2008 ROUND 17
LUSC Old Boys vs North Caulfield 3 - 0

Goals:

DeBon, Alfred (14)
Umina, Mathew (35)
Phillips, Gabriel (70)

Go Back to Old Boys Team Page here


The Flight of the Bald Eagle

The grueling high altitude training session of the previous week took its toll with the mercurial Slater a late withdrawal. However, the possible benifits of these alpine session convinced Paul Cif to miss this game as he headed up to the hills to fine tune his fitness. Cif has been strategically planning his comeback game against next week’s Nunawading for a number of months, intentionally dropping himself week after week so that he is absolutely 100% right for the last round. The sacrifices this guy makes for the team are just phenomenal. There is no ’I’ in Cif ….umm lets make that “there is no ‘I’ in Paul C.”

With Thunder still away competing in Beijing, the boys looked like they may be short on a bit of man power against North Caulfield. Fortunately, the great Sarkis provided his services for another round. With only 11 players available at kickoff it was somewhat encouraging to see the opposition start with only 9 players. Although within 10 minutes Caulfield did have enough players to run a bench. The G-train running at around 9% fitness discharged himself from morning surgery to at least give the boys a bench. Wilko was also running late as he was gathering inspiration watching the Olympic marathon. It obviously worked as he looked the goods when he came on in the second half. From the G-train’s performance, we’re guessing he got his inspiration watching the synchronized swimming. He has really redefined the word ‘Graceful’.

The Bald Eagles controlled the game from the start. In fact it was so easy they ran the risk of trying to do too much as individuals. The first La Trobe goal came 14 minutes in after the Thai Superfreak got on the end of some fine work on the wings by Mat Umina. The Gabmeister and Mat had free reign of the flanks but the passing and crosses were not being finished off like you would expect from the No.1 side. The condition of the pitch didn’t help and the fact that there was no linesman definitely went against La Trobe who have spent many training sessions fine tuning ways of staying onside. We’ve never seen a ref make calls that a ball has gone out or a player is offside from 40 metres away when neither side has appealed. Part way through the first half Sava had a great opportunity to score when he got around the keeper and was clear by 5 metres. We’re not sure if you would call what followed as a shot or not. In a move, that up till then we had only seen All Beef Patty manage to master, Sava was able to dribble the ball along the goal line only for the keeper to recover and knock it away. Watching it was like a slow action replay from an Olympic 100m race, where one could track each bead of sweat as it flew through the air. Pity the keeper was not part of the slow action replay. Sava would prove to not be the only Bald Eagle to miss sitters for the games. At the 35th minute, Mat U finished some excellent work from the wing to cut in and ‘nuts’ the keeper from a tight angle to make it 2:0 at half time.

The second half was much of the same. Boz had a good opportunity from the edge of the six yard box which he aimed fair square of the solar plexis of the Caulfield keeper. The guy went down but looked like he may get up again so Boz had another crack but narrowly missed him. The Gabmeister pulled him aside and lectured him that ‘it isn’t always about hurting people and one can achieve similar satisfaction in scoring goals as well’. The Bald Eagle defence has been a dominant force this year. This game was no exception with Captain Bug and the General cleaning up whatever stray ball that the Flying Dutchman and Van der Baxter let them have. Even Jimmy Zap was in great form intercepting a wide ball. Maybe next week he can do it whilst not being a spectator.

The coaching panel have long considered playing 3-5-3 formation and dropping the keeper position all together. This game was all about fine tuning that tactic for next week. The General was allowed up front, out right, out left, in fact wherever he wanted to go, whilst Captain Bug showed what a creative attacking defensive midfield goalkeeper he can be with some great runs from the box to the half way line. The General was stiff not to get a penalty late in the game after a scintillating stroll through the middle of the park. As mentioned earlier, the ref had no idea where the lines were and obviously unaware that the General had clearly been chopped inside the box.

Luca, Sarkis and Boz controlled the middle of the park. At the 70th minute mark the Gabmeister made up for an easy miss in front of goals 10 minutes earlier, by striking the ball beautifully with his shin from outside the box. Everyone predicted he would try to chip the keeper who had come out to intercept him. But the cool and collected West Indian has never liked the label ‘predictable’ and went for the more technically difficult shank shot instead. Pure genius! The 3:0 win was fantastic and sets up next weeks championship decider as the Grinders Game of the Year.