Last home-and-away match

So on a nice warm '21 in the shade day' me and Jacko, Sarah and little Harrison jumped in the commodore and headed over to Bassedean Oval, which is now know as Steel Blue Oval to watch the Black ducks take on Peel Thunder for the last match for the home and away season. This match didn't really mean much as Swan Districts had already made it into the fourth and final place for the semi's, but nobody wants to start the finals with a lose under their belt hay.



As the first quarter came to a close the District boys were up by four goals 7.0 to 3.2, and with the mob in tow we started our normal walkabout around the oval. This photo was taken in front of our massive club house the JOHN COOPER / JOHN TODD PAVILION, okay it's not the MCG but still it gives the Toronto Waterboard Oval Canteen a run for it's money!



For the second quarter we grabbed a few hotdogs and a bag of chips, and it was time to hit one of the big grandstand the mighty BILL WALKER STAND. Which I reckon you can fit at least a hundred blokes on a good day, so this is the view from the Mr Walker stand and as you can see it's a real beaut view. After the siren sounded we were 11.4 to 5.5, which in anyones book is a pretty good start.




After the kiddies kicked their ball around the ground which everyone doe's during the quarters, it was time for a walk to the east side of the oval which your's truly likes to call the Red Rooster End (because just over the fence is a Red Rooster Restaurant...... makes sense yeah).



The third quarter went just like the others with the Swans keeping a nice lead, with one of their best players being a young aboriginal fella called Nick Naitanui. Now here's a little tip for ya... your's truly reckons (with all my six years experience of watching aerial Ping Pong) that Nicko is gonna be the NUMBER ONE DRAUGHT PICK in this years AFL Draught !!! Fairdinkum I reckon we will loose at least three young players to the AFL clubs, but Nicko is a big skinny kid and with a good club and some good feeds behind him they could build him into a friggin great player (don't forget you heard it here first in the sandgropers blog)




But with the third quarter over and with the Swans in front 13.10 to 8.7 the players minds started to wonder, a bit like your's truly.....
I'll tell ya one thing when I was a boy I don't remember the waterboys around Macquarie United looking like that mate.



Then before we knew it Peel kicked five goals to even things up then another to hit the lead, but with four minutes left the Swanies Nick Naitanui kicked a beaut goal from 55 meters out and then Chris Smith backed it up with another to help the swans to a win by 15.11 101 to 14.9 93. Strewth that was lucky and now this weekend we head down to Fremantle Oval to take on South Fremantle in the first semi-final, were also in the reserves semi-final against Claremont and our last years colts grand final winners take on Perth in their semi-final. So with fingers crossed we might go away with something out of this weekend, we might go down to watch them but we will see. But the kiddies had a beaut time kicking the ball about and they just love the hotdogs and chips, fairdinkum you can never fill these little mugs up!