New-cas-tle!

My team just won its first semi-final of the season! It was actually the first semi-final of the season at all, the Friday night game, vs. Manly. We finished 4th so played it at home (I didn't go, after much weighing of pros and cons, but watched it on tv). It had everything! A 110-metre run, some razzle-dazzle play, some gutsy hit-ups up the middle, some clean strategic tries, a lucky plucked-out-of-air try, a gutsy bulldozer sheer strength try, a clever and sneaky yet heroic field goal in which a mantle was passed from mature greatness to young talent. Several fights, three sin-binnings, two of our players put on report, one player blew out his other anterior cruciate ligament, not the one that's been reconstructed twice but the other one, so his career is probably over almost before it got going. We were behind 0-12 at halftime and were not looking like a premiership-winning team, but thing just accelerated in the second half and we got up to 18-18, and then the field goal to pull ahead 19-18, but then they got a penalty and if Orford had kicked it it would have been 19-20, but there was a swirly breeze and he was just far enough out that it went wide to the right. And then in the dying minute superstar Brian Carney was for all money tackled, and then just got up and carried the other bloke on his back over the line and put the ball down, so the last seconds were an exultant Andrew Johns kicking a sitter from almost in front and grinning a grin that made him look like his old larrikin self and erased some of the heavy weight that's been hanging on him all season. Oh, the sound the crowd made! It's everything you watch footy for.

Stay tuned for next week!