Men’s Over 35’s Report
So, another great day for Sunday football, the footy gods put some great weather on and it’s time to do football business against Box Hill.
I was eagerly waiting by the phone all morning waiting for the txt messages or phone calls apologising on not being able to play. In preparation for this I named 8-man bench …lol
Low and behold I had only one no show…. Not a position I have ever had to do is select one player to drop for the day….
So got the 2 players that I chose to do battle for the position, I suggested jelly wrestling but couldn’t find that much jelly laying around, so we decided on magnet flip, name side or blank side….
I’d like to thank Clappers for stepping aside for this game, but he will definitely be in the next game.
I got the team fired up and with a couple of new lads into the side we looked good on paper it was time to see what we were capable of doing.

We come out of the blocks smoking, midfield dominated, and it come into our Forward line easily, which i think shocked a few forwards as this was a different pace to what we are used to, but it was great to see.
The back line was solid and any hint coming down was repelled with ease from David, Booma, Pete B, Blake, AJ, Wardy and Micaiah.
We worked it out of defence up the wing and into the forward line with a 6 goal to nothing first qtr., it looked like we trained this, wait we did …
We needed to keep a lid on it and that was the message at the break, let’s start again and go get it.

It was a bit different this qtr as it was against the breeze a bit, and it looked like we did drop a bit of the intensity from the 1st qtr and we tried to be a bit cute in a few instances and i did shift a few players around with rotations, which was a great luxury to have, to keep energy levels up. We did only score 1 goal and they scored a lucky goal but we did miss fire 3 times, midfield still doing a great job, JJ started the Hulk routine early and smashing through the packs all of the ground, Jules commanding the centre, Harley starting to play out of his skin , rhino also doing damage in the mid and helping down back when needed. Our estranged Porky came back for a game with the boys as his team had a bye and played a great role and loved being out there with the boys. One of the new recruits Nathan looks to be a very handy player and fits right into the team and was loving it wherever I put him. The other recruit was Brendon, which big benny said was the Charlie Dixon look alike, smashed it up forward. Justin was creating opportunities where he could as the ball was coming up there pretty frequently. Junior up forward was loving being up forward as the ball was there and he didn’t need to go chase it, but he needed to find his boots for kicking at goal. We also finally had our other Captain Bomber be able to play a game of football after being injured from before start of the season, he got to run around in the forward line and was loving being out there as the ball was down there most of the time he was on.

Halftime and we were still 6 goals up which was a first for a very long time.

The Half time rev up was pretty much how much do you want to win this as they were going to come at us as much as they could, and we only beat them by 8 points earlier in the year.
I shuffled a few things around and Gave our 50 gamer, Booma, a role up CHF and see if he could snag a goal for his 50th, unfortunately he couldn’t but he was right in the action all the qtr and made his presents felt. I gave a role to Obee he hasn’t done before which was FB and he found it interesting and was able to make his presents felt down there. David has become the ever reliable down back and with precision passing out of the back line which was creating havoc for Box Hill and he even was able to push up the ground to snag a goal, probably could have got a couple more.
AJ and Wardy did a great job for me down back and the run and tackles where great, Pete B and Blake were playing solid roles down back and help repelling anything that was thrown down there, Battsy was solid as always and was also loving the fact he could play his style of football and didn’t have to kill himself doing it.
We upped the game in that 3rd qtr and put 4 goals on the board to nothing, we were now in uncharted territory being 10 goals up in a game.

Last qtr and I changed things up again, Slotted Charlie Dixon, no Brendan into the Ruck , Big Benny at CHB and Micaiah to CHF and Obee to FWD.
It was strange to see some of our players that are nearly dying to get off the ground because they are so stuffed had energy to keep going, our Speedy Gonzales was loving it as he wasn’t already cramping and could still run rings around the opposition, he was loving it , Kimmy was another who was loving still having energy and not being smashed and being able to link up and create great opportunities up forward, Junior finally found his kicking boots and ended up with 3 goals and few behind the sticks , Justin played a solid game after coming back from covid and felt good, Micaiah really got into the action in the last qtr and slotted home 2 nice goals, Brendon dominated up forward most of the game and then in the ruck and slotted home 3 goals as well, Big Benny played his role all day and another who felt the difference with being able rotate around and having energy at the end of the game. I’d like to thank the midfield on their job today and really not letting up and kept going , Hulk JJ leading by example even when getting kicked in the face , only slight improvements JJ , Jules was great in the middle, Rhino is only getting better, also Nathan looks a handy one to throw in there when the others need a chop out like Kimmy does as well, We lost Goldie to an ankle injury and i think that was the only injury we got out of the game, and he played a good role up forward when he had the chance hence why he got the injury.

We Finished winning by 12 goals and 8 behinds (14-9—93 to 2-1—13)its been a long time since 35s have won by for a long time. Last game this high for Warriors i can find is 2016 , Rd 6 , 3rd July vs Box Hill and score was 20 -17 – 137 to 0-2-2
This shows what this team is capable of doing and I’m proud of everyone that put in the effort in this game and you all played as a team, for each other!

Goal list: Junior 3, Brendon 3, Micaiah 2, Varlardo 1, Justin 1, Obee 1, Porky 1, Marko 1, Nathan 1

Tsunami is building…
GO Warriors…