Farts weather the storm

While it was a balmy 5 degrees yesterday out of the wind, when a depleted 10 man farts team took the field the wind chill was down to only 1 degree.Not sure who won the toss but we played with the biting wind and rain at our backs in the first half, not bad for the backs, but the forwards had to stand facing it, and the wind driven rain was so hard at one stage the forwards had to shield their faces so they could see.

It wasn't just the weather that was stormy, a full strength Victoria (with reserves and a much lower average age) came out firing in the first half. While they didn’t pressure the goal much, the backs and halves had a lot of work to do.

However it was pressure form long balls (the std Farts strategy) that drew first blood at the other end. The pressure started to show with some few incisive runs, a couple which should have lest been rewarded with PC’s, and a reverse stick zinger at goal from trapper that narrowly missed (and even Cam would have been proud of that). Action around the top of the circle saw Scotty have a shot that took a deflection past the goalie into the boards. 1-0 up!Shortly after Vic drew level, then had a goal from a PC disallowed due to being too high.

The sheds were welcome shelter from the wind and rain at half time, with not a lot of discussion (apart from the umpiring at one end matching the atrocious weather) – but still 1-1 was a good position given Vic pressure.

The second half saw a slight respite in the weather (the rain was falling vertically not horizontally) and the game initially see–sawed, but towards the last quarter the Farts game plan of pacing themselves started to pay off as Vic fell away from the play. While the centre of the field was still ab bit of an armwrestle, the Farts managed to slowly get the upper hand, with lots of pressure, 5 PC’s and numerous free hits in the red zone. In fact Vic were lucky not to have some yellow cards due to their tackling and not retiring at free hits.

The pressure first started to tell when Willy latched onto a rebound off the keepers pads and nearly pasted it through the back net. From there it was constant Farts pressure, with Trapper finding space around the spot a number of times but not being able to stop or deflect the fiercely hit passes from Scotty (he blamed cold hands!).Willy then hammered home another one, and Vic’s heads started to drop, then Scotty nailed the coffin lid shut with an awesome strike that squeezed past the RGH upright 4-1!

And thus it finished.A great result, given the weather and only 10 players!

Goals
2 - Willy
2- Scotty

MVP
4- Willy – great running from the mad moari, and 2 awesome goals, also brought the oranges
2 – Adrian – great game at CH
1 – Nuts – strong defense
1 – Rear-end – umpired the early game