The Irish Gaelic lads took on the Aussie Rulers in Saigon on the weekend for some good craic.
Last Saturday in Saigon, the Aussie Rules boys and the Saigon Gaels caught up for a festival of Aussie Rules and Gaelic Football. The match is a lead up to the big one; St Paddy’s Day next year.
John “JR” Redmond provides us all with a review of the big weekend in Saigon.
The Saigon Gaels held their Bi-Annual Gaelic/Australian Rules football match last weekend. Despite the rain, there was a great turn out at RMIT as the Irish crept out from their dins and bars around Saigon and staggered towards the beautiful expansive RMIT oval. After a quick head count, the teams were divided fairly evenly with a mixture of Aussies, Irish, English, American, Vietnamese and even a Canadian (and one very angry man originally from Lebanon).
There was a quick run down of the rules before Rocket launched us into the first two quarters of AFL.
The football on display was quite impressive with many of the Irish emigrants getting to grips with the game fairly quickly. Play naturally revolved around the Milner brothers (who, incidentally, have donated two of their famous cheesecakes for next Saturday’s AFL Grand Final Party in Saigon!), as everyone else was too tired or old to keep up with the duo. Josh Leary commanded the ruck for the Whites whilst Phil Ghasseb and the Butcher made mince meat of the opposition for the Reds.
After two tough quarters, the Whites went in at half time with a lead of 8 points.
Rocket was relieved of his umpiring duties and joined his son, Jeremy, in the half forward line as JR (that’s me) took over officiating.
The next two quarters saw some exceptional Gaelic football being played by both sides. Sean Campbell, playing at centre half back for the Reds, dictated the tempo of the game, spraying passes, collecting loose balls and linking up with Rookie Rosenberg to devastating effect. As a result of a beautiful ball from Campbell, Rosenberg quickly got on the score sheet with a lovely point from 30 yards out. The Reds went on a bit of a scoring run, hitting a number of points whilst the Whites floundered with James Teague missing a number of great chances.
Josh Leary began to find his touch in the final quarter and began marauding around midfield, breaking challenges and generally causing mayhem for the Reds’ defence. He was the catalyst in a number of points for the Whites. Siobhan Synnot had a good game at right half forward, tormenting Nathan Milner,and Sean Boyle clocked up an impressive 5 points at corner forward.
The big talking point was the controversial goal by Johnny Clerkin. After a high ball into the box, Clerkin collected the ball, spun quickly and smashed the ball into the net. Replays showed that the ball had actually gone to the right of the post but the referee had already allowed it.
The Whites got two points near the end of the game to swing the game back in their favour and defeat the Reds by a mere one point.
With the football over and both teams thoroughly exhausted, the players retreated to the safety of the Alfrescoe’s tent where players and supporters celebrated/commiserated their victory/loss (delete as applicable) with a few chilled beverages and food. Bernie’s Irish bar presented a bottle of Jamesons to Man of the Match, Sean Campbell and Game On presented a voucher to Best On Ground, Jamie Gaffney.
A big thanks to all who came and supported as well as the Vietnam Swans for all their help in keeping the Gaels alive. We will put the O’Neils football back in the storage cupboard for a few months and get back to kicking that strange shaped ball the Aussies call a football.
Stay classy!
Special Comments from Billy J Cranger (actually, we’re not sure if “J” stands for Billy’s middle name. It just sounds right): “I thought JR was clearly best afield in both sports and, even as umpire, his mere presence inspired all the guys on the pitch and especially fired up the females in the crowd.”
