The kids made hard work of it, but ended the game on top woth a 3 – Nil win. They have finished the forst round of games undefeated with the only “blemish” being a  nil all draw v Kiama. This is a fantastic acheivement and testament to the hard work the kids have put in and the great football they have been playing. They are obviously the pace setters for our comp  and every team will be looking to knock them off.

We started without Wilson as he was on Wedding Duty for the weekend. Can’t wait to see the photos of him in a tux!!!!!

We very nearly ended up without SamL as he spent friday night on Scout camp and took a fall down the side of a hill on Saturday morning. I picked him up after they had finshed patching up his wounds, his pride was still a bit hurt and the Scout Leaders were worried he might have had a concussion. In the car and off to the game we we went!

We took to the in our normal formation with Mark McG filling in, and doing a great impersonation of Wilson, chacing the ball all geame and doing a fine job. SamL satyed on the bench to get his head “right”. Braeden missed school, and more importantly training, on Friday and stayed in Goals. He wasn’t called on too often but when he was he was safe as houses. TK and TomM stayed on all game and did a great job of keeping the opposition at bay. I’;ve been most impressed with the improvement of TomM over the last few weeks. He has really found a home and getting an understandng of his job. I also think the other around him are also playing him into the game a lot more. Jas played with the 13Gs on Friday night and made way for SamL to have a run in the first half, as did Deano for a little while. Deano is also starting to accept his position, playing it well, and getting forward at appropriate times which is great.

We welcomed MattyD back from his sabbatical and showed he didn’t loose any of his ball skills in Qld. reuben also had one of his best games and covered a lot of ground. Ryan, DSamM and Jacob struggled a bit up front, they had plenty of ball but the box was extremely crowded with players and they weren’t able to get through in the first half.

Caoch Julio had a quiet word with them and the cones at half time and sent them out with some very clear instructions. “Spread WIDE!” with the aim of breaking up the traffic in the middle of the park. SamL started on the bench again and was about to put a knife in my back if I didn’t give him a run. Julio made the call to give Jacob a rest and pull SamM out wide and give SamL a run at striker. Not usre if it was a coaching masterstroke, or just a pinch of luck, but in no time SamL hit the back of the net twice after being fed from wide by Ryan, once from a thrown in, and the second a nicely delivered (and finshed) pass. SamL was then taken down in the box and was given the opportunity to go for the hat trick and put away the penalty which he duly did. Not sure where the goal celebrations came from, but there were soem moves put on show out there that were worthy of some sort of award, just not sure what.

So, yes, next week I will be taking Sam up into the mountain and throwing him down the side to get him to play better.

They did make hard work of it, and scored all of the goals in the last 15 mions of the game, but i think they thoroughly deserved the win. Well done kids. Next week is against a vastly improved Figtree who beat Kiama 4-1. It is a new round so we will need to be on our toes and still play every game with 100% commitment.

Garry