Sunday, August 31, 2008

Football-Lance 'Buddy' Franklin

Did you see it? Did you hear it? Were you there? My god, we saw it heard it and yes we were there. Where? The game last night between Hawthorn and Carlton at the Telstra Dome Melbourne. What a game! I now have to confess, I barrack for Hawthorn in the AFL and have done so for some time.
We were given tickets to the game from my Carlton friend as she was unable to attend and her seats are in the Carlton members. DH was a bit freaked by this as he remembers back to the days at Princess Park when the Carlton fans were quite vocal and was concerned this is what was going to happen here. I did try to reassure him that everybody is quite normal and pleasant as I'd sat with McMansion last year and wasn't insulted or abused. He backed down and said we'd go but if there was any trouble we'd be out of there. DS9 and DS6 were coming too and I think DH was more concerned for their safety than his own.We arrived around 6pm as the crowd was growing. Very impressed with the seats (thanks McMansion) and waited while the crowd began to swell.
Why was it such an exciting game? Buddy was to kick his 100th goal of the season and Fev was 8 from the tonne. The game started with Carlton flooding the forward line to stop Buddy from getting the ball, but at the 20min mark, Buddy marked and kicked his first goal. The crowd then merged into the aisles, waiting like a pack of wolves for Buddy to kick his next goal. They weren't disappointed. At the 26min mark, Buddy kicked it. The crowd went wild and ran onto the crowd. As well as congratulating Buddy, who was whisked off the ground by security, the crowd converged into the centre and huddled round the Carlton players, wishing that their star forward would kick the tonne too. It added 8 minutes onto the first quarter and many announcements to get the spectators off the ground. Unfortunatly, Fev was left stranded on 99 kicking 7 goals and 3 behinds in his last game of the season. The other bonus, yes Hawthorn did win.
Roll on September and the Finals.

1 comment:

Pauline Laing said...

Liz, even *I* saw this - it was on the news (of course) and I delightedly told my family "Hey, Lizzie's there!". Just hope the boys don't expect the footy to be that exciting every time! Must have been worth rugging up for.
Pauline
PS personally I hate football, but hey, I'm still *technically* Australian.