What a win! Perhaps the Hawks/Dees merger should've happened after all... or is that Dees/Hawks?

Just wanted to thank everyone for a great day yesterday. Had an absolute ball. The spirit of the game was great, and in case any Saints people are perving on our victory thread, I say this - I'm sorry I clipped that poor dude with my elbow, but it wasn't a 'big hit' as it's being melodramatically spoken about on your board. It was accidental - I had the ball under the offending elbow for starters...

But it's selfish of me to dwell on this minor incident, as our team played very well, and everyone involved should be extremely happy with their efforts.

Thanks wise_monkey for introducing me to such a good bunch of blokes, for pulling us together as a team right from the start and for pushing past pain for glory. You did a superb job on that Ilsy gentleman. Did he get a touch after the first quarter?

Also big-ups to the coaching staff; Scotty for nailing that goal from the boundary in the second, Cribbsy in the ruck, The big fella (number 3), The little fella (number 5) and Ads for killing it all day in the guts.

Cheers again,

Billy.

And congratulations Billy on winning the coveted Martin Heppell Award for best on ground.

The umpires decision to send you off in the first quarter was probably the turning point of the game because it allowed us to keep you fresh while the opposition players were wilting in the sun.

Thanks boys for a great team effort - it's what everybody involved in coaching would want from a team. Hopefully, news of our win and vision of the singing of the song will filter through to Dean Bailey and inspire the Dees to better things at AFL level.

Has anyone checked up on the condition of Ilsey who appeared to have fallen asleep around half forward in the last quarter? We were nearly going to send out our medical team to revive him.

Well done all. The Saintsational team beat the Collingwood websiters by 30 goals a few weeks ago so I'll leave it to Rollo to come up with our next challenge.

Here, at long last, is the “official” match report.

People should feel free to add corrections, comments and their own observations. As I do not tire of saying, it is hard these days for an old bloke with one pair of eyes when the coaches are continually rotating the players and their positions, and every other player is wearing number 5 !!

Gosch’s Paddock is a beautiful ground to play on, with lots of lush grass, well-cropped, and plenty of shady trees for the team’s benches and spectator comfort.

With a few exceptions – demon ruckle, madness and jimi9 spring to mind – we got our “A” team on the park, very similar in quality to the very first game we played against the sainters back in February 2006, when the “big carl” trophy was born.

Too much has been made on the sainters’ website about our “professionalism” IMO. It makes sense to warm up, stretch and do a few pre-game kicking drills. It also makes sense to make use of the services of redleg and whispering jack as coaches. When these very busy professional blokes are willing to give us their time, we would be crazy to say “no” when their observational and footy skills give us a real edge.

Thanks to travis and david (mfc’s mates) who volunteered to play for the sainters to make up their numbers. That gave them 3 on the bench and us 6 at the start. We will always remember the herculean efforts of the sainters’ spinner brothers for us in game (3) but it still rankled to see trav and dave getting possessions or stopping our forays forward !!

Quarter (1)…

The most competitive quarter, at least on the scoreboard. Cribbes, blessed hands, imtoohot and wise made a formidable centre-square combination, backed up by pringle and freak (no less) on the wings. We went forward time after time.

But our forward line was clogged for the whole quarter, and the sainters hurt us on the rebound. Their formidable go-to casey scorpion player, illsy, made the most of limited opportunities in a wide-open saints forward set-up. Cribbes scored the first goal in the game. Cactus found a way through the congestion to nail 2, and woody chimed in. But our 4 behinds (and their 4 goals) were directly the result of our players’ kick-chasing. Eight scoring shots to five showed our dominant mid-field and clear edge in general play, but our players trudged off to a well-earned blast from redleg with a quarter-time scoreline of 4.4.28 to 4.1.25.

The players hopped into the extra water brought by jezzzzzza and legend. Blessed hands was sent off by yipper, the umpy, for a perceived overuse of the elbow. I didn’t see the incident, and blessed hands was most aggrieved but, on balance, I thought it was a good early message for the umpy to deliver. Both sides had some heavy and fit players and the “play the ball” message was timely IMO. It was just unlucky for us that it was one of our players who copped the send-off.

Quarter (2)…

Redleg’s message got through. The forward-line opened up, giving cactus, woody, scotty, woody and rivvo room to move. The mid-field continued to dominate, and we got great value from our running flankers and wingmen – the stynes factor and cameron the bruce kept racking up possessions and choosing the best first option. Scotty and cactus scored two apiece, and woody, freak and pringle joined in the slaughter. And only 2 behinds for the entire quarter !!

So, at last, our dominance was reflected on the half-time scoreboard. Our defenders, now including mickrocks, doggo24 and animal, kept the sainters to 3 behinds for the quarter. Wise did a job on illsy, who was no longer concentrating on the footy. Doggo had been posting about being overweight and unfit, but it didn’t show out there (or up close). My notes for the quarter include a couple of inspired touches for oxxx

and ucanchoose. I also wrote something bout melbournefc, but I cannot decipher my own hand-writing. Fuzz came off the bench, to find himself standing the dreaded illsy, with only doggo to talk to. Talk about heroic performances !! Good job, mate.

Midway through the quarter, I noticed this foul stench in the air. It turned out to be jezzzzzza, who had come off for a smoko break. Blowing smoke in the coaches’ faces is a sure way of being sent straight back on !! Half-time had us 11.6.72 to 4.4.28.

Quarter (3)…

The sainters were flagging, and our mid-field still dominating, despite the determined efforts of joseph spinner and another of their players who I think is called mightysainters. It was in this quarter, I think, when rivvo went to relieve in the ruck and did a superb job, and cactus was rewarded for his goal-kicking feats by being consigned to the back-line.

Fitness and talent were telling, with blessed hands, imtoohot, freak, mickrocks, stinga and many others running through the lines at will. The sainters started to pack the backline, and at stages were playing 19 men, so it became more difficult to score. They managed to rebound for a couple of goals, and our behinds tally went to 5 for the quarter. But we kicked 5 goals as well, with majors to blessed hands (2), wise scotty and hards. Hards has beefed-up so I will have to re-write his profile, but he is still that sneaky forward-pocket type who finds the ball in heavy traffic and knows where the goals are.

At the last break, the scoreline was 16.11.103 to 6.4.40. The players came off to be delighted by the unveiling of our secret weapon. Extra water brought by dee knees had been hidden, but now came out to be greedily consumed by many grateful recipients.

Redleg asked the players to be ruthless, quoting the sainters scoreline against the filth a short time ago, when they won by something like 30 goals.

Quarter (4)…

The flood was truly on, and I can’t recall the sainters getting past their half-forward line. They certainly didn’t trouble the scorers. Their numbers behind the ball produced 7 behinds for us for the quarter, but we also broke through for 5 majors. Woody bludgeoned 2 and stinga, who had been running and running to great effect all day, slotted another.

Jezzzzzza, fresh from another smoko break, scored a popular goal on the run (or, more accurately, on the lumber), but the most popular goal of the day came from young mitch (mclean4brownlow). Mitch played game (2) for us when we were very short, and made us even shorter. At 3’7” (or thereabouts) he starred for us in game (2) running off a back flank. The legend of scotty’s little brother was born. He now has some size on him but the footy skills are still there. Great to watch him put it through, and the response of pure joy that echoed through the players and the spectators. I reckon we should always call him scotty’s little brother.

Final scores 21.18.144 to 6.4.40.

A privilege to be part of the day.

It would have been hard to pick BOG if blessed hands had not been in the team. I can think of about 10 candidates.

Thanks to all players, coaches and helpers for a great day.

Great summary, Rollo. Apart from the mention of the half-time mellee that nearly occured, you pretty much covered everything.

Billy, don't worry about their over-reaction mate, they've been whinging about every possible excuse that's possible. I was tripped 70m behind play but you don't see me crying about it.

Thanks for that Rollo - always enjoy reading over from a spectators point of view, as I always find it hard during the games themselves.

Whenever I get out there I really enjoy it - which is why I really appreciate these forum games because it really is my only chance to get a kick of the footy.

On the way in I'm always imagining the Shaun Smith-style marks and 60m on-the-run goals, however on the rare occasions I actually get my hands on the footy I remember the reason I was forced to give up playing in the first place.

Anyway - its always great to get out there, especially with such a seemingly good group of guys. Everyone was playing for one another... I can remember one piece of play during the second half when I was about to go for a mark, before realizing the ball was traveling well over my head. I made a half-arsed jump in the air and turned slowly to see a St. Kilda person running away with the ball... Content I was until I heard 3 or 4 Demonland voices yell "Come on - CHASE"... Shows how committed they were on the day.

Anyway - I look forward to the next time... Cheers guys.

Hards has beefed-up so I will have to re-write his profile, but he is still that sneaky forward-pocket type who finds the ball in heavy traffic and knows where the goals are.

I'm not sure if "beefed-up" is right, I think I've been attending a few too many meetings at the Lance Whitnall school of off-season dieting :D

Great win guys, great to be a part of it again and bring the trophy home.

Would love to play one of these games in the rain, just to get away from the 30+ degrees we've copped in each of the three I've played in.

Big thanks to those that brought the water and to Rollo and the coaches Jack and Redleg for all their work.

Looking forward to the next one. Might go for a run between now and then if the body ever wants to get moving again. At least I got out of this one without broken ribs, like I did last time!

Thanks to everyone involved in making this happen again was great to get out there and have a bit of a run even if I didn't get much of the footy. Wise was an inspirational leader, blessed_hands dominated in a great team effort and the coaches did a top job rotating and given everyone a good run. Look forward to the next hit-out.

I cannot believe the extent of the whinging on the Saints site...

We're being accused of taking it too seriously...

And apparently there was 'another' elbow to the head of a saints player.

Quite pathetic really.

i really can't believe what they are writing, but it's pretty funny.

on a serious note, if someone had delivered a rank elbow off the ball, we all would have been upset with him, from either side.

i'm hoping he's not talking about a shepard, which was a shepard.

there were people on both sides of varying skill levels (and speed/stamina levels), and sometimes that was pretty evident.

on another note.

we ran 1 lap, which included a sprint for those who wanted it.

we had some stretches in a circle

we did 2 minutes of kick and hand pass run throughs at near the slowest pace i've ever seen.

i've played over 200 games of local footy (not at any great level) and that's the minimum at any club before a game.

feeling great for the stretching now! (well better than i would have!) so it was a great idea.

104 points

If we were the ones taking the game too seriously then why did they put 19 on the field for the entire second half? It's not the first time that they've done it also.

We're also bagged for having a game plan, well the gameplan was to keep it simple and help eachother out - something that you'd expect in almost any level of football. We also stated on out own forum that Ilsy would get tagged by somebody, so there shouldn't really be any surprises there...

"keep it simple..."

final observations from me:

The sainters were missing some of their best players and it showed. They got great service from the spinner brothers and the other blokes mentioned in spinner's post earlier on this thread. These guys never give up and they are a great bunch.

If the sainters turn up with their "A" team another time, the cup may well change hands again sooner than sunday's scoreline may suggest.

Nobody likes umpires, but I like yipper. For him to umpire time and time again for these games is fantastic. A great bloke.

Apologies again for the lack of amber fluid after the game. The logistics of gosch's park defeated us. Legend and I promise to leave no stone unturned to solve the problem next time.

Finally, I have to say that nasher's post earlier on this thread rankles somewhat. All of the sponsorship and most of the off-field organisation comes from demonology. Rivvo may be the only poster among sunday's players who does not also post here, but there are many joint posters among the players who were first introduced to these forum games through threads on demonology. I don't mind if people refer to demonland/demonology, but don't deny us demonologists completely. That was demonology water produced magically at three-quarter time !!

the "big carl" trophy is at the engravers to have the latest victory indorsed...

subject to people's other thoughts, I propose to deliver it to melbournefc this time for safe-keeping until the next match, in recognition of his great work for the team both on the field, and his organisation work off the field...