49 to 129 score line. The early mail was 69 to 129, which I think is more believable (I’m pretty sure Helsingborg were not goalless in the third). Whatever. Besides the heat, it was a really enjoyable match, played in the right spirit (generally), and lets us go into a DAFL/ Elite Series break with heads high.
And thank God I didn’t have to deal with those jumpers after the match.
Leave your personal highlights in the comments below.