Rhinos Best Pirañas in a Physical One: Metro Round 4 Recap

The cold weather subsided finally to allow for a beautiful spring day in the Second City to get Round 4 of the Metro Competition under way. The Chicago Swans were graced with some Tassie Footy Legends who were travelling through Chicago and stopped by to have a gander. William Leitch medallist and Hall of Fame member Darryn “Hollywood” Perry even laced up in full Swans attire to join the rest during the warm up and showed the way. While Perry put in a hard shift during the warm up, the rest of the lads rested to put in a harder shift later at the bar. It was an honour to have Perry and the rest of the Tassie lads down as they criss-crossed their way throughout the country.

But back to the game at hand! We had another special fly-in player in Frankin “OBK” “Da Plumchise” “The Handsum One” “Yours Truly” Plummer who made is way up from the great city of Marcellus, Michigan to strap on the boots one last time before walking down the aisle next weekend.

With the teams picked, the game got underway. Coach/Umpire/Bad Guy Hendrie modified the field slightly as the goal posts have been lost under a shroud of mystery, dispair and unsportsmanlike conduct. New posts have been bought and will be back in action at the next home game. Not having point posts and resulted in out of bound calls being called definitely separated the men from boys when it came to goal kicking ability. However it was the female on the team that led from the front with Amy “Sharpshooter” McGuinness slotting a couple majors in the first term. It didn’t take long for Andrew “Coach Carter” Woodman to show his experience and shutting out McGuinness during a number of following contests.

Once again, the usual suspects in the midfield had consistent runs with Jeffrey “Mike Pence” Kraemer leading the charge and linking up well with Tim “Hamstring” Herrman to move the ball quickly out of the middle. John “This is not Rugby” Reynolds rucked against Tyrone “Backstreet’s Back” Lavery with both players getting the better of eachother only a handful of times. This led to a scrappy clearance effort with Stu “They did what to the posts?” Nicol, Jayson “Not Nolan” Schmelzer and Pedro “Let’s talk politics” Jimenez tussling to get the ball out and down to OBK and McGuiness respectively.

Newcomer Matt “Hockey Hit” Hacker had a resounding effort in his first game ever with some bone crunching tackles and unrivalled endeavour throughout the backline. Opposition should be wary of Hacker as he when he connects, he means it. Exciting stuff from a future star of the Swannies. Another hard hitter Greg “It’s Miller Time” Miller got the best of a few players in what was turning to be a physical game, even for Metro standards. Luckily there were no injuries, however just after 1^st quarter time, Hamstring Herrman went down with a hamstring injury. Hopefully a quick recovery will mean he will be right for Minnesota in few weeks time. Latecomers Jeremy “Winter is Coming” Stark and Clement “Daddy Duties” Chiesa brought about a change of pace to the game. Chiesa and Lavery linked up well to crunch Nicol a few times, making him second guess any more side steps. Multiple majors for Kraemer, Nicol, Schmelzer and Reynolds added to the OBK and McGuinnesses tally as the teams saw out the half.

Trent “I can score from here” Smith moved from the backline into the middle and was on fire from there on out. Already racking up a number of Fairest and Best Award points, he’s been killing it in recent weeks. The confidence level is high and he can slot the ball home in the forward line from almost any angle. As the game wore on, legs grew tired and the lads who have been working on their fitness notched it up a gear. Kraemer and Schmelzer ran ragged through the middle while Nicol tracked back well and was rewarded with a few held balls for his tackling efforts. As the game neared the end, Stark, Jimenez and Reynolds regained control of the midfield as they soaked up pressure from the comeback of the Rhinos. It wasn’t enough though as fittingly, OBK slotted a few more majors to pip the Rhino’s horns over the line first.

Final Result:

Rhinos : 13.0.78

Pirahnas: 11.0.66

(We didn’t have point posts)

Best: Kraemer, Lavery, Schmelzer, McGuinnes, Smith

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