United fall to Minny

Congrats to those of you that actually made the trip up to Minnesota this past weekend. The challenge began way before the first bounce, however full credit to the 15 of us that took the field against Des Moines and Minnesota in the afternoon. Their ability to focus on the task at hand knowing full well that we were behind the eightball in terms of being undermanned from the outset.

Our first game against a determined and constantly improving Des Moines outfit turned out to be an inspiring win with a number of players stepping up to cover the losses to mother nature. Jayson Schmelzer, Mark ‘Gunner’ Gzynski and Graham ‘Crackers’ Brennan led the way up forward consistently finding a lot of ball and more importantly rewarding themselves and the hard work up the field to work Des Moines into the ground.

Slow starts have plagued us this year, the lads stepped up against a full strength Freeze outfit and restricted their scoring in the first half. The back line must have thought the Freeze had 22 players on the ground, but to their credit withstood the avalanche, however we were unable to apply any scoreboard pressure at the other end, however opportunities were few and far between. At half time: CAFA 0.0.0 and MN 1.6.12 With some of our key position players preparing to endure a night with the package back in Chi-town, our makeshift team with 5 Des Moines players stepping into help us out, held their heads high. But in the end, with little rotations available to us in the middle, saw their midfield shift gear, increasing their inside fifty forays, and the scoreboard began to tick over for them. Eventually running out winners 5.9.39 to 0.1.1. The scoreboard really didn’t tell the true story, i have no doubt CAFA can avenge this game at Nationals, something to look forward to! MN have set the bar pretty high, they will field 2 solid teams this year, we need to continue to build on our fitness and make sure that MN don’t have a chance at Nationals this year.

That said we now switch into overdrive, and set ourselves for the Milwaukee Bombers who will no doubt come into Chi-town full of confidence after beating us recently in Madison on a postage stamp!