Attendees: DC, JH (MOM), TH (MOM), TK (MOM), RH, TW
Result: Nannas 2 plays Lieutenants 12

Well shit, this was a pretty crappy way to start the new year. Yes it was a thumping, and yes the Nannas did get pretty tired pretty quickly, trying to rescue a lost cause in stifling conditions. Tao, pre-match, was talking up his pre-2000 lungs but I think he got his numbers mixed up somewhere, for he like the rest of us did struggle to keep up with our direct opponents, especially in defence.
In attack, we didn’t look too bad, our passing was pretty good, we had movement and when Tommy slotted in an early one from a fine move it looked like we might get a couple.
But then reality struck. While our defence was pretty solid from restarts, when we gave away the ball away they hurt us, and like a jilted wife they hit us where it hurts. Time and again, we would lose the ball in mid-field and before we could say, ‘get the fuck back you fat, bloated, slovenly brown pieces of shit’ they would be up the other end putting the ball in the back of Kondo’s net. The classic example was when we were deep in their half looking likely, when a pass went astray. They picked it up, streaming forward three on one. They had no trouble getting past our last defender, isolating Kondo and sliding one home.
It was a pretty shit night for our number two keeper, who must have been thinking to himself, ‘don’t give it away, don’t give it away, oh shit, they’ve given it away again, oh shit, here are those four angry looking men running at me again with not a Nanna in sight, oh shit, I just hope they don’t pass it to that guy with the massive, exocet missile boot on him again. OH SHIT!!!!!!!’ I know I would have been shitting my dacks but Kondo like the man of massive cast-iron balls that he is kept fronting up, kept trying to save our bacon.
Anyhow, after we went down about half a dozen in the first half we were beaten and never really looked like pulling it back. We did get a late goal, or, more accurately, they scored an own goal off a Tao corner but that was it.
Maybe this is wishful thinking but I do feel like we could be competitive with those guys if we held on to the ball more and put a few more men back in defence. Or maybe they are just deceptively good, lulling you into a false sense of security until all of a sudden you are down about ten without feeling you have played that badly. It’s probably the latter.