BLOCKBUSTER BLOWOUT
The much anticpated top of the table clash between the two unbeaten trend setters had arrived.
Scheduled to coincide with the Cats versus Saint Kilda match, it was the mighty Hills Supertigers taking on the all conquering Gawler Saints.
No one could remember the last time two Superules teams had gone through undefeated to this stage of the season. It may actually have been years since this situation had arisen, or just that age had caused memory dysfunction.
Nevertheless the two titans of Superules squared off at Lobethal on Sunday in front of a crowd well in excess of the normal attendance. With spectator numbers swelled by attendees of a club function, every piece of window space of was occupied by curious onlookers.
The game began in electric fashion and for the first four minutes it was a genuine arm wrestle with no one able to gain a noticable ascendency. The promise of a “Cracker of a game”, looked like being anything but just advertising hype.
Unfortunately for Gawler, that was where their quest for credibility ended.
Suddenly it was like Jimmy Bartell and Lenny Hayes had combined to play on the same team. The game looked like Gary Ablett and Nick Reiwoldt had joined forces with them and were playing against a Fremantle team featuring its Sesame Street character, a plough horse from Essendon and a Collingwood reject.
The onball dominance of the Hills’ team was awesome. Dick Kleemann, Simon Kemp, Mark Jaensch and Aleks Bojanic controlled the game. Their ability to attract the ball rivalled rugby players magnetism for nightclub drama.
Everytime they gained possession the runners covered the oval more effectively than the rampaging Corellas.
Kim Pearce, Dave “Runt” Wuttke and Wayne Seymour provided amazing run and Chris Geraghty was impassable at half back. The ferocious, “chrome domed” defender, Chris, hates losing and that extends to his hair.
Such was the dominance of the defence, Full Back Andrew Frohling was tagged to reduce his impact up the ground as he continually ran off his Grenville Dietrich like opponent; who Andrew later described as having the range and flexibility of a traffic cone.
It wasn’t all plain sailing, however, as Paul Zoontjens lasted only 10 minutes before leaving the ground with a back injury originating from extensive domestic duties. This raises the very serious debate about the problems associated with combining the dangerous “around the house” activities and the demands of elite sport. Horror tales surrounding the perils of vaccuuming, the hazards of gardening and the horrors of “Home handyman” projects deliver an iron clad case for their abolition. Struggling to bend down to undo his shoe laces post match, “Zoonie” did the only sensible thing in the circumstances: had a beer to kill the pain and drove home in his boots.
Ben Barnett was also forced from the ground early in the game and unable to return. Traumatised by his involvement in a massive cranium collision which saw his forehead quickly become an “eight head” Ben witnessed more stars in five minutes than one can see in a whole night at the Academy awards.
Added to this was the continued absence of star forward Damon Wilson. Vilified on the official Supertigers’ website for missing the last game due to “shopping for a Port-a Cot”, Wilson was allegedly still mourning the passing of Farah Fawcett. Voted by 85% of respondents as supplying the softest excuse for not playing previously, Damon cemented his grip on the bag of marshmallows.
The number of turnovers delivered by Gawler threatened the statisticians with RSI as they continually exployed their own version of the look away pass; the no look pass.
The Gawler players seemed intent on deceiving Dave Wuttke with this ploy but some days it’s hard to fool a man whose not paying attention anyway. Playing at his unflappable best, the opposition later described him as being “Cooler than a penguin’s freezer”.
Interested spectators included those playing in the following match. Easts’ players took some consolation in the fact that they had gotten closer to the Hill’s team than any other this year, losing their previous encounter by only 32 points. They talked in awe of the Supertigers’ “Roaming Zone”. Drawing on the soccer strategy playing in a “2, 4, 4 formation”, they described what they experienced against the Hill’s as the unstoppable “18 formation” where everybody just runs.
They commented on the fluctuating mood of the Gawler players during the match with one wag explaining that, “At half time they seemed depressed and miserable but by the end of the match they were just miserable and depressed”.
In the end it was a massacre of indescribable proportions that made Custer’s Last Stand look like a draw.
HILLS 26 – 12
GAWLER 4 – 6
Best: Kleemann, Geraghty, Kemp, Seymour, Jaensch, Bojanic, Wuttke
Goals: Magee 5, Hancock, Kleemann, Pearce 4, Snooks, McGill 3, Hill, Seymour, Anko Klitten 1
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