Asian Champs Match Report - Game Three - Vs Vietnam
21 Sep 2009, 12:06pm Posted by CoachIts fair to say that on looking over the draw the week before the Champs, the Phants hierarchy, after extensive consultation with the playing group, sponsors, fitness team, physiologists, psychiatrists and a few dozen tinnies of warmed Beerlao, promptly decided that beating the HeatHeatHeat was no challenge, and that all efforts should be focused on revenging the bitter recent defeat at the hands of the Vietnam Swans.
Because anyone who is anyone in Asian Football (not called Rooster, maybe called Marty, definitely not Wil) will tell you there are really three tiers of teams. On the lower echelons are some of the also-rans, those teams that just spend hours working out in fancy gyms, pushing paper around banks and sipping cocktails on windswept 44th Floor Deck with Café del Mar DJs and a swimming pool filled with Moet and those ladies you only ever see in P-Diddy clips.
Then there's the next batch, teams that have a little talent, possibly even sporting matching kit and bags, an ex-WAFL player or 2, some good ticker and even a tentative connection to Asia so as to register at the Asian Champs.
And of course, up top in the stratosphere, there are the Swannies and the Phants: teams who clear UXO from their training ground before a Sunday training trot, have more bald men than a political journalist conference and who consider an end of season trip to be more Vang Vieng or Hoi An than Ibiza.
Yes, teams that matter. The life blood of Far Far Far East Asian AFL.
And so it was that a grudge match to rival the greats of sport - Tyson/Hollyfield, Navratalova/Llloyd, Eddy ‘The Eagle' Edwards/Fear - entered another fateful round at the Champs. Game 3. Phants v Swannies.
Over the luncheon interval, when James 'Bolt' Cannell produced a Dean Capabianco scorcher to place second in the 107.5m dash, the Phants needed to look deep inside themselves after having been thumped already a few times and the Swannies outfit that rolled us last month in Hanoi had a few new additions that looked a tad handy. After weeks of bookings, trainings, font changes, discussion, a few 1000 emails, some more font advice, some not-talk-about waxings and finally arrival in KL, could we muster at least a victory that we could drink to into the wee hours of the night?
Now this scribe is a little lost on specifics for the game, hence some rather verbose introductory paragraphs, so I'll cut to the chase. In the words of Paul Keating, this was the "sweetest victory of all", largely because we didn't have any other victories for the day.
There were no best for this game, because after a few crushing defeats, the mighty Phants team in those mighty designer shorts and revered jumpers of Pink, for just a few minutes, stopped everyone laughing at our mighty shorts. They kept laughing again later, but importantly they stopped. For a second. I heard them. Honest.
From the go, the Coach had the Phants brethren more fired up than Pat Benetar on a bender and everything just did fall in line. Echoing the mantra that we indeed do live and learn from our mistakes, across the ground, Phants turned a new leaf and swarmed on the Swannies with an intensity not seen since our trunks were last raised in Cambodia. Hanoi redemption was in the air - the deepest cuts weren't gonna be healed by just faith, oh no, sorry Pat, not this time. Debutant Kent (apologies for the error last time: Ed) created Daicos-like magic in front of goal to slot two and the Phants were away.
To be frank, I could list a string of players that may have had a few touches and been influential, but I can't really remember so bugger it. At one stage I think I saw someone picking one of the large wedgies I'd seen for the Championships, but can't remember who. A few big units threw it out there, reaching out with both hands, moving like meteorites. But reflecting now, a touch misty eyed, I just recall pondering the scene from the half back flank one moment and seeing a haze of Pink, that most feared jumper of Asian footy, herding together, stomp to stomp, pack to pack, holding back attacks and like a good Phant with a full trunk of energy, thrusting forward ceaselessly again.
It was moving. It was magic. It was our only victory, but it tasted like a title.
Phants by a few goals.
Could China be next?
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