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Congratulations,

Finally we are in the Grand Final for the plate this weekend ..where we deserve to be in my opinion. To me it really is a play off for third or fourth in the main competition overall as the promotion of three teams and the wet weather completely stuffed up the points system. The good news is we win a plate if we win on Sunday.

Now … last Sunday’s game – what a great result. Only minutes before the game did we know who was fit enough to run on. The walking wounded and the sick all arriving in all forms of disrepair!

At one stage we only had 14 and looking shaky.

With Eddy still on crutches and Jock in fashionable moon boots, Alex out from a neck injury the day before, ( luckily just bruising), Mitch, Sam and Banjo all limping from bashing each other up the day before (Joey’s v Shore) and Josh climbing out of bed with a virus to help out, I was starting to think this was going to be a tough day in the Oval Office!

However, the boys all agreed that had to ramp up that little extra to overcome the adversity, Campbell took over as skipper, Will Collard stepped into Banjo’s big boots ,Oscar moved to centre Sam Harrison from back row to wing again.. so on we ran into battle.. shaken but not stirred!

As I have stated previously about Burraneer they are a very tough defensive side, I found out on Sunday nine of their boys play rugby league on Saturday, hence their great tackling defence.

We changed tactics and decided to attack down the blind side away from their crash tackling centres or chip over them in open play.

From the kick – off the boys were positive and aggressive, Balmoral Oval was hard and dusty as both sides launched into it. After a few minutes Will Collard cleverly switched play down the blind side and sent Sammy H on a run, as the defence closed he grubbered ahead… the race was on, Ben Reader was on the spot (as always) to gather the ball and race over to score. Locky  P converted from midway from the side line … Mosman up 7-0.

The forwards were right into it, Tommy was crunching them in defence and giving them grief with his usual bullocking runs. Ben Wicket continued his good form in the tight stuff his work rate better every week and making his physical presence felt, as was Hugh and Gus (these two are really hitting there straps as well now) and Josh who was running hot in form and temperature (now about 101*) .. in short the engine room were all running hot. The reason we are winning is our tight five is  dominating and giving us go forward. Well done you boys – another outstanding effort.

Joe was winning some fantastic lineout ball and making his usual thousand (in Ray Warren voice) tackles a game, and Ben Reader was mighty at the breakdown. Joe and Ben shut down Burraneer’s best dominant forward at the breakdown, as discussed prior to the game, this was a huge challenge and they rose to the occasion.

Campbell as usual was dominant all over the paddock and was having a great captains game leading by example, he was rewarded soon after with another try from our chip and chase tactics, which saw Burra reeling and now down 14-0 after the conversion next to the posts.

Burra hit back, and soon scored out wide and it was 14 -5 shortly before half time.

In the backs Oscar was having a whale of a game tackling everything that moved in midfield, Ben was doing likewise and setting up some good backline moves for Remy to chime in and give our winger Sam and Mitch a few good runs.

Locky at 5/8 was having his best game in that position varying play nicely with some kicks ,runs and slick service, but more importantly .. bringing the backs up in a good straight defensive line.

After the break, Josh was having a well earned rest, Locky Miller replaced him with fresh legs and got stuck in straight as he always does, then Banjo and Sam Allen came on to see if they could put in half a game with their crook legs as Mitch and Will (who had a great game for us filling in for Banjo) had a rest.

Both sides set off at a cracking pace again, the game tightened no team was giving an inch, the boys from Burra were not going down without a fight, but nobody messes with the Mosman 13A Whales!!

Banjo turned them around again with his clever kicking, Sam Allen had a great 50m run after a good backline move, we were playing good clever 15 man rugby everyone from Remy at fullback (still in great form) to Gus at hooker involved.

A  terrific penalty goal from Locky P put us ahead 17-5 with some breathing space, but Burra came back again, will they ever quit these guys? NO !!

After 7 straight penalties to Burra (will this Ref ever give us a break!) they scored and converted to trail Mosman 17 -12.

The boys held on to full time and thoroughly deserved their win. They showed great heart and  team spirit.

Oscar put in a great man of the Match performance closely followed by Captain Campbell, Tom the” Horton Express” and every other player deserved a wrap.

So the walking wounded made the grand final on Team Spirit,,Courage,,Neurofen,Voltaren,and lots of bandages.

To say that Jane and I are proud of this team is an understatement, all the injured boys are there every week to cheer their mates on, they play sick and injured for each other.

Remember also, many, I mean many players go their whole Rugby life and never play in a Grand Final or have a chance of winning a medal, so lets enjoy the experience and give it our best shot,win, lose or draw from here all these boys are already winners.

NOW BRING ON COLLAROY…..

Cheers

Coach

23.08.10Stephen Patrick2 Comments »

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The Emperor (Kevin Rudd) was back at it again recently when he commented on Australia’s skyrocketing population and quipped “I actually believe in a big Australia. I make no apology for that.” Well, Australia actually does need apologies, because critical infrastructure advice continues to fall on the deaf ears of our elected politicians.

After all, there must be something seriously amiss when past King of Spin, “Bobby Dazzler” Carr starts penning and pontificating on population policies in the Sydney Morning Herald. “Perish the thought that we can handle a bigger population” wrote the Dazzler “Some Australians must have felt similar estrangement when they read federal Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner’s defence of Australia’s runaway immigration targets, playfully comparing our population densities with those of Bangladesh.”

Then the Carr crash (with accompanying air – bag), “That Tanner is one of the best minds in federal politics will only deepen the rift between 90 per cent of Australians and their political and business leadership over population policy, or rather the absence of any policy except “more”.” It would now appear that “Bobby Dazzler” is over the selective hearing condition that plagued him in his reign of the Premier State from 1995 – 2005. The transformation went from Premier State to State of Decay to Fort Crumble and even though it did not happen overnight, it is now a nightmare.

Maybe this vacant plot of land might make a nice residential subdivision with very little chance of flooding?

www.timmooneyphotography.com

Sydney to squeeze in 640,000 new homes by Matthew Moore – Urban Affairs Editor the Sydney Morning Herald identified “A forty per cent increase in Sydney’s population over the next 20 years means the State Government has no option but to open up scores of suburbs for new developments, according to radical proposal for Sydney to build 640,000 new dwellings.”

For this to happen, Fort Crumble would need a plan so I went in search and found that it does not look pretty, as Andrew Clennell of the Sydney Morning Herald revealed. Rees desperate to stand for something “In this respect he hopes to get something on the radar at Macquarie Street that has been lacking for the past 12 months – POLICY.”

They obviously can’t hear but thankfully they can read. “Number one on his list is transport. The transport blueprint that Rees promises to hand down sometime over the next three weeks is likely to be treated with some scepticism.” I guess he means this is like a homeless person entering Star City and requesting a seat at the High Rollers Table – after all Fort Crumble is broke. Back to Andrew “This is because of the large number of projects that Labor has promised, and then not delivered, in 14 years in power.”

Oops “Bobby Dazzler” was at the helm for ten of those years – although Fort Crumble would win a wood chopping event as they sure know how to wield that political axe.

• North West Rail link (promised in 1998 and axed)
• North West Metro (announced and axed)
• Bondi Beach rail link (promised then axed)
• Parramatta to Epping rail link (halved to Epping to Chatswood rail link)
• CBD/second Harbour crossing rail link (promised and axed)
• F6 through southern Sydney, (on again, off again)
• M5 duplication (long delayed)
• M4 East extension (long delayed)

Last month’s parliamentary pay increases and the fact that our Fort Crumble premier should be (and is) the highest “paid premier” in Australia have been vindicated. Alex Gooding had this interesting analogy on transport in the Sydney Morning Herald – Three times denied: western Sydney misses out on transport, again (great read) which really adds a poignant perspective on the political decision making processes.
Ongoing calamities when “ Paid Premier” Nathan Rees overturned an earlier decision to contribute $45.000 million for the newly anointed AFL’s western Sydney franchise to build a new home ground – again out came that axe (perish the thought of constituents contemplating the axing our “Paid Premier”)

Macquarie Equities Research – this week released this compelling graph in its Australian economics report. Sketching the outlook for housing “this note examines the recent trends in the housing sector and looks ahead to key factors to watch in 2010.” Looks like a tsunami to me.

Macquarie Equities Research – “In our view, the key factors to consider are the favourable fundamental determinants – strong population growth and constrained supply – alongside the deteriorating level of affordability. With these factors working in opposite directions, it suggests that the more extreme forecasts of a house price bubble or a price collapse will continue to prove wide of the mark.” More of this report in next week’s edition.

Back to Andrew Clennell’s report “Sydney is experiencing transport gridlock. Public transport services in the CBD are overcrowded, even though train services are inadequate and in many suburbs non-existent. In response, transport plans are announced and then re-announced. New rail lines are proposed but then abandoned and governments blame increasing costs and global financial problems.” He did forget to mention that over the last fourteen years the NSW government also collected the highest amount of taxes in Australia’s history. In real estate terms it would be “dilapidated home – run down, neglected, yet with plenty of potential”.

So let’s look at what is happening locally. I went to Wayne Swan’s Nation Building website to see what is happening in Mosman and North Sydney municipalities. Indeed Nation Building personified – bicycle paths, perimeter fencing, a shade structure, and a few water bubblers -no wonder our economy has rebounded with such exhilarating speed. All that it takes is a plan!

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Our councils are doing it tough mentally and physically although they are making plenty out of parking fines as Vikki Campion reported in The Daily Telegraph. Where you’ll cop a parking fine. North Sydney Council collected $7,000,000 which was up 48 per cent from $4,700,000 and Mosman Council $1,700,000 up 89 per cent from $910,000. It should also be noted that Mosman Council has been aggressively investing in new parking meters so one could expect a significant revenue increase with this return on investment.

In retrospect, if our population continues to explode it would then not be unreasonable to draw a conclusion that our water supplies face significant declines too (it did happen well before the proposed population explosion). Now when you renovate or build a new home, you must provide water tanks in accordance with local Council building regulations.

So why, in any Mosman or North Sydney parks, ovals or reserves, have the respective Councils not installed water tanks? After all they have only to connect to their very own street storm water. Look at the number of parks, ovals and reserves located below street level. Balmoral Oval, Rosherville Reserve, Forsyth Park, Tunks Park, Primrose Park, Cremorne Point Reserve, Sirius Cove Reserve, Allan Border Oval, Rawson Park, Spit Reserve and Reid Park. These are but a few that are all entirely dam- dependent and coincidentally, always have their sprinklers on when it is raining.

Warragamba Dam is presently at 55 per cent capacity and declining – although the Kurnell desalination plant is soon to be completed and that will supply up to 15 per cent of Sydney’s water. Of course we can’t leave out evaporation as this coincides with policy that has also evaporated.

Then again I have never been one to water down an edition.

Cheers ^__^

For this week’s recorded Mosman real estate, Cremorne real estate, Cremorne Point real estate, Neutral Bay real estate and Cammeray real estate sales www.rwm.com.au/news/

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27.11.09Robert Simeon1 Comment »