With daylight saving ending last night, we were all up early with anticipation about today’s game. The boys had been excited about the game and talking about it at school so expectations were high.

We knew that the Blacktown team was going to be big but not that big! Holy moly they were huge!! But our boys were bigger in heart and that shon through.

From the kick off you could see that it was going to be a tough day for the boys. The Blacktown big units ran at our line repeatedly and our boys were putting their bodies on the line. It wasn’t long before Blacktown scored and that set the tone for the first half of football. Olly, Kaleb, Cam and Ryan were taking a beating but kept getting back up to tackle themselves to almost a standstill. Zac and Kia were working hard and the backs were helping out to stop the flow of an open flood gate.

Our strategy was to try and hold them in the forwards and then spin it wide to our speed men where we had an advantage. Unfortunately this was hard to execute as the opposition cut us off before we could work our magic as most of the first half was played in our half of the field. Archie, Matt, Lachlan and Luca all made half breaks but were shut down while Lachie, Jame and Kai probed around the back of the of the rucks and gave good ball to their backs.

Shortly before half time Kaleb was taken off with a neck injury after finishing on the bottom of a collapsed scrum and from that point on, the scrums were uncontested (which means not pushing in them). Half time couldn’t come fast enough as Blacktown had run in 5 tries and the score was 27-0.

The half time message from coach Brad was clear. Keep up the effort! It was stoic in the face of this monumental battle. The other message was Tackle “around the legs”. The best thing I took away from the break was that all the boys were still buoyant and positive despite how the game was going.

The second half saw us immediately take the first opportunity presented and it was a great piece of play. We spun it wide and Cam got into clear space and scored a long range try from the 50 yard line. The last time I saw a hooker run that quickly was at the KFC 2 for 1 bucket sale!!!! He even had the smarts to improve the position to make it easier to convert. Lachie kicked it between the sticks and it was 27-7.

The next 15 minutes saw it play out like the first half as Blacktown ran in 4 more tries. Our boys continually stood up to the challenge and I had to run out on a number of occasions to fix them up and send them back into the battle as they didn’t want to let their mates down. In amongst all this there were some great hits. Joel, Hudson and Kaleb put on some blinders. Ultimately the game ended with a score line of 47-7.

The boys shouldn’t be disappointed, they should be proud. They never gave up and kept trying until the final whistle blew.

Thanks to all the parents (Andy, Mick, Jason & James) for helping out this week with the team duties. Also thanks to everyone who helped set up the field.

Also big thanks to Lachlan and James from the Reds who helped us out today. Well played gentlemen.

Awards
Most Improved: Zac Spark – put in a big effort all game.
Player of the match: Joel Whitfield – The best of many great tacklers today.

Finally, As a few people have sent me SMS and Facebook messages about Kalebs injury. We took him to hospital for X-rays and after spending a relaxing day in emergency, we are stoked to say that he did not break anything. He will have his wrist in a splint for a while but should be back and raring to go for our next game after holidays.