Trounced

Well my first foray into the exciting world of playing Friday Night Football wasn't that much of a pleasant experience. We were well and truly trounced. Our midfielders, while toiling hard, were outclassed and their wing & forward structure and strategy was very well organised and worked well.

Playing Back Pocket saw me most of the night on their biggest, fattest bloke in a pretty traditional Full Back position. Patchy, our Full Back, is a pretty fit bloke who can easily outrun me so he got the faster more roving forward leaving me in the square with the big guy. He outmuscled me a few times and was actually reasonably good on the lead.

I did a few things which made me feel like I was making a useful contribution but nowhere near as much as last week. I certainly wasn't running off my man and rebounding the ball last night, mainly due to lack of opportunity though I guess.

All in all a slightly depressing night of footy, although I learnt a bit about where to position myself in different situations and no amount of training can really give you that. We have no game next week due to the Easter Break and then it's week 1 of the comp for the 3rds... unfortunately we have a bye. No footy matches for 3 weeks :(

In other news I'm sitting here in my Lions Jersey with #16 on the back, which I got to wear for Yeronga last night!!, and my Lions member hat on. Am off to watch the Seniors and Reserves play at Wynnum this arvo before heading to the Gabbatoir... so, so, so, so, so, so excited!! GO LIONS!!

Is this fair?

One of the current headlines on foxsports.com.au is this:

GRANT Hackett will contest the world 1500m freestyle world championship, despite a woeful 800m effort last night that saw him finish second last.

Now before I say anything I'd like to go on record as saying I don't particularly like Grant Hackett normally so I feel I'm unbiased in this comment which is...

Is this headline fair? Here we have a multi time world champion, multi time Olympic medallist, multi time World/Australian record holder being sledged on an Australian newspaper website which called his effort in a final "woeful".

Let's not forget that Grant has already raced in this meet in the heats, semis and final of other events and still has his pet event, the 1500m, to come. On top of that let's point out that this is the World Championships and coming 7th in the final at least gives you the title of being the 7th best 800m swimmer in the entire world!! Again I'll ask my question, is that headline fair?

Also I agree with something Brett said earlier this morning when the sports report was on Sunrise and the headline was about Grant coming 7th. Brett pointed out to me that Craig Stevens, another Australian swimmer, came 3rd and collected the bronze medal! So how about we stop sledging a champion for being woeful when he wasn't and start praising a young Aussie who managed to come third in a World Championship final!

Come on Australian media wake up and smell the coffee!! >(

The world's gone mad!

Don't believe me? Well here's a few pieces of evidences I'd like to submit Your Honour:

• Pakistan AND India have been knocked out of this year's Cricket World Cup after the first round of matches.
• I was considered "possibly Best on Ground" for my AFL team in our match on this past Saturday.
• Holden scored 1st, 2nd & 3rd on the podium for Round 2 of the 2007 V8 Supercar Championship.
• Freke played in 2 soccer matches on the weekend, on top of other matches so far this season, and is yet to be injured.
• The South Sydney Rabbitohs are 2 for 2 in the 2007 NRL Season while Premiers Brisbane Broncos are 0 for 2... meanwhile the Knights are also 2 for 2!!

And if you're thinking, "those are all sports related Mick and doesn't prove that the entire world has gone mad!!", I would submit that sport is in fact what makes the world go round and therefore I'm right. If you need more convincing however here are some non sports related pieces of evidence to prove the world has indeed gone mad:

• I was up this morning @ 0630 and at work by 0810.
• I offered Brett a free 600ml bottle of Coke on Saturday night and he didn't take it.
• I've passed up a number of chances over the last few weeks to buy model cars at bargain prices.
• NSW Labour is re-elected in a strong result after a few months of political suicide attempts.

Case closed.

Blah blah

Long Friday afternoon lunches at the pub are a nicety I wonder if non public servants ever truly appreciate. Good times, good times... a mate of mine from here at work is off to Education Qld for a while so it was off to the pub today. As I said... good times... be a shame to see him go actually... top bloke.

Anyway moving on Dream Team has yet to grab me fully. I was so terribly excited when the site for 2007 became open and jumped in immediately and immersed myself in facts and figures. Then, after a while, I'd grabbed the obvious bargains, picked the obvious players and was starting to struggle between choices... so I left it. The last few days has seen me training twice and visiting Mum & Dad once, all resulting in little Dream Team time. I hacked together the rest of my team last night but it's very, very ugly. Certainly not up to true Band potential! So this must be fixed.

Got picked for the 3rds Practice Match tomorrow down @ Yeronga in a back pocket... which for some reason is fast becoming Jorgo's position. Anyway I don't really mind yet as long as I get picked! ;) 2pm match start @ Yeronga for those interested in having a good laugh...

Stuffed.

Right now I am right royally rooted. Sitting here with a headache, I'm tired, my eyes are bugging out of my head, my body is drained and all my leg muscles (mainly quads and hammys) are slightly twingey and sore.

After working all day Monday... and yes before you say anything 0900-1700 is "all day" for a public servant... I got to go home for a few hours. Watched an episode of Heroes, played around with my Dream Team some but then had to head back to work to perform some scheduled server maintenance. Got into the building @ 21:45 and didn't leave until 00:45, getting home at about 01:00. I was then back into the office @ 09:45 the next morning and worked until 16:30. So all day yesterday I was, largely, walking around in a daze.

Then, being a Tuesday, it was off to footy training. I had a gut feel my lack of energy and drive was going to make training painful and when I heard "you'll be working hard this week" from the Head Coaches mouth I had to stifle a groan. After a short warm up we started by splitting up into two groups. The first began a walk, jog, sprint, jog exercise mixed in with some lunges on the way back to the start while the others went down the creek behind the club for some hill sprints. I started in the non hill sprints group and was pretty puffed at the end of that... then the hill sprints. Towards the end of those 25 hill sprints I was really beginning to struggle and we quickly followed that all up with some push ups, crunches, and a bunch of squats.

It wasn't a good start... then touch work began and I was struggling. At one point we were doing a handball drill where we had to receive the handball, do a commando roll, handball from our knees, push up and run around the man at the top of the lane. First time I tried to push up from my roll my hammy complained loudly! I spent the next few minutes furiously stretching my hammys and calves as I was starting to tighten up.

Anyway other full length of the ground drills and such were had which I had to really force myself to keep running in. Then I got to play "spoils" over the back of one of the coaches with a crash bag on his back. Basically run at him, jump on his back and punch the ball out from over his head. Was a lot of fun...

... just a shame I'm so knackered today is all...

Disappointment

Disappointment on two fronts tonight for Mick.

1) No jersey at training. In fact during training they had ppl try on the jerseys to make sure they knew what sizes would be needed for each person... this is despite the fact that they've already allocated numbers... might see some numbers change... think I should still be getting #56 as the size was ok.

2) The Brisbane Lions today named 5 co-captains for season 2007. A complete joke in my opinion and disappointing that a single leader couldn't be chosen to lead my mighty team. Hopefully this won't last more than this year.

Number 56, Number 56...

... your jersey is ready. Well at least that's what I'm hoping to hear this afternoon at training. Friday night saw us head down to the Footy Club for the "Jumper Presentation" night. This was to be a night of guest speakers, dinner and the presentation of our jerseys and where we would finally find out who got what jersey number for the year.

I ended up scoring the much coveted jersey number of 56. Which seems like a nice looking number as far as I am concerned. Unfortunately the jerseys had only arrived at the club the morning of the jumper night so we were unable to actually be given our jerseys at the dinner. Which is why I'm hoping I'll be able to see my jersey and what it looks like tonight at training. I'm also hoping our training jerseys were done up at the same time and we get those too... sweeeeet.... I know I'll feel a bit more part of the club when I'm running around in my #56 training jersey at training.

After much angst Benny scored the #72 jersey. Why angst? Well the jerseys were available from the numbers 1-91 with a number only being available in one size (i.e. #1 was a small so if you weren't a small too bad if you wanted #1). Funnily enough #91 was a small and the longer it took for them to announce Benny's name as they went through the numbers the longer he thought he would end up with a small jersey with the biggest number on it! Personally I think it would have been funny... Benny disagreed.

Dunc scored #77 and it'll be interesting to see if he goes ahead with trying to play a game for the thirds... at this stage I think that's his plan...

Mark "Jacko" Jackson was hilarious on the night and was the main speaker. Truly an insane, but hilariously funny fellah. He had Peter Busastouw (forgive the spelling) with him who is a Carlton legend and who presented me with my jersey... pretty cool. Bill Hunter, the legend of Australian Film, was also present and happy to have photos taken with fans and sign an autograph or two. I'll update the names above with links later when I'm not at work if I get around to it....

All in all it was a great night and hopefully #56 will server me well in 2007!!

Challenge met

When I left home this morning Brett challenged me to blog from my training course.... so I consider this challenge met.

Not only am I blogging from the training building I am VPN'd into my work network and using my work proxy to blog as there is no internet access here...

So cop it Brett :)

Gross

So I sit here at my desk at work in a state where even I consider myself gross. As you may, or may not, be aware yesterday was ridiculously hot here in Bris Vegas. As I left home this morning I saw the weather report on the TV that said today was going to be 34 degrees... I believe I said something to the effect of "that's not very funny" to Brett as I walked out the door, he simply laughed in agreement.

As I step outside I think it's not too hot yet, at this time it was ohhh say 8:10am, and I begin to walk to the train station. It is then that I discover that it is reasonably warm, not hot as such maybe, but there was a baking kinda heat going on whenever you stood in direct sunlight.

Getting to Fairfield railway station I again mumble at Queensland Rail's incompetence. Basically there is no shelter available at the best of times, at this time of the morning with the platform reasonably full of people there is even less. I take up a spot leaning up against the fence and turn so my back is to the sun and try to shield myself from the sun. Thankfully a breeze stirs up and I'm in a near heavenlike state, the thin sheen of sweat covering me felt pleasantly cool... that is, until I stepped onto the train...

This is where my usual other gripe with QR comes in. Let's remember it's now 8:20am on a weekday, I'm about to get on a train that arrives in the city at about 08:37am... do you think this will be a popular service? Quite obviously it is. On top of that there hasn't been a train in 20 minutes so it's been a while in between trains... think a few ppl might want to catch it? Quite obviously they will.

There are now ppl flooding the platform at Fairfield ready to board the train and up rocks the usual 3 carriage train. Looking into the doors it is quite obvious the train is already very full and it's highly likely there will not be enough room for all the ppl @ Fairfield to get on. I jump on and squeeze in. It's then that I discover, after a few minutes, that this train has very little air con! By the end of the trip I can feel droplets of sweat running down my back and I am boiling. Looking around there are guys standing around me, and close to me, with sweat beads dripping down their faces, even women standing around me are perspiring visibly.

When the doors open at Central it's like a tidal wave as ppl try to get out as fast as they can. I by now feel like I've just been rained on almost. I touch my back and my hand comes away with a touch of moisture, I know it's drenched. Feeling very self concious I begin the walk to my work up the hills and trying to not let ppl get a good glance at me.

I arrive at work and head straight for the mens room. I know it's bad when I touch the front of my shirt against my chest and when I take my hand away there is a dark stain where it touched my skin. I turn, and sure enough, my entire back is one very dark and very visible sweat stain. As I apply some deodarant the front of my shirt scrunches up and sweat marks appear all over it. I slink to my desk as quickly as possible and sit down hoping to avoid anyone looking at me.

Sure I'm making it probably sound worse than it was but it was gross, plain and simple. Queensland Rail should be shot for a) sending a mini when a limo was required for that amount of ppl and b) having enough air con on for a 20 degree day... all in all not a fun, or pleasant, start to my week.

So I played another game of AFL yesterday. Like in the previous matches I played predominantly in a back pocket position. It's interesting playing a game where your main purpose is to shadow someone else. You run when they run, you walk when they walk, you turn when they turn. It's all reactionary and for someone like me who is not the quickest off the mark it's an interesting challenge.

I've been finding more and more it's about positioning yourself in the right areas. After a bit of a talk last week by one of the senior players to the "defensive players" I gained a few tips to use. The guy I mainly played on yesterday was playing his first game of AFL and is a Union player just playing to fill out some numbers. He largely stood still which wasn't such a challenging role for me to stop.

Gave away a free early in the game on another player who was running around a bit more and unfortunately also gave away a 50 metre penalty which resulted in a goal. Basically I was standing the mark from my free kick against, about 52 metres from goal, and the umpire was yelling at me "a metre to the mark, a metre to the mark"... I stared uncomprehendingly at him for a few seconds until he said "You've got a metre to the mark". It was at this point I realised he was telling me I could go forward another metre.

It was also at this point that the guy started to begin his run up to kick so I, knowing I had another metre to go, took a few steps towards him and jumped up in the air to put him off. Unfortunately the umpire thought I took a bit more than a metre so marched him 50 metres until he was directly in front of goal which he, obviously, slotted right through.

Wasn't particularly happy and it was hard to look at my fellow defenders for a few minutes. They were all very supportive though and encouraging me. So that was good. Also I think the opposition missed their chance to really lay into me. A few seconds later the runner was running towards me and I thought "here we go I'm about to get dragged" but he only passed on a message for me to keep my head up and stick with my man.

Benny managed to give me a clean possession from the bottom of a scrap later in that quarter and I ran clear, out of defence for a few metres, before kicking forward and hitting a target. Felt good about that as I'd done something good to outweigh some of the bad. Also late in the game there was about 5 or 6 bounces in a row in their goal square where I got to dive on the ball and try and handball it out as I was getting tackled etc which I thoroughly enjoyed.

All in all again I didn't see much action. The quality of the opposition hasn't been good, especially yesterday where we won by 92 points, and playing defense means the ball was obviously rarely coming my way. I'm sure things will sort itself out though and I'll get more time on the field and against stronger opposition once the season starts.

Happy 100th post to me...

... so I'm sitting here realising that I haven't blogged in a very long time. I was just discussing with Brett the possibility of me hiring a ghost writer to do it for me. So I thought I'd log in and blog something... let's face it there's been way too much happening for a full catchup. Unfortunately some events I really wanted to blog about were so long ago now I don't know if they'll ever be blogged about (e.g. Wet N' Wild).

Anyway so I log in and find out I'm sitting on 99 posts, which meant if I was to blog, as I am doing now, it would be my 100th post. I remember bringing up the 50 post milestone with a "look back" on the previous 50 posts and, since I'm lazy today, I've decided to do the same thing. So what has happening in Mick's World between posts 50 & 100? Well let's see...

My AFL career began early with pre Christmas training down at Yeronga club. Throughout the last 50 posts there has been quite a few posts about training including one entitled Torture which described a very tough session... which still ranks as one of the toughest I've ever done.

We also see my career finally take a competitive game based nature with the my introduction to 9 a side AFL. I got to play a few games before the season wrapped up (I got involved a bit late for a multitude of reasons) but I still have fond memories of this game.

During this period we also saw a couple of 21sts happen. It's been a while since I was involved in 21st parties so this was a fun and interesting period. First we had Bee's friend Laura's 21st on the end of a road trip to Warwick. Then my baby girl turned 21 herself and had her own 21st party. Good times were had by all...

A few of us went up to the opening of the Lions Social Club "The Lion's Den" and, at the time I left relatively unimpressed. Funny thing is we've spent the last two Friday nights there and both nights have been pretty good... and this Friday night the Lions are playing again on TV so we might just have to do it again.

In other highlights Bee finally got her cast off, I gave Flickr the flick, the Aussies whitewashed the Ashes and I had a few good weekends. Preseason training began and has been continuing ever since (with two inter club practice games under my belt now I'm yet to blog about), we had an awesome day at the Lions Race Day and the V8 season began to ramp up.

All in all it's been a very eventful few months since I brought up the 50 post milestone. There has also been a bunch of things I meant to blog about and never got around to including; the aforementioned Wet N' Wild day, my first two serious AFL matches, Christmas, lots of stories from Bee's 21st, updates on my nephew's progress in life and a host of others. Just goes to show if you're having a fun and busy life getting time to blog about it aint so easy!

Here's hoping the next 50 manage to keep up the entertainment factor.