Open Boys Football

Opening the day with a match against Mackillop College, Duncan ‘Captain Courageous’ Couper showed why he believed he could move from his traditional defencive position to striker when no one else did, with a goal in the first two minutes of the match underlying his own self belief. It wasn’t long however before Coach Abbott shuffled the deck and he found himself returning to the backline about ten minutes later. It was here that he developed a ‘water tight’ defensive combination with Jack ‘The’ Horseman throughout the rest of the day, and along with Tom Ylinen, Brody Dalton, Jake ‘Billy Ray’ Hicks and Tyler ‘The Rock’ Kooyman, the defence stood up to only allow a two goals all day.

Suffice to say It was relatively quiet for ‘keeper Lex Weiley(Coyote) in goals, with not too much testing him out over the day. When other teams did manage a shot, ‘Coyote’ was well positioned to snuff out any danger straight away.

The strong performance of the team's defence allowed for the midfield to produce some great football in all of the games. With Taj ‘Messi’ Buck and ‘Iron Mike’ Tyson Vines pulling the strings of a masterful midfield that created, distributed and moved the team all around the park. Charlie Shipperlee, Noah Searle, Rory Green, Weston Bodner and Angus ‘Angry’ Anderson shuffled throughout the midfield and it was definitely one of the best performing groups of the day.

All this means nothing if you don’t have the frontmen to ‘bang em in!’, and on this day we were able to unearth an unpolished diamond in the shape of a converted ‘footy player’, Bennet Bar Reech. He was able to score goals and terrify opposition defences all day with his pace and two metre long legs! Bennet was well supported by the hard working, Ethan Sultana and Noah Hessenberger who ran and ran, and were continually dangerous. Although we may have found a new left back in the shape of Sultana, but considering he was taking free kicks up front when playing left back, the coaches may need to rethink that one?

Results:

1-0 v St Joseph’s Regional High School, Port Macquarie (Couper 2’)

0-0 v MacKillop College Port Macquarie 

3-1 v Newman Senior Technical College Port Macquarie (Bar Reech 10’,34’, Buck 20’)

5-1 v St Paul’s High School Kempsey (Bar Reech 3’,21’, Buck 11’,19’, Shipperlee 33’)

The team now moves forward to play the winner from the Northern Zone next week with the winner to take the place as Diocesan representatives in the State Wide Knockout competition. This will no doubt be another tough encounter but with the guile and wisdom of Coach Rodney ‘Panther’ Abbott steering the ship, the team should again do well.

C’mon Boys!