My wife was a little miffed on the weekend and rightfully so. A rare weekend off together had been planned as a visit to close friends on our beautiful east coast.
St Pats College, my wifes employer and an occasional employer for me made both the seconds and senior state private schools football finals and requested my skills to cover them.
Wow, what a day.
Over three hours of high quality, desperate and close football, from two of the best school teams in the state. St Pats who are mid domination dynasty and Hutchins, the powerhouse of the south.
The St Pats seconds went down bravely. This was a little sobering after their two convincing wins last year. They can be beaten and it could happen today!
The big game was exactly that. After scoring the first two goals, the St Pats boys had to weather a strong drive from Hutchins, ending in a low scoring and desperate game and a deficit of over a goal coming into full time. So to paint the picture, the three quarter time talk came down to future memories, hard earned goals nearly reached, the 14 players who are moving on at the end of the year finishing on a high after a strong few years and most importantly, leaving nothing in the shed. I was convinced even though I knew the other guys would be getting much the same talk.
It worked. It really worked.
A late fourth quarter “mark” (a clean catch that in AFL means an uncontested kick from a set “mark” is allowed) and the subsequent goal produced identical scores. Then St Pats defended a heart stopping minute more to hang on and two, five minute overtime periods would be played.
They came out strong, scoring three time in the first period, but two were one point “behinds” (8 points total). The game shifts then to one of desperate defence and a fear of losing their gains. It is funny how sport messes with the mind. Ten minutes ago there was an unlikely shift of momentum, but after gaining it, there is often a natural mind shift to a fear of it reversing just as easily. When you have it to lose, it maybe feels more fragile.
They hung on for the second period giving away I think a single point (Australian rules has a dual scoring system with a single point for a “behind” off to the side of the goal posts and 6 points for a clean goal.
The tactical difference is that after points they restart from the goal line, the goals go to the centre, so ironically, the points were in favour of the opposition, because they needed to stay down that end and get at least two before a goal.
There was a lot of skill on display.
Plenty of desperation.
And as always, plenty of spectacular marks. Still in awe of the height some of these kids get.
Highlighted by the one that led to the goal, then to the draw, then to overtime and the eventual win.
At the top of that mountain is number 13 for St Pats, the game changer and a future star.
Of the 1100 files taken over three and a half hours, 350 were submitted, 50 kept in reserve (most of the above are from that set), because they either focussed on the opposition or they are “seconds”. Occasionally I just missed them first time through and about another 100 are good enough to be used, but just surplus (some players get-got too often to bother with all the takes).
I was happy with my one shot at a time process, my timing seeming to be on for the whole job and the freedom of not having to get numbers was exactly that.
Phil from work covered the seniors game, well five minutes of it with four other jobs to do, hammering a half dozen passages of play with 20fps, sharing a yarn and the cold, he crucially got one of the game winning number 13, but I was happy with my system, which was a contrast in almost every way. He had his ten images used in the paper and online.