Match Reports

Round 7 (30th June 2023 & 2nd July 2023 – The Friday Night Footy Edition)

Supers v Whalers

Before we get to the footy, how good have the Ashes been so far? Two cracking games that have lived up to the hype …

… and that’s where this write-up starts, with plenty of hype. It felt like Bassie had been building up our game against Whalers for most of the season. If maybe our lack of numbers caused some initial concerns, the first bounce gave a better indication of what we were in for; a strong contest from Craig, a determined attack on the loose ball from Danners and deft delivery from Doc to a great lead from Cogs.

We started well and that continued, by three quarter time it was one goal each, by the end of the game we remembered we weren’t keeping score. It was the game that mattered, and we were enjoying a great contest. Played in good spirit by both sides, it was a cracking game of Masters footy.

It was great to have Sarge and BP involved, I’m sure they’d agree it was Masters footy at its best. It was uncanny how often Sarge attracted the ball and BP provided a fantastic forward line highlight that, actually probably doesn’t really need to be mentioned if you weren’t there does it? Marcus and J-Dog surprised, concerned, then alarmed their opponents who didn’t seem used to playing against skilled and determined footballers. Bassie certainly surprised his opponents, who didn’t realise how hard he is to tackle or how hard he enjoys tackling when the opportunity arises.

Alex and Burgo put in a great shift, working further up the ground than usual, putting their fitness and skills to a stern test. The O’Leary’s thrived in the contest, Adam was rock solid and Plonk enjoyed a day out. We made it tough for them, which was pretty satisfying, as all true back-men will understand.

… anyway plenty has been said about the Ashes already including, a quote along the lines of “it felt like we won” from England after they lost at Edgbaston. After playing this game we didn’t win, or even keep score, but it felt pretty good anyway.

– Reporter: Steve “The Chiz-master” Chidgzey

 

Masters v HPW Bears

Phones were ringing off the hook in the C-suite offices of SevenWest and Foxtel throughout the week, as realisation dawned that the Wembley Magpies Masters team would be taking on HPW Bears in prime time on Friday night down in Piara Waters. The opportunity to showcase the Wembley Masters’ sublime skills and attacking flair to a nationwide audience, not to mention the potential advertising revenue to be attracted from Viagra, Ashley & Martin and The Man Shake, had the networks salivating.

Either Kerry forgot to call back Rupert, or Rupert forgot to call back Kerry, but either way the opportunity was missed. As it turned out, only the capacity crowd of 275 down at Piara Waters witnessed what is already being described by many (i.e. the 21 Wembley players who took part), as one of the great games of veterans footy.

You know that feeling you get as you walk down Brunton Avenue towards the MCG on a Friday night, the anticipation building as you prepare to watch two teams of finely tuned athletes battle it out in a brightly lit coliseum? There was a similar atmosphere as the Wembley team arrived at the magnificent Piara Waters ground, which had a billiard-table like surface adorned with Aboriginal flags to celebrate NAIDOC Week (for which the theme ‘For Our Elders’ could hardly have been more apt). Circled around the ground were fast food trucks, neon lights and a booming sound system playing music not heard since Gobbles Nightclub closed its doors in the mid-1990s.

As the Wembley team line-up was announced, confusion reigned over whether Jimmy, who had received a red card in his last outing, had to also sit this game out due to suspension. While this was being sorted out by league officials, Jimmy was advised to keep a low profile. Ignoring this advice completely, Jimmy took to the field in a pair of fluorescent pink boots that made him stand out more than Peter Dutton at a Yes to the Voice rally. Thankfully, sanity prevailed and Jimmy was given the all clear just minutes before play.

Following a stirring Welcome to Country and smoking ceremony, the Wembley boys were fired up and ready to run through brick walls, which was a good thing given that ‘brick sh*thouse’ was a phrase that sprang to mind when looking at some of the HPW players’ physiques. Even better, as the game began the DJ turned the music back a couple of decades, with ‘Sweet Caroline’ and ‘The Gambler’ ringing out over the field as the Wembley midfield made sweet music of its own, Irish tapping down to Sarge repeatedly as the ball spent most of the quarter in our forward half, the first goal of the night sailing through courtesy of the aforementioned fluorescent pink boots. When the ball did make its way down back the Wembley small defenders were rebounding with ease, Matty Franklin in particular selling more candy than a Hoyts cinema during the school holidays.

HPW asserted some control late in the first quarter and into the second, with smart leading patterns and accurate kicking into the forward 50 that the Freo Dockers could take a lesson from. It was only the silky skills of Newboy across half forward, and tough contested ball from Uni and Mike R through the middle that kept the scores close at half time.

Into the third quarter, and the boisterous HPW crowd was silenced with a sublime 10 minutes of footy from the Wembley boys. Brock and Epo were slicing through the HPW midfield like a Wagner Group tank down the main street of Rostov-on-Don, while Shano was resembling Aaron Naughton up forward with the flowing locks and kamikaze marking attempts. A clever goal to Uni had several West Coast Eagles scouts – who had divided their resources between the Harley Reid show at the WACA and the Piara Waters clash – urgently calling Trevor Nisbett who for some reason was not answering his phone.

Late in the third quarter and through most of the last HPW again reasserted their control over the game, and the Piara Waters crowd – now a number of Bush Chooks into their night – were dancing along to a soundtrack that for some reason had switched to Eurobeat and Reggaeton. But did the brave Wembley boys give up? Not on your life. This was typified by a courageous attack on the ball at half back by Wal, who was cleaned up by his opponent with a brutal hip and shoulder. The sound of the collision could only be described as that of an elephant seal bellyflopping into still water from a high Patagonian cliff. The players stopped, the crowd hushed – even the Spanish rapping of Pitbull blasting over the speaker seemed to temporarily pause – but Wal immediately bounced to his feet and attacked the next contest with gusto.

As seems to happen every week to Wembley Masters, the final siren sounded just as we were again dominating the game and had the ball in a threatening position within forward 50. Nonetheless, the boys were happy with their efforts at taking it right up to a strong HPW team on the big stage. Changing into their puffer jackets and beanies as the mercury dropped into single figures, the team spent an enjoyable hour or so in the outdoors beer tent, posing for photos with starstruck locals and explaining the LBW rule to Bassie. The participants of the curtain raiser women’s game seemed particularly enthralled as Irish explained the subtle art of hitting to advantage and bodywork at the stoppage.

Once the raffle (1st prize meat tray, 2nd prize veggie box, 3rd prize a Piara Waters house and land package) was drawn and there were no Wembley winners, it was time to make the long drive back up the freeway including a quick stop at Cockburn Central KFC for half the team.

As the boys lay in bed that night, still too full of adrenaline to sleep, they reflected on the great contest they had just been a part of and realised with alarm that in just a few years, when WA’s remaining coal-fired power stations are closed, such games will no longer be possible due to unreliable night-time electricity..

– Reporter: Dan “AC/DC” Clery

 

Seniors v Central Crocs

What a way to finish a weekend, head down to a high crime area of Perth to play great footy. Fortunately / unfortunately neither of those things happened. However, it was a nice day with just a bit of a breeze blowing (enough to smell all of the meth labs in Ferndale) towards one end of the ground.

Plenty of seniors got down early to warm up. However, we all ran for cover after Youngy offered to do the official warm up. Good thing that didn’t happen as I’m not sure how the crowd would have handled seeing a bunch of old dudes rolling around on the ground, although they did see a lot of that in the 2nd and 3rd quarters.

Notable outs for the seniors were Slarkey (Ferndale has a restraining order on him), Space, Johnny, Drew and Twitter (“rehab” work in Slovenia ….wtf and where’s his commitment ??). Some big ins though I.Booth, BP and Dols.

After we got the 30min set of instructions talk from the coach and a suggestion from Selfie we take it easy on the blokes taking “Rat Poison” (I’ve never heard of this and thought afterwards if those blokes should actually be playing whilst on “rat poison”) and we did another warm up we were pumped and ready. Except Prindy who had a rather large Sat night to start dry July.

Awesome comments from the umpire at the pre-game huddle – “I don’t comment on your shit delivery kicks so don’t comment on my umpiring”. Hit a nerve with me as the umps probably owe me over 1,000 comments / abuse for my clangers over the years.

Bit of confusion to start the game, the backs were all wondering why they had 5 posts up?? But when Boothy made his fist lead all was made clear. Anyheeewww …. Moose won the first tap by at least 2min (their ruckman forgot to move) and when we got it out of the 10 mile beach we were off and running. Leads everywhere from the forwards with Mario and Prindy dominating early proceedings. Everyone wanted to get in on the act, so the forward line was tighter than the parking, just with less break ins.

It stayed like that for the majority of the game, backs repelling every attempt from the Cros to go forward, Wattsie getting caught even though no one was playing on him, Moose winning every tap, Ray’s 50 hard ball gets by half time and the Magic and Boothie show. But the big stand out came in the 2nd quarter when the gong went off for Matty Franklin. All of those years of beach running and dicko wearing had finally paid off. He had a ton of the ball, kicked two goals and managed to build two sand castles with Epo (they finished it with a moat and draw bridge in the fourth).

Things turned really nasty for the Crocs when at three quarter time Wattsie moved the backs to forwards and forwards to backs. Not only did the backs repel every goal attempt they then turned into a 3.2 goal scoring wrecking machine (with the sun in our eyes). Led by Prindy (who refused to move to the backs ….softness a big factor there) we dominated play. So much so, the Croc backs refused to get the ball after every goal (too much running). I’m so glad I said something because the very next kick I got out marked by someone who came up to my armpit. In fairness to me, Epo and the forward line he was on the “Rat Poison”.

Great game played in great spirits ….. and everyone left with their testicles as Jimmy wasn’t playing.

P.S. Thanks to the boys who played Friday night as well as Sunday (Simmo and Matty).

P.S.S Matty dominated Friday night to

P.S.S.S The AFL has a new stat – Paddling is official – Lou D’Adamo is higher than “Elite” in this category

– Reporter: Bryn “Bring in the cones” Chilton