Aidan Curtis
While the scoresheet does not look all that good at face value, there were a lot of positives at ground level in round two.
Yes, I was hoping West would be like their AFL counterpart and I could nickname them Kanga-lose at the end of the game, but they went and Kanga-beat us by a lot.
They, like South in the first round, knocked up a century in the final result and got a handy percentage boost.
That does not change the fact that north is objectively the best direction on the compass and we will find our feet eventually.
In the pre-game speeches, a lot of what was asked for was an improvement on the previous game’s efforts.
I reckon we managed that – not just because we kicked a couple of goals this time around, but we felt competitive and kept having an honest crack when we were getting beaten.
Aside from a five-minute patch in the third where we were completely overrun in the middle by one player, the scoreboard did not reflect how much we felt like we were actually staying in the game.
While I do not know the name of that West player who did so much damage in the third, I did see him at Coles on Sunday and managed to restrain the urge to give him a little ankle tap with the trolley. Props to me for that.
Anyway, we kicked our first couple of goals for the season and they came off the back of taking half chances.
Those half chances show exactly what we are capable of as a team and what we can build towards by the end of the season.
Well done to Jimmy Phillips for opening our ledger this season – I have never seen a bloke happier than Jimmy to be on a footy field, and good grief his set shot from the boundary was pure gold.
In a personal highlight, I managed to find myself a step ladder out on the ground.
Yes, he is a fair bit shorter than me and I only needed to hop to get up on his shoulders, but I have been waiting all my life to do that and I completely wasted the opportunity by punching it out instead of marking it.
Still, Old Youngy was impressed enough by it to tell my partner after the game that I sat up there for a good four minutes and completely glossed over the fact he told me off at half time for turning the ball over.
Shout out to Danny “Daniel” Poyner and Wally for having absolute blinders against tough opposition.
And, of course, good work Choccy for a second consecutive best hair on ground performance.
We look forward to another challenge this week and to continued improvement.
