Mixy
this is how I saw it
Those that know me know I support the whole club not just 1st grade so off I went to WIN stadium Wollongong to cheer on the boys. Got there about 10 minutes before kickoff and caught the end of the warmups and hello Konrad is wearing jersey 21. Couldn't see Ikahiifo there so realised Koni had replaced him with Peyroux into the back row.
Evertytime ive been to Wollongong is been cold shitty weather and guess what it was freezing, drizzly windy and a friggen seagull shit on my sleeve of my hoodie grrrrrrr. So I got into the stadium and there was about 150 odd people there and they had under 8s playing the curtain raiser so I looked for any fellow Warriors supoorters. Nope just me so im thinking where the hell I should sit. Made my way around all the parents and spotted Stacey Jones going to the Coaches box so I thought that's me. Followed him to it and I sat just under it which got a bit of getting used to becos everytime he sent messages down to the trainers they would turn around and give him the thumbs up which the first 2 times I gave them a thumbs up back becos I thought they were doing it to me cos I was the only Warriors supporter there.
Im always interested to see how our fringe first graders go and the oppositions fringe firstgraders and fellow Kiwis. Was keen to see how Packer shaped up.
We kicked off and pretty much went set for set for the first few minutes before Fish gapped it down the left to set Maumalo up for a try. From the insuing kickoff Peyroux drops it on tackle 2 grrrr and that set the Cutters score. Our second try came from a great Lisone offload in traffic (3 defenders) to Fish who chucks the gas on and steps the fullback to score.
Next try Fish makes a break deep in our half gasses it again and draws the fullback to Maumalo who ran about 35 to get tackled but managed to go over with momentum. Lino misses the kick. Infact didn't make a kick all day, all our points came from 6 tries. Peyroux scored the 4th try from a nice give and go with a little break from Lino. Tries 5 and 6 came to Maumalo who did well both times to score in the corner by chrashing over. One was when he carried Etu Nabuli over the line. Poor old Mason Lino missed all 6 conversions and would u believe hit each upright and the crossbar with 3 kicks. The cutters made a comeback with 3 quick tries and they had all the momentum and their goal kicker was nailing them from everywhere. There last try made it 24-22 to us with 5 minutes to go and they scored right next to the post and their kicker hit the upright hahahaha good job. We held on for the win.
Like I usually do, here are a few things that caught my eye that you don't usually see.
Etu Nabuli is a freaking giant the Fijian winger. Man mountain. John Palavi got put in a dangerous position in the 2nd half, it was bad. In my opinion it was like Trent Merrins one in SOO 3. During Maumaolos 4th try our 5/6 passed it to him then got massively taken out late (ended up coming off possible broken ribs) and our captain John Palavi ran in started fighting the guy. Both teams were ready to rumble but the boys held Palavi out and cool heads prevailed (imagine Mannering doing that). Konrad got put on report for elbowing a guy in the head on the ground. Hes got carryover points from the Anthony Tupou incident so he could be in trouble. About 3 sets after the Cutters forward took out our 5/8 he was a block runner in a cutters play and Matt Allwood came running in and elbowed him in the face haha it was really blatent but the ref and touchies missed it so play on, good work allwood. Players to impress/suck were.....
Lisone was the best forward on the park. Heaps of offloads, broke tackles and played big minutes to. Maumalo was great to although some of his hitups were a bit handbreakish, but he scored 4 tries and in all 4 he had work to do to get the ball down. Fish was good to. First half he was on fire with heaps of gas, made some good hits to, really stinging tackles. I was having a laugh to myself becos he made sum strong tackles and ran well with the ball and was injury free then he goes up for a bomb and mis judges his leap doesn't take the ball and doesn't touch any tacklers then he starts limping haha. They were my 3 top players for the match. David Bhana was a workhorse all day and played the whole 80. James Bell off the bench was good to, small guy but good footwork before the line gets him good metres. Nathaniel Roache didn't do any thing special. He went to 5/8 when Hingano went off. Konrad didn't offer much, Allwood is still allmud, he should stick to Porn since he has a porn name lol, Peyroux nothing special as always. Russell Packer was strong but well contained. Played the first 60 minutes then had the last 10. Pretty big spell. Adam Tuimavavae-Gerard (former warrior) was also well contained. The last 5 minutes were helter skelter with us holding a 2 point lead but then Packer dropped a pass with 40 seconds left which gave us the victory. At that point I turned around to Stacey gave him a clap and thumbs up which he replied with a pretend pulling out his hair action and a thumbs up also thanked me for coming to watch. No worries mate. So all in all a good day and will have a good sleep and off to the footy stadium tomoro for the first grade. Cheers peeps
