I’m quite the fan of SANFL grounds and Hamra Homes Oval is no exception for an interesting afternoon out. The whole experience is very old-school style with a grassed hill, concrete concourse, manual operated scoreboard and goalposts about half the size of the standard AFL post.
The old canteen serves up coffee in plain white styrofoam cups and a couple of coins will buy you a sausage in bread or a steak sandwich. The ground announcer is hardly audible on the overhead speakers and a trip to the loos means keeping an eye peeled for spiders at all times.
With the wild weather forecast in mind I opted to view the game from the confines of the sheltered stand.
The first quarter dished up some pretty decent footy as the rain failed to get on top of the football. A highlight of the term was Cook kicking a crafty goal after Walker easily brushed off and evaded two opponents just outside the 50. McLeod looked a figure of his former self, clearing the ball with ease from the centre square and Tippett slotted two set shots on goal.
Just as we looked to assert a lead Melbourne live wire Liam Jurrah opened the Dees’ scoring with a trademark six-pointer over his head in the goal square. Unfortunately he went down with a shoulder injury shortly after and was joined by teammate Daniel Bell after a matter of minutes.
Despite Melbourne’s purple patch they ended the term only two points shy of our 20-point total.
Not a lot can be said for the second quarter as we struggled to convert in front of goal. Five behinds were added compared to Melbourne’s four goals two. What was most frustrating was witnessing the trouble we would go to, to have a shot on goal only to score a point and then the ease with which Melbourne would convert in an uncongested forward line.
Play opened up in the third and despite some more wayward kicking we managed to hold on to a three-point lead at the final break.
Melbourne snatched the lead back early in what panned out to be an exciting 20 minutes of football. The score seesawed and for once our opponents were the ones having issues in front of goal maybe due to the amount of good old fence banging by Crows supporters on the boundary line in a bid to put them off.
In the end a free kick to Tippett, who took a massive mark a moment before, in the forward line, set up our own pre season fairytale finish. Finally our first win on the board for 2010 and our first narrow win since I can remember.
So after an autumn day out at a regional oval I departed feeling satisfied with a victory and with a sore backside and dent in my spine courtesy of the old aluminium Footy Park bench that I had sat on all afternoon.
