The coach has endured some shocking experiences in his meagre existence, but the outcome of the games on Saturday was one where his usual sour and sagging demeanour was even further blighted and left him with a weekend of soul searching at his inadequacy of being able to rouse his troops was one where he was not just down heartened but destitute.

We were at home, facing a fellow Rd 1 loser and there was an opportunity to steal a march on the field and land a psychological blow by beating the Old Xavs, who are the self proclaimed leading team in the Ammo’s. The omens were good as we had trained pretty well, and the players had a quiet determination about them prior to the game which to this untrained eye augured well, but somehow it all went a bit pear shaped. How wrong can I be? As a seer I make a very good scoreboard attendant.

Perhaps the players were a little blasé prior to the game, perhaps the coach was not as instructive as he should have been, perhaps the Xavvers were bigger, but who cares, in the end it is the intangible and the unquenchable elements that cam sometimes make a football game, or indeed break a game. And, on Saturday the intangible the fierceness at the pill was missing for a good period of time, and it was only when challenged alas after their pants had well and truly been pulled down that the players looked to slug it out with the bigger, stronger and older bodies of the reigning A reserve premier.

We could not have had a worse start with late changes, but those who came in acquitted themselves pretty well overall, so we cannot use that as an excuse, rather we all may need to have a week where some introspection takes place so we all see what, where and how we can atone for the future.

The game was played in terrible conditions and for that we thank the city fathers whose understanding of turf management is akin to my strike rate as a seer – negligible. Despite that we had no complaints from the visitors after all as they duly noted they have dished up some terrible surfaces for us over the years, so it was not an issue – it was shocking for both teams.

The sun was out, and the game started with the pungent aromas of bacon, onion and snags sizzling away on the Bendigo Bank Barbie which was being lovingly tended to by Tony Oakley which may only served to have inflamed the passions of the away team for the pigskin as they were more fierce, more determined and consequently they were able to use the ball with more precision establishing an early dominance that was never able to be breached.

There were some good patches by the home team – Chopper and Roaster after subdued performances in Rd 1 were much more prominent and they were supporting The Tint Professor along with the evergreen Lachie Walker, the improving “Goat” who I recently discovered was not actually christened Goat, but Dan McKenna and Wilbur Fenton. However, we were not being as effective as we could have been, and as such when we pressed the opposition worked as hard in stemming the tide, and then struck with more precision and the quality of their ball use to their forwards was not giving our overworked and under sized backs too much chance.

I suppose the half time score was a fair reflection of what had happened, but it was not something we would be happy with. I needed a wash, I felt dirty and was not happy to have to put up with that. I bet it made the feasting lunch goers (once famously referred to as the Prawn sandwich brigade by Manchester united Captain Roy Keane when he complained about the lack of support by the crowd) feel despondent too, no wonder they bar sales went so ballistic.

In defence of the players they worked particularly hard in the 2nd half and when we consider that for much longer periods of time in the 2nd half able to match the opposition it was not as bad as it could have been. The intensity picked up, we won more of the contested balls and were stronger in the tackle, and in applying the tackle. They kicked a couple of late goals when the umpires did not see some push and shove – or more correctly just a good old fashioned heave ho by the Full forward he was able to bloat his total a little more than was perhaps justified. Still you make your own luck and they deserved their win.