Mick Jagger warbled, upon reflection, it was possibly more like whining in his strangled tones no doubt caused by the wearing of pants that were a couple of sizes too small for his man gear “I cant get no satisfaction,” and despite winning a game of football which all I asserted was required to give me back my mojo last week, I too feel somewhat like Jagger – on that result I too cant get no satisfaction. Rather than happy I feel like reaching for the bottle of medicinal purposes only Scotch after we had scraped to a pretty unconvincing win against a side that worked terrifically hard and could consider themselves unlucky to have lost after having led for the vast majority of the day.

In defence of the ressies the team was unsettled by yet another week of being pillaged by the plague of injuries that is running through the club, and as a result the team could serve as a metaphor for a patchwork quilt. Like the quilt we too looked to cobble together all the disparate parts and construct them into a coherent whole. As such not only did the team look all over the place, we played somewhat accordingly, some good parts, some not so good, and some downright horrible and somehow we were able to steal a win when it would have been easier to lose.

The funny thing was that despite the not so effective start the cockroach was not particularly perturbed, or he didn’t appear to be for at the 1st break he praised the efforts of the ‘08 first gamers in Simon Moloney and Liam O’Donnell for their efforts to push back, work defensively and harass the Collegians defenders. In addition, there were enough signs that there was some good stuff happening with Jack Jarvis extending his digits to the aggot and wrapping the “dooks” onto a few and Greg Hesse proving us with plenty of run which was causing some angst amongst the visitors, along with “Georgie” getting excited, getting amongst it and getting busy.

You would think that with the positives being emphasised there would have been an appropriate response by the home team, particularly given that there was a past players lunch on and let us be honest with all due apologies to Phil and the caterers these blokes don’t come down for the food, so why were we serving up such fare on-field? What we were seeing was a lack of coherent ball movement, a lack of desperation, a lack of grit and a lack of hunger for the nut. This may have been in part due to the cockroach and he will be spoken to by your correspondent this week and told to shape up or he too can be consigned the scrap bin of mediocrity along with the half chewed spuds of the crew chowing down at the lunch, but it may have been because the players had under-estimated the visiting team who’s credentials upon scant inspection of past results would not really have sent a shudder through too many, but that is disrespectful and the players should be aware of that.

When we retreated to the sheds and the simmering smells of the Tony Oakley inspired sausage sizzle the cockroach was reminded by the waiting toe-cutters slapping and swatting the hamburger patties that he too would served up in a bread roll if he didn’t get his act together. As the players waited for the inevitable bake from an increasingly red faced cockroach whose plaintive wails were heard about 3 suburbs away he was taken aside by the Pickle prior to entering the sheds and told he was needed to coach the boys on the BBQ to correctly flip the snags. Special tasks required special people and he understood his responsibility so he stood, flipped burgers and slopped sauce and Pickle provided some well chosen words, re-structured the team and sent them back out.

I don’t know and don’t profess to know what goes on his some blokes heads, but where was the 3rd in the opening half of footy for we moved the ball at speed, we harassed, chased, smothered and got back into the game and we were being well lead in the middle by another of our debutants James Marasco who gave us 1st use of the ball, got physical and smothered one ball off the boot and then fed it to the watching and waiting on-ballers and we looked like a team vying for post season action, not one merely playing as if fulfilling pre-senior game obligations. In this quarter we got the ball deep into the front half and Ro Buckley was able to scramble one through off the ground where it was a goal, was not a goal, was again ruled a goal, then a behind, the coach was looking to kick a behind then sanity prevailed and it was a goal and we were back in the game and visitors were on the back foot. Jack Jarvis was getting into it, Greg Hesse was being busy, and Simon Moloney was having a run on the ball and making a pest of himself with one of their better players who had enjoyed free reign in the opening half, but was now under a bit more scrutiny and not liking it at all. Wow, where was all that in the opening half??

We came into the huddle, the Pickle got up close and personal with the players by demanding they bring it in – whatever this “it” was and the players felt the hot breath of Pickle and he again told them the positives and the cockroach just kept turning the snags over.

To the credit of Collegians they took the punch of the 3rd where we were clearly the better team, and for some teams that may have been a knockout blow, but they fought back in the last and increased the bald patch on the dome of the already hair challenged scone of the De La coach by taking a deserved lead and creating some minor panic in the ranks of the De La faithful. The Pickle was talking, the coach was pacing, he had been kicked off the snags at this point and it appeared that the team was fretting and the supporters were readying a lynch mob and the guillotine was having the blade sharpened as we stumbled to what looked to be a defeat.

However, when it appeared we would need to arrange the flowers for the funeral as Collegians made their run in the last few minutes we somehow were able to conjure up 2 goals to wrest back and then extend the lead to hold out for a less than convincing win. Firstly, we were able to find the mitts of Sam Morwood who with his unorthodox style calmly went back and judging the left to right breeze sent the ball over the heads of the despairing Collegians players to give us a 2 point lead. We may have slightly relaxed and the ball was gathered by the visitors off half back and looked to kick the quick reply which no doubt would have killed the game off. As they streamed forward the back line held the decisive play of the day to win the game when it was on the verge of being lost. Youngy, Pitch and Reidy back in for his 1st for a while performed heroics on the goal line at the sandpit end of the ground by firstly stopping the ball, then smothering the ball, then diving onto the loose aggot as a Collegians player looked to sink the slipper into the ball from 3 metres out all the while the dust was rising making it virtually impossible to establish friend from foe. The players were falling over and grabbing anything they could: opponents, the ball, the umpire it didn’t matter, but when Reidy wrestled the ball away from the goal line his long clearing kick down the ground saw the ball make its way to Jack Jarvis in front of the BBQ (no doubt trying to grab a free snag) where he was instructed by a knife wielding and sausage waving Ian Hansen to square the ball to Michael Dundon who was sitting unattended at the top of the 45 arc, which he duly did and then stole the snag being waved about. From there Mick calmly went back and sent the ball through the uprights and it was a bit of breathing space which was enough to win, but age the coach by 10 years.

Next week we are at Elsternwick Park on the Sunday where we will play Old Brighton who have leapfrogged us into the top 3 and left us in 5th so it could be a game with massive consequences. We will need to be good, we will need to improve and we will need to keep winning and keep up our efforts if we think we have hopes of being there in late season action. Be there where it could be a really good game or it could not, you decide – I’ll be there, will you?