Day 11 without alcohol. In lieu of fresh inspiration, and as a break from the old scheduling emails, here is another old netball game report. I was going to say, in response to overwhelming public demand, but it’s too early in the morning to lie. You can see my aversion to paragraphs goes back a long way.
From: Kirsty Jordan
Sent: Monday, 2 December 2013 9:57 p.m.
To: Hospital Hot Shots
Subject: RE: Monday Game
Hi Everyone,
Me again! Apologies for the late report, the girls and I are still working our way through ” The Lord of the Rings “. Our first proper game of the season had us playing ” PMS “, apparently this stands for “Perpetual Motion Machine” : luckily, their netball is better than their spelling. They are a group of friends who have been playing together for five years. We were playing in hot yoga conditions again, with our least favourite referee. We thought he had been improving but was back to his erratic best tonight. Laura was so cross at his calls she took herself off for the last quarter. I kept being called for obstruction and contact, but maybe that was because I kept crashing into everyone. At 6.20 we had six players and the opposition only had four. Someone offered that I go off, but then I was meant to play for the opposition, and by the time I had figured out what was happening, the rest of their team arrived, and it was game on. We had myself, Dean, Jonny, Laura, and Sarah x 2. James arrived after the first quarter. Tall Sarah was attack all night, other Sarah was centre. Jonny was defence for part of the game and then on attack. I was defence the whole game. James I think was centre, Laura attack and centre, Dean was everywhere it seemed. It was a hard and fast game. I would have been glad to have a quarter off but the teams gender imbalance confused me so much that I never made it off ( some sort of complex swap would have been needed I think? ). After the first quarter we had a slender lead, which we extended over the second quarter. Tall Sarah made most of our points. There seemed to be more than the usual amount of turnover of the ball, mostly due to the speed of the game, but also the unpredictability of being called for replay. P.M.S were beginning to get annoyed. In the third quarter, the opposition started to fight back as we seemed to be tiring. They started scoring in earnest, including a number of two pointers. Heading into the last quarter we were neck and neck. However, ongoing pressure started to tell, and P.M.S began making mistakes. The final score was 25:19 to us. P.M.S were a bit surly during the shaking of hands but when I had a quick chat to them afterwards, they thawed a little once I told them that they probably should have won as they were a better team. I see from our updated list of fixtures that we are playing them twice more this season. Which reminds me, the fixture list that we had has been changed. Hopefully Joe will be able to direct us to the updated version. We still have a game both next Sunday ( 17:40 vs Winter 2013 Blues ) and next Monday ( 18:20 vs Mellie ). Joe was unable to play tonight due to a temporary gastrointestinal complaint but I’m sure he will be glad to continue his managerial role. This was James’s last game for us, it is very sad to see him go. The enthusiastic way he flies around the court will be hard to replace.
See you all next week. Let Joe know if you are able to play either or both games.
And don’t forget the importance of washing your hands.
Kirsty.