Match Reports

Supers v Central Crocs Supers

The boys made the journey down the highway to North Fremantle’s Gilbert Fraser Reserve, where they supply the same number of car parks as goal posts.

After finding somewhere on a neighbouring street or verge, the tokenistic warm up consisted of 2 mins of lane work and a bit of rolling around on the grass. We jealously eyed the Masters boys having a beer by the open fires.

We welcomed some tall timber into the line up this week, with Brad making his return for his first game of the year. He provided a strong presence all day, clunking a few good grabs and dishing off to the midfielders streaming forward. Ryan recruited a mate from CrossFit, Duncan, whose physique put a few of us to shame. He was a handy inclusion who hit the ball hard; a great first game of Masters football. “That was way better than Ammos,” was the comment after the game.

Doc returned to his beloved wing for the first time this year. After the Crocs lost a player, both teams went down to 17 men and played without a winger. Taking the ‘outside wing role’ to levels never before seen, Doc suggested to his opposing number that he go and play on the far wing by himself, of course leaving Doc free to roam his wing. It was worth a shot.

Plonk, again outsized, produced some brilliant ruck taps which gave the midfielders first use all day. They dominated the clearances and gave the forwards a good look. Bassie, as always, is like a junkyard dog in the contest, rarely losing a one-on-one. Cogs was unable to be stopped up forward, kicking them from everywhere. And Big Tayls proved once again why Brynna refers to him as the best kick in the club, lining up 35 out straight in front and ‘passing’ it into the forward pocket.

In the last, the forwards went back, and the backs went forward. Safe to say it probably yielded the number of goals we expected it to. Was good for them to see a bit of ball though
as Ellenbrook rarely ventured forward in the first 3 quarters.

As always, thanks to the boys who doubled up to ensure we had a team. We appreciate it.

– Reporter: Ben “Little Tails” Taylor

Masters v Central Crocs Masters

Wembley coach DV said his Masters looked “comfortable” with themselves during their drubbing at the hands of the Central Crocs on Sunday after they had “everyone pumping their tyres up” following their smashing of the
Whalers in their last outing.

A shell-shocked DV admitted post-match that he had a hard time making sense of the dramatic swing one game from the next by his side.

“I can’t really explain it at the moment,” DV said.

“Going with a big win and everyone pumping up their tyres up, I said to the players after the game it just looked like a team who was desperate to keep their season alive and a team who was comfortable playing each other”.

Insert usual David King criticism, BP and DC will empathise……

Well, if nothing else that sets the scene nicely for the outcome at Gil Fraser Oval North Fremantle. Firstly, Irish would be pleased to know that Gilbert was a Labor Party member in the Legislative Council from 1928 to 1958. He also served the same period as North Fremantle Amateur Football Club president, reduced by some WWII service.

Anyway back to the game report, it was a beautiful Winter’s day for football and the Wembley Masters were brimming with confidence from their last outing at Arena Joondalup but came crashing back to earth which proves a week is a long time in football, also longer than the usual fortnight!

Some brief quarter by quarter notes:

1st quarter – the Crocs came out biting with two quick goals to put Wembley on the backfoot early. Some questionable defensive midfield efforts which would be later well documented.

2nd quarter – Wembley started to gain more control of the football but unfortunately unable to finish off on the scoreboard.

3rd quarter – much of the same by the Crocs from Q1. DV was pacing the sideline bewildered as to how his all-conquering midfield from last week was unable to gain the same ascendancy, but he had a trick up his sleeve that would pay dividends later. Big Scotty was a minor casualty to some “high knees” and was heckled by a peanut from the Crocs thinking it was his doing. Scotty would later return, enormous courage and enormous man!

4th quarter – DV got busy with his magnets in the break which produced an instant result. Defensive beast Ben O was thrust into the middle with immediate effect winning the clearance and resulting in a Prindi goal. Too little too late though for the hapless Masters and besides a late goal to Sammy it was the extent of the scoring through the big sticks. Sammy appeared to be missing his sidekick Shayno who was nursing sore ribs from his self-described bone-crunching “Petracca like” heroics from last week.

Score: Crocs plenty 8 goals plus, Wembley 2 goals and change.

General: Credits to Mike E who spent almost as much time pre-game taping up his fingers as compared to the game time but added great dash out of defence. Nice to see track star Scotty G pull on the Sunday boots and BP had the unusual experience of coming on fresh with the Seniors bye in a rare two game effort. I hope you did your post-to-post run throughs afterwards BP! Good to see another multi game player (as he reminds at training) back from injury in Brocky. Always good to see Noel get through as unlike most of us he does life changing stuff during the week. Finally, it would be remiss not to mention our esteemed club coach Bryn who took to the Masters field as well.

From the author it was a day of mixed emotions. I have fond memories of Gil Fraser Oval in beating then archrivals North Fremantle in a 2003 2nd Semi- Final (in the event you wanted to know we would subsequently win the GF in extra time of which I kicked an ET goal and dished off another, stuff of legends but I digress…)

Hoping to again take home more precious memories it ended up being an unfortunate day to bring the Mrs along but at least I got through one quarter which included taking half a quarter to hobble off the ground and take-home a less memorable bung calf.

Thanks to Whitey and Gromit for the escort off the ground, the former who got abused by the Crocs for wearing his zip-up Wembley jacket rather than a fluoro vest, FFS give me strength….Probably the same clown that would later abuse Scotty.

Hopefully we will get those two Hawks back next game who had other priorities this round. While they can be questionable characters at times, they offer much needed experience and humour on the field.

Like all good teams I am sure the boys will bounce back when on the usual two-week roster next round.

– Reporter: Simon “V Man” Vulinovic