Swedish Parker!

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Stockholm League, Round 4
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Solna Axemen def by. Södermalm Blues

Qtr Time: 2.1.13 || 1.5.11

Half Time: 6.3.39 || 2.7.19

3Qtr Time: 6.6.42 || 5.12.42

Full Time: 7.7.49 || 7.14.56
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A heartbreaking loss to the Blues…

We may have towelled them in the first round, but with all of their Swedish and Aussie stars returning, plus the mid-season recruitment of gun Centre-Half Forward Stewie (who has an uncanny resemblance to Hawthorn’s Stewie Dew - in more than a few ways…), Södermalm were always going to be tough.

Despite going up against a full-strength opposition without our Male Model/Coach Ryan Kingsley, the Axemen made the most of the blustery conditions at the home of Swedish (Australian) Football to take a commanding lead into the main break.

With a couple of friends in the grandstand having flown all the way from Aus to see me play, I wasn’t about to let them down.

Unfortunatley I did, because after that it was all downhill…

We were outgunned eight scoring shots to three in the third term, with the Blues scoring a couple of late, cheap goals to setup a thrilling run to the finish for the capacity crowd (it was “Ladies Day at the Footy” aka Free Champagne Day).

While a scrappy start to the last quarter saw us edge a solitary point in front with seven or eight minutes left on the clock, we couldn’t hold back Söder’s stars for as long as we needed to.

With the clock counting down and the free booze having dried up, our Axe-hearts were finally broken, as first Stewie snapped a goal out of nowhere and then I found myself alone in front of goals against Blues forwards Joel and Johnny.

I was stuck in no-mans land: stay on my man (”Defense 101 Parker!”) at the goal line, or race out and try to prevent the other one having an easy shot.

In the end I chose the latter, but a simple handball over my head (I’m still yet to see a five foot full-back in the AFL…) unfortunately sealed a well-deserved win for the boys from the South.

MEANWHILE, media coverage of Swedish Aussie Rules has reached saturation point.

Several articles of late have trumped up the game nobody-understands-but-just-assumes-must-be-rugby and how it’s sweeping the nation.

We even scored a full page feature article in one of Sweden’s highest-brow weekend papers.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 8:35 pm and is filed under Sweden, AFL in Sweden. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.