I have not watched South West Football League football for quite some time. So to return due to my work being closer to this competition means that I will be watching more of it during the season. Though I will try and watch some football (soccer) as best as I can, quality football in country Western Australia is tricky to come by, no offense there. So this is the opening round, round 1 of the league and five teams had the bye, so the closest game to me was Eaton. Eaton were hosting Augusta-Margaret River and it was an interesting game to watch for the neutral.
The ground is slightly challenging to get to as the shopping centre next door, Eaton Fair, are experiencing renovations and expansion. While this will be very cool as they are developing it into a town centre of sorts, well, in the Western Australian flavour, which isn't a town centre, just more shops and just apartments to give a town centre vibe with narrow streets. However, I digress and have gone off topic with my ranting about poor town centre development in Western Australia. But the normal ways to get in are closed off and you essentially have to park in the shopping centre. Which is not too bad as the walk is not very far. Though was a little bit confusing that you cannot walk into the club-rooms as you have to go around to the far northern gate with no signage.
However, I made it in and was able to watch some SWFL finally. I should of course get to it and start talking about the game then. Eaton were in control in the first quarter and lead with a narrow margin of just five points. They did not feel like they had the upper hand in the opening quarter but they did continue to maintain a lead at half time, though this time it was four points. Their grip on the game and the lead was highly tenuous and flimsy, the visitors were just starting to find their groove and rhythm and started to take control of the game in the third quarter. Augusta-Margaret River started to simply out-pace the hosts and were just simply quicker to switch across the park, their hand passing was just quicker and sharper. Their kicking was accurate and able to hit their targets, rather than bomb it into a space and hope that it nailed a target. The hawks had players running into spaces and creating targets for them to simply mark and take multiple set shots and wrestle the lead away and hold onto it. They were 19 points up at the final break.
In the last quarter there was a bit of a spirited fightback from Eaton. However, Augusta-Margaret River maintained their domination of the match and were simply too quick and had more pace compared to Eaton. Eaton had simply ran out of petrol, given that petrol is rather expensive in this current time period of the Iranian-Israel drama, not having petrol is vital and Eaton had run out! With jokes and sarcasm aside, Augusta-Margaret River just strengthened their grip on the game and simply continued their high quality performance against the hosts to run home 13 point winners.
Despite winning by less than two kicks, it did not look like that Eaton were ever going to retake the lead and take control of the game. It always felt that they were playing a continual match of catch-up and it wasn't going to work for them given that they were slower across the ground and simply not hitting their targets. Now on-wards with some food and drink.
I had an Emu Export and that was 7 dollars with a hotdog being 8 dollars. I had a can of coke which was 4 dollars and I think for country football, these are decent prices though compared to what should be a good price, I am arguing that the food is perhaps 2-3 dollars over-priced. However, like I said, this is country football and sadly prices have gone up everywhere and while prices for food are not going to reverse, I will still have my say and just move on with that. The hotdog hit the mark and on a warm day at Eaton, having an ice-cold Emu Export with it hit the spot nicely. Especially after a long week at work and not having a refreshing beverage of this variety for a little while is always welcomed.
Speaking of welcoming, it was nice to be here at Eaton Recreation Centre and I will probably be making a return at some point as I am more in the area these days. So we will just have to see, hopefully North Melbourne win tomorrow. Though fingers crossed!
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