Columbus at Chicago 2013

A perfect day for Saturday footy at Waveland. Sponsor’s Day for the Swans, hosting the Columbus Jackaroos who have played 5 games already this year with a 4/1 win/loss record. The Jacks no doubt would be pumped for this one, having lost a heartbreaker in the final last year against us at Nationals. This was the Swans third game of the year, both away losses recorded to Minnesota & Nashville a couple weeks ago.

Both teams had solid squads and this was going to be a tough one to win, even at home. A 75 degree day with the wind blowing to the Southern end, worth maybe a goal or two. Pony Boy won the toss and decided the Swans would kick against it. A decision in hindsight worked against us, Columbus came out of the blocks quickly in the and had our backman under siege, if it hadn’t been for their poor kicking we may have been staring at a large deficit at quarter time. 24 to 0 at the first break.

The second quarter saw the Swans work their way back into the game. Big Al, Oscar & Sainty kicked majors to get us back into the game. Mike Panek came into the forward line and gave us some much needed bite up there. The on ballers began to work their way into the game. Pedro, Keefy, Pat, Sars, EZ, Alex were in and under, and this seemed to ignite the Swans into action. The trusted backline led by Hoyt, Poncho, newcomer Alastair Martin, Conway and Xavier were unlucky to have two goals scored against them. But the Swans found the spark they had been looking for in the first quarter, and were able to match the intensity with the Jackaroos and eventually won the quarter.

The third quarter turned into a dour struggle with no team prepared to give an inch, Josh Edwards was a welcome return to the Swans line up and was working his way into the game. Pony Boy continued on his merry way giving the running lads first use, but while we had quite a bit of the play could not apply score board pressure. We missed a couple of crucial shots on goal, which could have made a difference.

Heading into the last quarter, Columbus held an 8 point lead. We had played well to get ourselves back into the match, winning the second and third quarters. The boys were confident we had enough left in the tank to get us over the line. The Boys from Ohio had a different idea and really ran all over us in the final quarter, piling on 5 goals to 2. Running out 34 point winners in the end. One of the highlights of the last quarter was a goal scored on the run by ruck man Pony Boy.

All in all a pretty good effort by the lads, we were slow off the mark but were able to claw ourselves back into and in the end were not fit enough to run out the match. Back to the drawing board for us, plenty of work to be done before Nationals in 5 weeks, and the 21st September when Minnesota come into town.

Blue Jacket & Goose – Jason “Pony Boy” Wilhelm