Aidan Curtis
I DO not know what else to say about our game with East other than it bloody hurt.
It was a huge day for us Ressies, with all round top bloke Chappy breaking the club record with game number 409.
That, in itself, was enough to get us up and about from the first bounce – plus a decent pre-game speech from the vice skipper helped a little.
We even had a cheer squad of dedicated Ressies Report fans sitting near the beer shed.
Even if they did not actually know the name of the team they were supporting, it was still good to see some appreciation for the hardest working footballers in town.
But anyway, back to the game.
From the first, we looked like we were going to absolutely flatten East and get our first win of a very tough season.
The ball seemed to live in our forward half, we were peppering the goals, and Chappy kicked our first two in true fairy tale fashion.
East did not even look like scoring with the back six getting the match ups right straight off the bat – they managed a single point from a rushed behind in the first.
It was, hands down, our best quarter of football for the season so far.
The second was more of a scrap as East seemed to kick into gear and were kicking with a strong breeze, but good defensive pressure stopped them capitalising on it too much.
It was an absolute arm wrestle after half time, with East taking the lead for the first time early in the final term.
Then our skipper, Slep, put us back in front late with what could have been the sealer had East done the right thing and just gone home.
But, naturally, they had other ideas.
It might sound weird, but a four point loss is actually harder to take than a 150 point belting.
Understandably, we were all pretty flat in the changerooms afterwards.
As always, though, there were still plenty of positives that we could look at instead of being all down in the dumps until our rematch with Casterton Sandford this weekend.
I know I am biased, but I thought the back six were superb all day.
Rolph and Turk always seemed to find the ball and I could not get enough of seeing Will fly across in front of a marking contest for an intercept.
At ground level, Brad was always there to clean up and Choccy, the hair himself, even made a cameo on the half back line to show his versatility.
I also returned home to the backlines despite kicking a couple the week before and got a few solid spoils in.
My theory is I was put back in defense because I kept telling Old Youngy I was going to take leading goal kicker off him on Thursday night.
I am not one to make accusations, but he did conveniently put himself at full forward for half the game.
Maybe there is something in that.
Anyway, we have another big chance at a win against Casterton this weekend.
If we keep our rolling improvements going, we will hopefully come home with the points.
