It’s been an eternity since I last blogged about the trials and tribulations of the might Agent Orange Sports Club. LifeFish readers will never have heard of them so I will provide a bit of background. We are an indoor sports club that formed in 2006. At first, we only had an Indoor Soccer side, but soon after we started an indoor cricket team too. I take my indoor cricket a lot more seriously than I do soccer (mostly because I never played soccer growing up and thus am not all that co-ordinated).

For those of you unfamiliar with indoor cricket or cricket itself, the indoor version plays a lot differently to the regular version of the game in terms of both rules and tactics. However, the fundamentals of batting, bowling and fielding are still very important. We play in a six a side competition, once a week all year round. At one stage we actually had three teams going so I was playing three times a week, but with outdoor cricket as well that all got a bit much.

When we first started out we were in the bottom grade (M grade I believe). The team has changed a little over the years, but there is four of us who have been there since the first season. We won the B grade premiership last season (unfortunately I missed the game as I was hanging out in the USA with the Life Fish). Next week, we begin our play-off campaign to defend our title in the same grade. Hopefully, we can also earn promotion into A grade and complete an almighty rise to the top.

As reigning champions it’s been a bit of a weird season. We’ve struggled to get a team together consistently, having to draft in inexperienced players and never really getting anything rhythm with our performances. We started out the season in A grade, but after the grading period ended we were dropped back down to B/C league. We’ve managed to get a bit of experience back the last couple of weeks and finished the season strong to make the finals of B grade. As captain of the side, I’ve got a few selection dilemmas for the first week of the finals now as we managed to unearth some talent while others were injured and unavailable.

A few months back we ordered a new playing strip. Our previous one was a plain orange polo with our name written across the back. Two weeks ago we took delivery our new ones and they are absolutely awesome, by far the most professional in any of the leagues at the indoor sports centre. I’ve attached some snaps of me modelling it!

I’ll be sure to keep everyone informed of our finals performances via the blog. In the mean time, I’d welcome anyone interested to follow us on our web site, Facebook and Twitter!

When St. Kilda missed a few shots at goal early in the 3rd term, the game was all but over. I ended up leaving the ground early in the last quarter as the game turned into a thrashing and I didn’t really want to be there anymore. On the train home there were a lot of St. Kilda supporters in decent spirits, despite their team still only having one premiership in 114 years.

It was disappointing that the game ended up having a 56 point margin in the replay, the effort of both sides in the first game deserved something more epic. I’m absolutely gutted that Collingwood broke their 20 year drought and even more upset that they did it in such convincing fashion and have a young list so they may be in line for more success in the next few years.

I often find it difficult to really get emotionally invested in a game of any sport if my team isn’t playing. I’m so passionate with my hatred of Collingwood though that I have no such problem when they are playing and I found out on Saturday that it’s even more so when it’s a Grand Final. For much of the 2nd half I had a heap of nervous energy and excitement.

The signs for the Saints were terrible in the early stages of the match, Collingwood kicked a goal within the first minute and proceeded to dominate possession for much of the first quarter and kick some tough goals and you got the sense that it was going to be their day. They went into quarter time a couple of goals ahead.

In the 2nd quarter Collingwood absolutely dominated, they went inside their forward 50 zone a ridiculous amount of times, but somehow St. Kilda’s defence managed to repell a lot of their attacks. Collingwood’s key forward Travis Cloke missed an easy set shot and then an open goal from 15 metres out on the run, if he’d kicked either of them you got the sense the game was Collingwood’s at half time. He didn’t though, and while the margin was under 5 goals St. Kilda had hope.

The 3rd quarter in a Grand Final is known as the premiership quarter, so often the team that makes their move in the 3rd goes on to win the match. St. Kilda’s one and only ruckman picked up a hamstring injury in the 2nd, forcing them to make a few positional changes and it changed the game dramatically in their favour. The intensity of the contest lifted dramatically, St. Kilda started to apply their famous frontal pressure and Collingwood began to crumble. St. Kilda were able to get a bit more of the ball than they did in the 1st half and were pretty efficient when they got it down forward. The scored 3.3 to Collingwood’s very inaccurate 0.5. It set-up a dramatic final term with the Saints trailing by just 8 points and with the momentum.

The final quarter was a classic, the endeavour from both teams lifted a notch and it was frantic. The first goal was going to be crucial for either team’s self belief. It took 7 or 8 minutes to come, but Collingwood managed to kick it giving themselves a 14 point buffer. Five minutes later though, St. Kilda’s Lenny Hayes (awarded medal for best on ground) kicked a long bomb goal and the Saints got another in quick time! The margin now 1 point.

When Brendan Goddard lept up and stood on the head of his opponent and took one of the more memorable Grand Final marks and kicked the goal, St. Kilda hit the lead for the first time in the entire match! Being at the ground, you go the sense that it would be the moment that defined the match and I guess in a way it did, but not how we thought!

Travis Cloke managed to get another set shot at goal from just on 50, it feel short and got pushed through for a point, putting Collingwood within a goal. A few minutes later another deep ball into the Collingwood forward line fell to him at the back of the pack and he kicked it, returning Collingwood to the lead by one point, with 3:30 left on the clock.

Collingwood took another mark on 50 and another set shot fell short, this time pushed out of bounds rather than through the points, any score there and the game probably doesn’t end in a tie. With 2 minutes left the Saints worked it up the other end and a scrappy kick inside 50 that could have rolled any number of ways ended up not sitting up for an open Saints player and instead rolling through for a point, levelling the scores.

A hush came over the crowd of 100,016 for the last minute and a half of play. St. Kilda had the ball up their end, but couldn’t manage to get it through for any type of score. The siren went, players collapsed on the ground, everyone in the stands just stood up and murmured to each other, it was the most eerie thing ever, nobody knew what to do. The last time the Grand Final was drawn was in 1977 and before that 1948, so for a lot of us we were either too young to remember it or it happened before we were born.

Since the game, debate has raged whether or not we should have extra time in the Grand Final rather than a replay. It was such a bruising contest where both teams played like they didn’t have to play against for 5 months and now they have to do the entire thing again next week. i like the idea of a replay, but maybe that’s just because it was one of the best games of AFL I’ve ever seen and I want to go through it all again.

Who knows what will happen next week and how much energy players have left, it could end up being a one sided match if one team recovers better than the other. The general consensus about the game is that Collingwood should feel the most disappointed to only tie, if they had taken their chances in front of goal and been more damaging with their domination of possession they’d be premiers right now. Meanwhile, the body language and attitude of the Saints players post game was excellent, hopefully that translates into a win next week!

I’ll be posting a post-match report with some photos post-game, but since Life Fish now has a wide reaching international readership I thought I’d post this now to make everyone aware that the game is happening this weekend and you can easily watch it in most countries! Australian Rules Football is going to be unlike anything you have ever seen before. Contrary to popularly held overseas belief it is nothing like Rugby!

Unfortunately, my team, the mighty Brisbane Lions didn’t even make it to September this year. So during the AFL Finals Series, my focus has turned to rooting heavily against the Collingwood Magpies, a team that I love to hate as much as I love to love my own team.

Unfortunately, this is going terribly. Collingwood have won their two finals very convincingly and head into the Grand Final as massive favourites against the St. Kilda Saints. My Dad is a lifelong Saints fan, has travelled interstate for away games the last few years and has had to suffer through 44 years since their last premiership. For his sake alone, I hope the Saints can do it! I have a lot of fear when it comes to the big game this Saturday though, if Collingwood win it will be depressing enough, but if it’s an absolute thrashing that will be even worse.

USA TV Coverage
ESPN Classic – LIVE 23:30 EDT Friday 24th of September
ESPN2 – 01:00 EDT Saturday 24th of September

UK TV Coverage
ESPN – Saturday 25 September 04:30 BST

Europe TV Coverage
Eurosport 2 – Saturday 25 September 06:30 CET

Canadian TV Coverage
TSN 2 – Friday 24 September 23:30 Eastern

New Zealand TV Coverage
Sky Television – Saturday 25 September 10:00 NZT

When the scandal broke, I was absolutely shattered. We played off in the ’06, ’07, ’08 and ’09 grand finals, winning in ’07 and ’08. I spent thousands of dollars flying up to Sydney at the last minute and buying tickets to the games in ’07 and ’08. Being there for the win in 2007 was one of the highlights of my life, a memory which is now tainted.

I’ve been a financial member (costing around $200 a season) since the club began, they’ve just moved to a new ‘state of the art’ stadium, but I’ve not been to a single since game the rort was exposed early in the year. With the 2010 season coming to a close last weekend, it’s time for me to make a decision on whether I should by following them and/or continuing to be a member into the future.

I’m not entirely convinced by the players and coaching staff claiming that they had no knowledge of what was going on. I feel lots of angst towards those responsible and even though those bad seeds have supposedly now been removed, I don’t know if I can learn to love again.

Not only do I feel burned by my own team, I have some ill-feeling for the code of rugby league and the NRL itself as well. The game has a lot of problems and fails miserable when compared to Australian Rules Football and the ship that the AFL run. I still enjoy watching games, but the administration side of the game is a joke. It’s entirely possible that I may choose to abandon being a fan of the sport altogether.

The Storm are the only Rugby League team in town, so if I stop following them and choose to follow someone else I’ll only get to see one game live a season unless I travel interstate. If I had to nominate another team I have an interest in, it would be the Canberra Raiders. Being good mates with RaiderDuck and him being a huge fan, I could see myself supporting them, albeit nowhere near as closely or with the fervour that I did with the Storm.

Please tell me what you think I should do!

Poker
July was probably one of the worst months I’ve had poker wise, basically got owned shot taking at higher stakes early in the month and then battled running bad, poor concentration, low confidence, crappy software and lack of hand volume later in the month. Feeling much better about things now, learned a lot of lessons out of it all and August is already looking a lot better.

Indoor Cricket
Finals campaign for both Agent Orange sides was woeful/depressing. We just can’t seem to perform when it matters. Someone should sack the captain…

The Ashes
The series has been going pretty terrible for Australia thus far, but at least my prop bets with RaiderDuck have been keeping things interesting. He’s been doing pretty well in the batting department with his team of Watson/Hughes, Ponting and Clarke vs. my Katich, Hussey, North. Thankfully though, Siddle and Hilfy have minimised the damage for me in the last couple of tests with their wickets.

Interesting Clip
This is a few months old, but pretty amazing if you haven’t seen it.

I’ve been critical of Selwood in the past, and probably thought we should de-list him at the end of last year. Under Voss he has grown though, as have other fringe players. His work in the last few weeks has given me new respect for him as did his eyes for the ball in this sick contest (video). Well done to Rance as well, too bad he fractures his cheekbone and he is in my fantasy team

For Australia Day this year we went to the Australian Open Tennis at Melbourne Park. The tournament is into its second week, so most of the big singles matches are being played in the two main arenas, but there was still plenty of matches and stuff to see on the outside show courts. We took in a bit of doubles action, the legends matches were really entertaining. Sure, the guys are past their prime, but they were having a lot of fun and playing up for the crowd. Henri Leconte/Mark Philippoussis vs Mats Wilander/Joakim Nystrom was a good one, as was Pat Cash/Wayne Arthurs vs. Peter McNamara/PaulMcNamee. We saw some of the Anna-Lena Groenefeld/Patty Schnyder vs. Lucie Safarova/Galina Voskoboeva women’s doubles. And we also watched Andy Murray and Jo-Wilfriend Tsonga warming up on the practice court and then later Andy Roddick. I hadn’t been to the tennis in a few years and the experience defenitely makes me want to go back next year and mayube see some of the bigger names play.

Today I managed to reach my 600,000 VPP target for the year and I’m officially no longer prisoner to PokerStars. Next year my target is going to be a lot lower, allowing me to play less and expand my horizons at other sites and away from poker a bit.

When we got back home from the days play we hit the tables for a bit, with the pressure of reaching the 600k milestone off it is nice not to have to be worried about getting hands in or anything like that. In the last week or so I’ve been taking some shots at $3/$6nl, mostly because I’ve been noticing a few decent games. I feel like I’m doing pretty well, haven’t analyzed my results or anything and have no idea how I’ve actually done.

The second day’s play of the test match was a lot more entertaining as Australia wrestled the lead in the match from South Africa. Siddle and Hauritz both bowled really well and the selector’s were vindicated in their decision to go with them for the match. We will be going to the match again tomorrow and then will probably hit Crown afterwards and might even play some live pokers (lol). If we do, I’ll be sure to post a report as there is a possibility we will be meeting up with some other 2+2ers there.