The New England Nomads Mens team have lost their first game of the year with a 7 point loss to Moree out at the Moree showgrounds. Despite the efforts of the ever-reliable trio of Wulu Hall, David “Modra” Richards and Clarrie “Das Super Coach” Barker with assistance from the new boy Lewis Wheatley (who took ten years to finally come and play a game with us), the Nomads had trouble countering the run and overhead marking power of the Sun-Eagle combo. Up forward Ira Sulzberger, who had hidden his forward-line skills in the back pocket was a revelation, relishing his new role as an attacking forward. The Nomads only had three goal; Modra with 5, the aforementioned Ira-the-Revelator with 4, and Das Super Coach with three. The Nomads had their opportunities up forward but failed to capitalise. The final scores were The Combo 19.9.93 to the Nomads 12.14.86.

The Nomads drove in the Sportune bus through heavy showers for most of the trip but thankfully the rain-clouds had cleared by the time the team arrived in Moree. Only 15 players had made the trip across, with a number of Nomads unable to play thanks to work, the uni holidays, intensive schools and research trips. It looked like it might be a long day. There had been some concern that we would not have a full team – after grave misunderstanding between the X-Dog and Alec Oates Herrere about whether the game was still on. X-dog knocked on the door and in his best Finnish said it was time to go, which Alex interpreted as Spanish for ‘the game isn’t on’ and went back to sleep. Eventually their linguistic impasse was resolved and both headed off on the bus. Heipa hei, hasta manana.

Captain Modra won the toss and kicked to the northern end. The Combo got away early on the Nomads but the midfield brilliance of Mod, Clarrie and Wulu soon turned things around. Lewie, who was thrown into the ruck in his first game of football, was winning nearly all of the ruck contests. The biggest problem was the lack of experience in the forward line and the inability to keep the ball inside our front half. Nonetheless, Nomads were still in the hunt at the first break trailing by only 4 points, the scores being 2.4.16 (Nomads) to 3.2.20 (The Combo).

The second quarter saw the Nomads fall further behind. The Nomads were unable to stop the run on the flanks of many of the Combo’s smaller players. There were still lots of good things happening. Alec Herrere who had never played football before was getting to contests and spoiling marks like a seasoned back-man and Sam Feltham was providing lots of run on the wing. Still the The Combo kicked 5 goals to the Nomads’ 2. At halftime the scores were the Nomads 4.7.31 to the Combos 8.4.52.

Whatever it was that the Coach Clarrie said at half time it seemed to have worked. And the Nomads came out firing kicking 6 goals for the quarter and going to the final break ahead. In this quarter we saw an enormous amount of run from Wulu, Clarrie and Mod. Up forward Ira was first to the ball and marking strongly on the ground and if he had kicked straight in this quarter would have had a genuine bag – apparently the final tally was 4.8 and most of those behinds were “committed” in this third quarter. Still Ira’s commitment to the hard ball was admirable – it is often itneresting when backmen go forward. There tends to be more honouring of the work that has gone before to get it there. Lindsay Brown was his usual pugnacious self on the wing. At the final break the scores were Nomads 19.9.69 to 9.7.61.

The final quarter could hav gone either way and whent he final siren sounded the Nomads were behind by one point. A mark was taken just on the siren and a goal was kicked after the final bell and blew the difference out to 7 points. It was not a great start to the year but there are lots and lots of positives. We gained a new forward in Ira and a new ruckman in Lewie. And Modra is back in flying form. Let’s hope over the next few weeks we can get the full complement on the paddock and turn things around.

Finally, full credit to Harri Munday for going above and beyond the call of (which our resident linguist Taidhg would call a supererogatory act). Big drive there and back – so there’s a few of the team that owes you are drink or two Harri.

Awards
President’s Award: David Richards
Captain’s award: Xavier Walsh
Coach’s Award: Lewis Wheatley
Meehans Plumbing award: Wulu Hall
Players’ player: Ira Sulzberger

Round 1 2021

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