Post Ten

Saturday April 10th
I’m sure some of the boys will want to join the ‘backpacking culture’ after their stay at Mooloolaba. The sights and experiences at the backpackers will be probably something the boys will be talking about for a while. We travelled in a full size greyhound bus to Brisbane and if I had remembered we were playing at the Brisbane Grammar School playing fields rather than the school itself we would have been there very early. My planning gave us a brief tour of; part of the city, the various new road/flyover/tunnel constructions, and the outside of Brisbane Grammar School. Their playing fields are about 15 minutes from their school which consists of about 1600 pupils from age 11-17. There was a rugby carnival on at the fields with a large number of teams including two from New Zealand. Our field is the main football field and it has just been converted from a cricket block which meant it was a little bouncy in the middle. Luckily cloud cover did give us some respite from the hot conditions; I just saw the weather on TV which gave a high of 31 for Brisbane. Possibility of some rain in Melbourne tomorrow. We were looking for a huge improvement from yesterday’s game and we got it. The boys played one of their better games on tour and considering this was their fourth game in a row they did very well. We played four 20 minute periods to enable two drinks breaks as we have done previously. Although we lost 1-0 it was a very good game of football and the boys retained more possession than yesterday. They scored in the 35th minute and had a goal disallowed due to an offside call. The linesman was the player’s father! We had a number of free kick opportunities and made a number of good attacking moves. The best one was a ball delivered by Jarred S into the box and Shamus had made a perfect run but unfortunately couldn’t get it on target in the end, great run though. Billy had a bad foot clash towards the end of the game and had to be helped from the field. Luckily the linesman is also a doctor and was able to do a quick check. Billy is now at their house as they were taking one of the team as a billet, he is in very capable hands, and hopefully nothing is broken. After the game the Brisbane parents put on a BBQ under the trees beside the field and it was gratefully received. From what the parents were saying I think the boys are in for a good time tonight with some going on the Harbour Cat, others going to Sizzler and some going to the movies, more on this tomorrow. The second stage of our journey starts with our flight to Melbourne in the morning.