The chant’s ringing out around Boondall and across the Sunshine State. Our girls have pulled it out of the fire! Laura’s Lovelies have taken the ANZ Championship in the greatest Grand Final in any sport that you would ever see!
Behind for the entire game, the indomitable Queensland spirit never died. Led by the Jonathon Thurston of netball, our Laura, the Firebirds kept fighting, putting their bodies on the line and finding more when their tanks should by rights have been bone dry.
But these girls are Queenslanders, and up here we never give up, never give in; and in a carbon copy of Queenland’s come from behind victory in Origin ’95, the year Mark Coyne scored the miracle try, the Girls pulled off a miracle of their own when Laura the Great forced a turnover with a minute to go and we went end to end to Romelda the Royal, who never misses.
Suddenly it’s 56 all, with just 54 seconds to play. The adrenalin’s running wild, the crowd’s screaming the house down, everyone’s going crazy – but not Laura. She barks out instructions to the girls to slow it down: One Shot! One Shot! They work the ball down the court, looking for the bucket. She wants to give it Melda, but she’s double teamed, so Gretel the Great takes the shot.
Swish! We’re up one, 14 seconds on the clock. The desperate Swifts work it down the court, looking for one last goal to force a draw and extra time. But Queen Laura forces the intercept! Long live the Queen! The crowd lifts the roof off the Entertainment Centre – I lift the roof off The Polo Club – we’ve won!
It’s the most impossible of victories. The sweetest victory of all. A quintessentially Queensland win.
All rise and hail our champs! All bow at Queen Laura’s might!
Queenslander! Queenslander!
About Archie Butterfly
Archie's decided to follow the dream and try become the next great Aussie bush poet. They all think he's mad. He's out to prove them right!
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I have to say that I watched the second half of this game, and I think that it was the most exciting sporting event that I have ever witnessed. Also the grace of the defeated in defeat and the victors in victory should played and replayed, as indeed should the match itself, in every sporting precinct in the country as an example of how any sports event should be contested.
Wasn’t it just superb? I was never a netball fan until I took a contract to work in New Zealand for a few yeats (and enjoyed the privilege of working with the best Prime Minister you could ever hope to have – there are still some real Labor politicians out there; they just don’t live in Australia or the UK).
The game there is an absolute obsession, a national sport second only to Rugby. It’s in the sport pages every day, and regularly makes the front page. There’s TV coverage of every game, and people discuss it in pubs and offices and stores. And are they passionate about their Netball. It’s infectious, and I caught the bug, and if you’ve ever been to a live trans-tasman game you quickly realise what a fast, tough, and skilful game it is.
And from a purely miosogynistic point of view, it is also an extraordinary spectacle of young, fit, gorgeous women who aren’t afraid of a bit of argy bargy, and don’t mind it rough. There’s something for every man – whether you like your women tall or short; blonde or brunette; dark or fair; solid or rake thin – there’s a star netballer there for you. As anyone who reads my stuff knows, it’s laura all the way for me, but as stunning looking as she is, it’s her skill that attracts me. Wow! What a player. And a Queenslander to boot. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Australia lacks a genuine national women’s sport, and it is in my view the fault of the associations that promote the game. Or don’t, as the case may be. Set the comp up as a group of franchised teams with owners that have a bit of dough and I think the game would go absolutely gangbusters. I hope it happens. It’s a tremendous sport played by tremendous people and deserves to be a huge success.