VAFA Premier C – Peninsula OBFC v Fitzroy: See you later relegater, in a while Cr(OG) a dial

 

by King George III

 

Imagine you were a guest at a confabulated marriage between Medusa and Cyclops where the best man was Quasi Modo the groomsman Frankenstein the Matron of Honour was Sycorax with her son Caliban pageboy and bridesmaids were the Gorgons, sisters of the bride. Though, arguably, it may not be pretty it would hold a macabre attraction, a grotesque fascination – such was the game between the ‘Árrrggghhh…s’ and the Roys on the wind and hail swept plains of POB’s Grammar School oval Saturday last, when the tempest coming in from the bay was unrelenting and the Pirates Jolly Roger flag flapped menacingly all day threatening any intruders to their space would have a grim choice of plank or cutlass but certainly a seat at the table of Davy Jones’ locker.

 

Our ruck duo of Ross Borland and Matt Gaite respectively suffered the brunt of the Pirates’ onslaught. Ross a fine cricketer outside football season must have wished he had brought a piece of that other game’s equipment after a ruck competition saw him groaning prostrate on his back following a ball up that agonisingly brought to mind the bawdy limerick of the young pirate named Bates (“who did the fandango on skates until a fall on his cutlass rendered him …”); well those that know the rest get the drift. Undaunted however after this testy challenge Ross rose ruefully to crush the freebooters ambitions with as fine a game as he has played since the 2012 Grand Final at Sandringham.

 

We await the diagnosis and more importantly the prognosis of our other ruckman ‘10 dozen Gaitor’ and in the meantime wish him Godspeed with his recovery. With some tremendous efforts of personal sacrifice by Sam Baker, who finds a way to get the ball 50 metres our way in conditions where there is no way, and Tom Cheshire showing his Presidential pedigree by bookending the smallest library of goals, only four, to win the game it was once again a victory to Julian and his Argonauts and the ‘goalden’ rule intact – fail to score a goal in any quarter- 99% probability of losing the game. As coach Luke Mahoney succinctly impressed and expressed to the players at three quarter time: “We didn’t travel all this way, by bus, to play in these conditions, to go away without a win.”

 

On Sunday at the St Vincent’s run/walk we saw the undefended innocent Nathan Ligris looking the reversed oppressed of his namesake Simon Legree (the cruel overseer) in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Tom%27s_Cabin ) having been cajoled into acceptance of a two week penalty for, arguably, a non-existent offence a week previous. After telling petitioners for over 34 years there is ‘no justice’ before they start a complaint or writ or defend an egregious charge they are happy to have the opportunity to at least be heard and pay for the outcome good or bad. As John Keats noted in ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” In any event Nathan, Tom Biscaro Gemma Minuz and her posse of women Roy girls together with coach Mick Symons, all looked saintly after being brought together for the event through the hard yakka of ‘blessed’ (don’t edit this) Kate Nolan our much talented Guru and Director of Media and Communications.

 

On to the BSO next Saturday to take on Old Geelong.

 

MATCH DETAILS HERE

 

Comments

  1. A great preview, King George.

    Looking forward to the trip to BSO of Williamstown CYMS in a few weeks’ time

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