Post Twelve

Tuesday April 13th
Although it was only Saturday since our last game it seems longer. To get the boys back in to the swing of things we had a light practice from 10-11 before our game this afternoon at 1.30pm. Rowville’s Western Campus was easy to find and only 15-20 minutes away ably guided by our top map reader Caleb. The whole school has close to 2000 students from Year 7-12. The Eastern Campus contains the sports academy which has about 350 students involved in Football, Golf, Netball and Basketball. There is also an Institute of the Arts there with a Performing Arts Centre that seats 500. Check out www.rowvillesc.vic.edu.au for more detail. Their football academy has 10 hours per week football related such as conditioning and training. The rest is academic and they must meet a grade point average of 3.0 to remain in the programme. There are about 100 in the football programme and pay $950 each to help fund it. They have professional coaches, a physiotherapist three days a week on campus, testing at Monash University etc. Some of these boys have been involved in this programme since Year 7 and it certainly shows. You could tell from their pre game preparation that this was going to be a tough game. It certainly turned to be a game that our goalie Jono benefited from. Their speed on and off the ball, anticipation, touch and finishing was all superb and certainly superior to our boys at the moment. At half-time the score was 0-5 and there was a nagging worry that this score could only get higher. The second half was a little more even and they scored two more goals to complete the game winning 7-0. Jono had to make some good saves in both halves. This was certainly a well disciplined and talented side. The boys all received a school key ring and there was an afternoon tea in the library afterwards. Rowville were talking about a possible tour to New Zealand next year with their Sports Academy first teams. Tonight the boys are cooking for themselves with the menus ranging from; burritos to chicken/vegetable stir-fry to nachos along with dessert for all. It doesn’t get any easier tomorrow with the Hallam game.