Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
I’m bloody discontented. This B grade is our winter of discontent. Last year was a “glorious summer”.
More from the same;
Deformed, unfinish’d, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
Well, we are not that bad all over the field but the above is an accurate description of our forward line but, hang on, let’s talk about the day.
I finished work early again and made the start of the Twos. They had an easy win 14 17 to 6 2. The final score did not reflect our total domination of the match. Speckie Magee played well again and despite being still overweight he is a must inclusion for next week. Pickers missed once again but is looking trim and terrific and will start in the Twos.
I went to the lunch that Old Caulfield put on. My cousins, Ralph and Tim O’Shaughnessy, coach Caulfield and Tim spoke at the lunch about trying to instill some self belief into the team. Caulfield went the entire season in A Grade last year without winning a game. Tim said Caulfield is the youngest team with the oldest coach.
Paul Seedsman, the Collingwood player, was the guest speaker. He is an old boy of the school and an obvious favourite of the assembled crowd. He spoke very well, revealing that Mick Malthouse has a sense of humour, Dane Swan is a relaxed individual and that the Collingwood defenders call their own spells on the interchange bench. I had assumed that the players in the AFL were interchanged on a strict prearranged basis.
All the tram conductors (the cheer squad that stands behind the goals) were late and Brian bought a bag of soft drinks to the match! The Fitzroy team was late starting as well. The score at quarter time was Caulfield 4 7 to 1 1. There was a three goal breeze going to the downhill end but we held them well for the first 10 minutes but then the flood gates opened and they established what proved to be a match winning lead. Our only goal for the quarter came from Greg Hesse (BOG) who hit “front and centre” of a boundary throw in, at speed and scored. What our forward line coach does, well I will get to that later.
The game tightened up for the next two quarters and we went into the third quarter huddle 32 points down but with the wind at our backs. We missed a shot at goal in the dying seconds of the third quarter that would have put us within range but our score to this stage was only 3 goals 7 behinds.
Let’s face it; we do not have a forward line.
Take out the five goals that Ablett kicked in a half of footy a few weeks ago and we have nothing. At this rate Ablett will win the goal kicking with those five! Last year we seemed to be trying very hard not to score, by constantly passing when within range of goal, or trying one too many handballs in the goal square. This year we are trying very hard and not scoring.
Personnel must change: Roscoe played in the Twos and pulled up well. Speckie should come in and I would play Dimma. He can kick goals. The way we structure up at forwards line stoppages annoys me. At boundary thrown ins we often do not have players at the front and back. All our players seem to be mindlessly sucked to stoppages. I have not seen a Fitzroy forward fade away from a stoppage, to get free, and get an easy shot on goal since, well, since Dimma last played in the Ones. What does our forward line coach do?
The last quarter became a cliff hanger because Cussie took a few hangers. We finally had a forward who looked up to this grade. Greg Hesse was in everything. “Won’t he Fenton” now has a new acronym: BOTP. Let’s see who can figure it out. We were coming but so was the siren. Caulfield had not scored in the last quarter when Cussie missed a shot that would have leveled the scores with minutes to go. Caulfield lifted, moved the ball forward, ran the clock down while scrambling a couple of behinds.
Fletch went home early. Silly bugger, he missed a great finish.
Looking forward, hopefully Rory, Josh and Ablett will come back in soon and the coaching staff has to construct a forward line. We are at home to St Kevins next week and we have to start winning if we want to avoid relegation. Get to the ground as we need all the support we can get.
Go the Roys.
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