Upon very late notice, DRAGONZ_RULE has done his best to change into his gear and get onto the field before time runs out.
With 747 words between the stars, he hopes he has done his team proud with the late effort on the hooter!
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LIFE, LOVE AND RUGBY LEAGUE: A HELLISH PARADISE
CHAPTER 3
“Overlap, play the overlap!!”
A bullet-like pass, cutting out two players and hitting Tom square on the chest. An unimpeded run down the sideline. Tryyyyytime … again.
Bluey received hearty pats on the back from his teammates; adulation from the small crowd. His pet play had come off yet again – the double-pumped cut-out to his best mate, Tom Edwards, saw Bluey rack up his fourth try assist of the afternoon, and Tom his fifth try. The third of Tom’s quintuple had seen Bluey shape to throw a long ball before superbly utilising his fullback in a perfectly-executed second man play, leaving Jeremy to send Tom hurtling towards the line.
It was a clinic from start to finish, with Renown United’s U16s side piling on 60-plus points for the tenth straight game. It was no coincidence that Bluey had started playing for Tom’s team ten games ago …
Staring down the barrel of receiving a Wooden Spoon for the first time in years, Coach Edwards (Tom’s father) had turned to his son in desperation one Saturday morning, asking him if he had any friends that could play rugby league. Tom told him that Bluey used to play footy when he lived in Cobar (before his parents separated, of course), and after a quick trip to the Wilson residence that day, Bluey was hastily grabbing his boots from the cupboard, simultaneously trying to tie his bootlaces and pull the Renown United jersey over his head.
The rest, as they say, borders on history for the club. Bluey’s performances at half-back were the stuff that Mr Edwards’ dreams were made of. A scything run here, a chip’n’chase there, a brilliant short-ball, an exquisite cut-out pass – for all intensive purposes, Bluey appeared to be the complete package as a teenage footballer.
But something nagged at Bluey’s conscience. Despite finally feeling accepted at school due to his heroics on the footy field over the months prior, Bluey couldn’t help but think that something important was missing. He initially thought it was his mother, but although he missed her deeply and hoped to see her soon, he intuitively knew it wasn’t that. Whilst one match-winning performance after another on the field had attracted the attention of scouts from the two local ARL teams – the Cronulla Sharks and the St George Dragons – Bluey knew it was something more than a desire to impress them in the upcoming semi-final that kept him feeling slightly hollow.
What is was, though, he didn’t know …
“Run, Bluey, run! Draw and pass, now, now, NOW!!”
Tom’s father needn’t have bothered. Bluey knew exactly what he was doing. He didn’t even feel the exultation of a semi-final victory, in truth. “I guess it’s hard to feel too excited when you win by 70 points,” he thought to himself. Although his team-mates mobbed him, and the Dragons scouts in the crowds nodded approvingly and scribbled something – presumably his name – down in their notebook, Bluey struggled to feel the emotion of it all. From potential Wooden Spooners to Grand Finalists, and raging-hot favourites to win the Premiership at that, but it didn’t matter all that much to him.
But then, out of the corner of his eye, Bluey noticed something; someone. A girl standing slightly apart from the rest of the crowd, watching him. As Bluey turned to get a closer look, she blushed deeply but continued to stare, a smile on her face. It was at this point that Tom rushed over to him, enveloping Bluey in a big bear-hug and yelling about how Renown was going to the Grand Final. Annoyed, Bluey tried to extricate himself from Tom’s grip as quickly as possible, but by the time he had escaped and turned back to look for the girl, she was gone. In that instant, Bluey realised that which he had been missing this entire time – a girl to share his stories with, a girl to be his friend; a girlfriend.
“And she’s the one,” mused Bluey. “She’s the one for me.”
With the flame now burning strongly inside his chest, Bluey allowed himself to be picked up by his teammates and placed atop their shoulders. Carrying him off the field as if he were a 300 game ARL legend, Bluey knew what he had to do next weekend …
He knew that he had to win the Grand Final for Renown United.
And he knew, he just knew, that she would be watching …
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