Wildball 2002 and Round 7 Summary

G'day to all again. Sorry for the lateness of the report, but I was hoping to get all of the results through from the BARFL so that I could give you all of the updated ladders, goalkickers etc, however this was not to be. Therefore, you'll just have to settle for a bit more of my dribble. As I continually seem to say, it was yet another big week for the West London lads - both on and off the field. On field the Wildcats produced probably their best performance for the year, while the Raiders again had to fight hard to hold out a determined and continually improving Emus. Off the field saw the Annual Wildcats and Wildkittens Ball which was yet another absolute ripper of an event, with 130+ people (including the Silly Old F*ck Neil Talbot) dolling themselves up and hitting the Hammersmith Emerald Centre for a night full of festivities.

Having been struggling a touch for the last couple of weeks, the increasing tempo at training seems to have started to pay dividends for Wildcats, who put together their best four quarter performance of the year against a much improved Sussex Swans. No longer the easy beats they once were, the Cats needed to win against Sussex to set up a break in fourth spot. A loss would have seen them both equal on points, and after a bit of a scare in the first quarter, the Wildcats dominated the rest of the game. They set up the 13 goal win by kicking 7 goals into the wind in the second quarter, virtually breaking the Swans backs by half time. The effort was made even better by the fact that once again there were a number of key personnel missing. Ako dominated at CHF, kicking 5 goals and taking a fair old hang in a best on ground performance, Richo chipped in with another bag of 8, Bryce did well in the ruck all day and Aubs turned in his best game for the year. Even more promising signs continued on the EU front with Belly continuing his impressive form, Double D breaking packs open across half forward, and all of the others ably assisting them.

The Raiders and Emus continued on from where they left things at their last meeting, with another ferocious encounter at Trailfinders. Despite the Raiders winning by 10 goals, I can vouch for the fact that it was a no holds barred physical encounter. Or if you don't believe me, just ask Neilo who had a bit of a hitout and couldn't walk the next day! Pratty kicked 5 goals for the Raiders, while myself and Plugger both chimed in with 3 a piece (albeit the fact that Plugger was spoon fed and could only manage 3.7), and a couple of newcomers in Dan Hopkins and Mark Harmer both performing well. For the Emus Bano was great in the mid-field along with Stu Shuttleworth and Andy Carroll in the ruck, while Dave Wayland also worked hard all day.

That night everyone converged on Hammersmith for the all inclusive night out, with the King of the Ball aptly going to King Schmidtty (AKA Ron Jeremy), with a brilliant night being had by all. For all of the photos, visit the social area (click here) or check out Richo's site www.cprichmond.com and follow the photos link to the ball (amongst other albums - why not check them all out while you're there!!).

So this is how things are at the half way point of the year. The Wildcats have now set a break up over the chasers and are sitting in fourth spot behind the other "big three" and ready to launch our claim on the premiership, whilst the Raiders are sitting second and the Emus third in the Conference, both behind Regent's Park. Blokes are seriously going to have to pull their fingers out though and work out what they want to get out of the year. To this point we have had over 120 players run out in club colours for the year, and I can guarantee you they'll all be making themselves available come September. This is a great situation for the coaching panel, not so great for some of the blokes that will have to miss out. So why not make it even harder and get down to training over the next two months - otherwise it'll be a lot easier and there'll be plenty of "I told you so's" for the blokes that miss out on the September action.