ROUND 6 GPS FOOTY,  13/06/09

NC 31 df ACGS 6

TSS 68?? df BGS 0

BBC 21 df TGS 17

GT 52 df IGS 0

Well,  I didn't take too much notice of the football for reasons that will become obvious, so you can read about my Friday night in town first.

I guess by now everyone knows that I spent Saturday at Nudgee,  asleep for most of it,  but at Nudgee.  The plan was always to go to Nudgee,  just not to be asleep.  My weekend started with an early finish Friday,  about 10am this particular one ( I do kick off between 2am and 4am though,  so no guilt) and onwards to the dentist in Brisbane to finish off some work that I had to organize a loan for.  That was at 3pm,  and 20 minutes and $5000 later,  I was steaming down the Freeway,  getting ready to book into a cheap,  well not that cheap,  but one of those wotif deals I so like,   hotel for Friday night. 

Found that OK and had a quick walk around the fair city of Brisbane watching the peak hour lunacy,  before heading back to prepare for an evening at our particular restaurant of choice,  Cha Cha Char’s down on the Eagle Street Pier.  First though,  as I was with camera and gear,  and on the 29^th floor,  always planned a naked photo shoot,  that is me being naked,  on the balcony 29 floors up taking photos.  Now there is an ugly thought for you all!  You can find all that non football photo work on Flickr.  Some of you smart folks will figure it out. 

So got dressed up in all the gear that we old guys wear out,  apparently I resemble the Russian Mafia,  and this told to me by a 150 kilogram Columbian,  big unit.  Interestingly enough,  this big Columbian Unit has been beaten to within an inch of his life several times by Richard Tweedy,  father of Nudgee firsts 7 Daniel Tweedy,    on a rugby field of course where all that used to be legal and expected. There is another story about the big Columbian and another Nudgee father,  but he has made me promise to never breath a word of it.

So away we went,  lost one of my dress ear rings on the way down,  so just left the right one in,  apparently that is not normal,  but I don’t take too much notice of all that innuendo.   

Bit disappointed,  didn’t perform up to my usual standard,  but the atmosphere was not quite right,  and I don’t know these guys quite as well as others that entertain me from time to time.  However,  there was certainly enough laughter and frivolity to set the tone for the evening.  Not that I was interested,  but one of the party I am told was a former bachelor of the year winner.  I didn’t find him that attractive,  but I am not that way inclined,  but I need to be careful,  they are taking me to a corporate suite for the test match in September,  and they funded the entire Friday evening. 

Leaving the delightful waitresses and sights of Cha Cha Char’s we headed down to Gambaros,  where I was fortunate enough to share a urinal with a very famous sporting identity.  He was very well mannered and held the door open for us as we all exited together.  Fascinating stuff.  From Gambaros it was off to the Caxton,  until about 2am when I just drifted out like smoke and disappeared into the mist,  just like the phantom.  Remember,  I had already been up for about 25 hours.  The young folk I was with though seemed to be ready to kick on.  I have to say,  it was surprisingly quiet in town after the big Broncos vs Bulldogs clash,  not many out at all. 

The worst was yet to come though.  A floor above,  some really nice drilling started,  drilling of concrete,  with a hammer drill at about 5:45 am,  and  a half hour later,  the concrete breaking machine started on the building site across the road.  Precious little sleep,  tough day ahead.  I was glad I had partaken of the precautionary panadol prior to hitting the hay,  but they don’t help fatigue.   For the record,  I am basically a non drinker,  so was not heading off hangover pain,  more wondering how the teeth were going to play up.

Some time mid morning I headed up to Nudgee and got myself a medicinal therapeutic coffee and ran into the sales folk from Mercedes Benz.  They had a few cars there,  one with a list price of $436000.  Not sure they were appreciative of me saying that I would run with a $70000 Maloo R8 Ute long before one of them,  and if I were dropping 400 grand on a car,  it wouldn’t be a Merc.  So made some friends there,  but you get that. 

Caught the 15A’s first up,  and the Nudgee 15A’s are a very impressive outfit,  they just keep coming and coming.  The seconds was a good match,  and Churchie had this one for so long,  just ran out of petrol earlier than they needed to. 

There were a lot of people around the ground happy to predict a Churchie win,  in fact that I spoke to,  more than predicting a Nudgee win.  I guess I was in the Churchie boat too,  based pretty heavily on Nudgee inconsistency more than anything.  A very learned gentleman beside me thought it would be all about the start, and who dominated and got on top early.   

As it turned out,  Nudgee  dominated most of the  game,  the Churchie lineout was really bad,  and they seemed to lose a fair bit of ball at the tackle.  Churchie really are missing a genuine space finding,  match controlling 10,  and they just lacked any real go forward when they had the ball. 

The first half was an absolute arm wrestle though,  with Nudgee only going to the break up by 7 to 6.  They would rightfully feel concerned at some niggling mistakes that they keep making,  while seemingly dominating,  unforced errors and silly penalties that plagued their first half.  I am sure they will be working very hard to eliminate them from their game as the second half of the season gets underway later in July. 

I am surprised that the Churchie fullback didn’t back himself a bit more,  the young bloke is quick that’s for sure, and he can always dab a kick through to the sideline for a reset if the defence gets to him.  Although given Churchie’s lineout woes,  maybe not.  Would have been nice to see him back himself and just hit the afterburners though,  particularly a couple of times I thought,  from the very easy position of sideline judge,  that he probably would have sliced through and maybe gone all the way. 

I thought Eddie Mallon,  the Churchie 2 had a strong game,  and Pocock was his usual busy self. 

Nudgee were very strong in the middle,  and dominated the scrum,  lineout and tackle/breakdown areas.  Their number 1 had a good game with ball in hand,  and Setu made some good charges,  with offloads,  and some good shots at times.  Their new 10,  probably mostly good,  but he managed his bad decisions well and got through them with some initiative.  For such a young guy,  he gets good marks for this game,  that is no doubt quite  a lift in pace and intensity to the trial game he played against Downlands,  and the 16A’s. 

The Nudgee 13,  from all reports,  had his best game of the season,  and bagged a double in the 31 to 6 scoreline. 

Really,  Churchie just had no ball,  and it is very hard to win this game with limited possession,  and with most of your limited possession being stuff you need to use to get out of trouble with,  poor possession basically. 

I noted a few hooded and interesting onlookers in the  shadows. 

Focus now shifts to GPS and AIC sides,  those trials next week and then onto National open schools champs in early July.  Plenty of speculation as to who will be in the GPS sides,  I guess the statement time will tell is the best one here.  They will be named in a couple of days,  maybe sooner,  then everyone will know.