The Flight of the Bald Eagle

With a few key injuries and some late omissions in the defence, the Bald Eagles were going to be tested this week against Plenty Valley Lions (who finished second on the ladder last year in another division). Well that’s what the La Trobe boys thought anyway. The mind games began early with Gab psyching out the opposition Captain before kick-off. The opposition captain was looking at our Bald Eagles starting an attempted warm-up one minute before the game and was justifiably cocky.

The reported conversation went something like this:
Plenty Valley Captain: “Youse guys looks pretty old! Are youse the veterans team or something?”
Gab: “Yeah, something like that! Where did you guys finish last year?”
PVC: “Oh we has a good season. We came runners up. Actually it was to your other La Trobe team. What about youse guys?”
Gab: “Oh that must have been our fourths team. Us? Could have been better! We went through undefeated and won the year but it was disappointing not to have wrapped it up a bit earlier in the season. With the restructuring of the divisions we decided to put our veterans team down a division to give the other La Trobe teams some competition.”
This was followed by a stunned silence and you could see the confidence draining from his face.

The game started off at a rather frenetic pace from both teams. Plenty Valley going in at their hardest whilst the Bald Eagles were just trying to work out where the pitch started and the concrete car park finished. Johnny A was in the action early and made up for a couple of missed opportunities to put away the opening goal from a corner kick. The second goal started from the throw in as it was flicked off Bozzas head to the waiting Slater in the box who calmly slotted past the keeper. The Bald Eagle defence had a great game with the reliable Tranner, Jimmy Zap and one legged Sava more than covering for the missing General and the Flying Dutchman. 2:0 at half time was a very dangerous result!

The Thai Superfreak opened up his goal scoring for the season with a nice header from Slaters low, hard corner. The Freak made every person in Reservoir know that he scored it as well. Paul “Ronaldo” Cif is starting to get a reputation for his blistering runs and is seriously eyeing off the coveted Golden Boot Award for top goal scorer for the league. He got his second for the season after he was released with a nice through ball and easily put it away. Arguably the fittest guy in the league, Matt U was in top form constantly taking on player after player. Rather embarrassing really! After carving up the Plenty Valley midfield, he scorched the defence and unleashed the shot from 6 yards out for a goal. The opposition was in awe, with the defence yelling out to the midfield about how great La Trobe are (well we think that’s what they were screaming at each other). The last of La Trobes six goals came from an absolute cracker from Boz just outside the box taking a wicked bounce off the pitch. It was going so quick, that Nick the G-train would have only just managed to keep up with it. Considering they were playing on a cricket pitch, Boz nicknamed this shot the “Dutch Doosra”.

However, the highlight of the game was the brilliant display of the Zapman. He is one of the few true athletes going around and it is his constant determination to continually test his team mates that keeps the Bald Eagles on their toes. Simple things such as having shots at your keeper from the goal kick is the reason why Ilias possesses those super reflexes. The General would have been proud of that one! Bruno also learnt a valuable lesson on that day. You may have possession of the ball with no apparent opposition within 20 yards but that doesn’t mean you become complacent. The tackle by the Zapman on Bruno was clinical. The Austrian now knows that there are more than 11 players on the pitch to be aware of when in possession. It wasn’t pretty by all means but a 6:0 win against 12 players is a dominant display by any definition.