Rd 6: Demons vs Emus (Social)

Stu "Kettles" Dow & "Chicken" Tim Donovan | 16.06.16

South London Demons 2.5 (17) def. by Ealing Emus 11.8 (74) 

It was an unpleasant day down at the common this past Saturday when the Demons took on the Emus on our turf. We had given them a nice touch up when we met for the first game of 2016. But little did we know, like all Emus they are a cheeky bunch of pencil-necked birds, who decided to saturate their midfield with Visa expired Premiership players.

For the Super 3s this coincided with an untimely coincidence, as the roster was light and made the ability to have a longer bench with a full midfield rotation particularly difficult. Ultimately within the first quarter we got a clear understanding as to the difficulties we were up against. The midfield tried in vain, but when it came to the nature of Emus being flightless, these beggars were seemingly able to fly the ball out of the midfield. The first quarter was a one sided affair as our back line was truly under the pump, with the likes of James 'Jimmy Pres' Perrett, Terry 'Turtle' Unitt and Xavier 'X' Holland doing stellar work attempting to hold the defence together. At Center Half Back we welcomed back Tim 'Chicken Tim' Donovan for his first game of 2016 - who's doctor recently sourced a new German ointment for his ongoing arthritis which allows him limited but remarkably smooth movement. 

At the second quarter there was a different spirit shown by the Demons; after a solid saliva filled screaming session by Mark 'Bresci' Brescacin, the boys came out with gusto. They curtailed the onslaught with solid contributions from Bevan Connelly, Tom Crossland, Hayden 'Haydog' Charles, Allister Skelly and Courtney 'The Price is' Wright we started to give ourselves a chance. Matt 'Doc' Holliday and Lethal Leigh Davey decided it was time to turn up and with this added depth it gave us a chance. We managed to snag a goal and draw the margin back. Animal was moving around like an animal that moves a lot and presented options up forward, complemented by James 'Gealy' Geale was offering some solid contests. By the conclusion of the quarter it was starting to look positive for the boys in Red and Blue. 

Throughout the third quarter we had much of the play and looked like adding some scoreboard pressure, Chicken Tim moved forward swapping with Gealy who moved to sure up the backline and the midfield saw rewards for hard work. It wasn't until the halfway point that the seams of our good work began to fray. Danny Radis strained his photographic clicker finger and was left on the physio table, along with Lethal having his arm separated from his body - yet neatly reattached by Anna using blu-tack. This left us with only three on the bench with a game that required many rotations. At the end of the third we were only 5 goals down and with much of the momentum. 

Well the momentum didn't last and those outback, long-legged, freaky Emu characters maintained hitting targets; similar to their ability to pick seeds from the red dirt of their natural habitat. It was an exhausting contest with excellent resilience from Bresci, T-K, Fish, Weiner, Jacob Broman-Minish and Tom Crossland - who was actually knocked out and woke up 10 minutes later in next week. Generally speaking though we were beaten by a slow start, limited numbers and a lacking in performance. But to conclude, what had a good start, plenty of numbers and an excellent performance was the Wandsworth Demons AFC and their support of Cure for MND. To the Club and the girls who went to all the effort to stage Big Freeze at the C, congratulations and we look forward to supporting you next year.

- Stuart Dow 

To add to Stu's excellent and 100% accurate account above, I need to mention a huge thank you to those of you who did turn up to help set up the morning of the game. Unfortunately that only extends to about 5 people in total. This is not good enough, and for our home games moving forward I expect you all to come and help set up unless you have a really good excuse, not turning up to help out pre game pretty much ensures you wont play the next week. So we're adding to the phrase - no fees no play, and making it, no fees no help no play. 

We have a couple of byes over the next few weekends, but don't think of this as time off. Use the time to let your bodies recover, then get on the training track. Wests showed us we still have big gaping holes in our game plan and we need to work on that moving forward in the last 2 games of the season. I promise in the meantime I will work on my set shot goal kicking... 

- Chicken Tim

Goals: Fish 1, Donners 1

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