“OMG did you hear what happened at the game?! Totes amazeballs girlfriend! Lol frowny face”
is what I would say if you were a fourteen year old and I was an undercover reporter back at my old highschool trying to get some crappy scoop with the help of my brother, David Arquette. But I’m not. I’m a sports reporter with very heavy quotation marks on sports and reporter.
Division 3
Falcons vs St Albans Saints
0 – 4
Jo Rooney
Memo to the St Albans Saints coach: According to the FIFA rulebook, a player is not committing an offence simply by being in an offside position. Active involvement plus offside position is the offence. Being actively involved in the area of play is not the same as being in the area of active play.
Despite being coached by someone who apparently doesn’t know the rules (which might explain his players’ ignorance of same) St Albans Saints remained top of the Women’s State League Three West after defeating Darebin Falcons 4-0 on Sunday.
In a gutsy display, a severely depleted Falcons side belied its own lowly ladder position by holding the free-scoring St Albans to 0-0 at halftime.
Faced with late injuries and the somewhat unexpected news that two players were last seen heading for outer space, Falcons player-coach Sheila Carter was left with few options with her line-up but rallied her side with one of the most inspirational team talks ever given lying flat out on a massage table while hungover.
It did the trick in the opening 45 minutes as Darebin’s defence dealt with most things St Albans threw at it and, when it was breached, stand-in keeper Ange Mackie quickly snuffed out any threat.
Up front Kath Fethers relentlessly harassed the Saints defenders and went close to giving the visitors the lead on a couple of occasions.
Chloe Waddell was ploughing a furrow on the right wing and teaming well with Sal Wallis, who was rock-solid at fullback.
Given the events of the second half (more of that later), the St Albans coach was delivering what was no doubt a foul-mouthed tirade to his charges, perhaps pointing out that 16-year-olds should trump 40-plus-somethings, not least of all when there are spare 16-year-olds on the bench.
As everyone knows, there’s nothing more tiresome than a cranky teenager and, when the second half resumed, the Saints wasted no time in tiring out the previously tireless Falcons.
As they started spreading the play, St Albans began finding more room in the middle and gaps were appearing – and the goals started flowing. The Falcons found themselves on the back foot but, when they could break, Fethers and Sara Wetherall ran themselves ragged chasing every ball.
From one such chase Fethers found herself in an offside position so opted not to contest the ball. Despite his keeper having the ball in her hands (it’s called advantage, der) the Saints coach made his feelings known to the ref for not awarding a freekick for offside, and he promptly found himself despatched from the sidelines and into the clubhouse.
Division 2
Falcons vs Brunswick Zebras
1 – 2
Pip MacKay
I just had a bath. It was awesome as per usual.
Sunday left me in a small amount of pain. The locale of one of these pieces of pain was the front of my neck, which seemed weird for a sport that involves very little front-of-neck action. Then I had a hazy flashback in which I remembered sailing majestically through the air before landing on a throw pillow of mud some douchebag had used to decorate a bed of solid lawn. My leg felt a bit spazzy but I was otherwise ok.
This was fortuitous considering the Falcons’ bench was warmed by not a single extra butt on Sunday. This also meant we were forced to use our old tactic of playing at the speed of surface mail just to be able to stay on the pitch for 90 minutes. It was working well. The Zebras appeared to play at a similar pace. All the while a brilliant autumn sun shone directly into twenty two delicate little Falcon retinas. Lucy was plowerhousing a ton of balls in the right direction but on account of the sun could not actually see where the goal was. I was enthusiastic about the change of ends that half time would bring. Claws out, balls in.
The unfortunate truth was that the Zebras had it all timed very nicely. Their homeground has a shady belt of trees at the western end that begins to shield the sun about 45 minutes into any game that kicks off at 3:30pm. Very smart zebras, a little too smart for an animal that eats its own eggs. The Zebras left the ground at half time. I don’t know what happened in that time but they came back with a lot of energy. It must have been quite the pep talk. Me? I just popped a bunch of roids. Kidding. This isn’t the AFL, and what’s more, one of my first year anatomy lecturers told us that this was caused by anabolic steroids. I can’t find any facts to back that up but factfinding is not the job of a reporter. I am here to gore you with gross pictures and slanderous non-facts.
Media frenzy aside, this newfound energy gave Sal a full body workout in the Falcons’ goal and Brenda was taking out A LOT of trash in the back line. TAKE. THAT. YOU. BEAUTIFUL. HERBIVOROUS. MAMMALS.
A disturbance on the sideline provided the Falcons with a most welcome break in play while an out-of-control drunk was wheeled away behind the shelters. This moment of Falcons pride was eclipsed only by Panavision’s SECOND GOAL FROM A FREE KICK IN TWO WEEKS. That girl got more game than EA!
Next weekend sees a rest for both Falcons’ women’s teams but if I’m feeling verbally generous I may fill you in on my trip to Cactus Country!