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The life of Bayside Management is never boring as was shown at State League last night. With Jussie running late as he chased the box'o'uniforms around the Melbourne metropolitan area and Matt struggling to master the new reporting in procedure it was fun and games for all.
We did survive and did quite well. But let's hear from the Managers themselves.
First Matt Hanrahan (co-manager of the Women's team):
As the rains held off against all the odds for the second round of state league, the Bayside powers that be sat down half way through the night discussing the merits of burnt pies versus stale hot dog rolls. All the while, AV, having changed the rules from last week without notifying anybody, declared that our two sprint hurdlers were unable to compete because they had not reported in to the green shed at the finish line 10 minutes prior to the scheduled start time. Whilst the program was running 25 minutes late, AV refused to budge and we went pointless in this event.
My apologies to Sarah and Jeanette and Roy, for not notifying them of the requirements and for not putting the names in myself. It was an error of judgement and one which will not be repeated again. Watching Sarah run a very sharp 14.71 as an invitation athlete made it even more difficult.
The lesson here is that AV have promised to be strict with this rule for all photo finish events (ie less than 800m) throughout the season. We were one of four or five teams to be caught out last night and lost points. What it means for all our track stars is that you must get there early and ensure that your name is on the start list. In fact, it should be the first thing we do when we get to Stadium Victoria, as Javelin Dave calls it.
Anyway, what the loss of points meant was that we were only able to finish second in what will possibly be one of the strongest competitions for the year. We managed to beat Melbourne Uni who beat us comfortably last week and also managed to hold off Essendon. Overall, a damn fine result, running Box Hill very close, which could have been even closer.
For all the poor team management from yours truly last night, it's worth starting in the most positive way by mentioning Megan Boyes and her band of merry throwers. Miss Idaho has taken on the job of co-ordinating the throwing events week in and week out whilst she recuperates from a knee reconstruction. In the last two weeks, she has managed to notch up a casual 6 wins, a second and a third from 8 competitions. An absolutely stellar result. Last night Bec Nielsen capped off two exams in a day with two victories, whilst Gab Neighbour again hurled the hammer over 50 metres. Andrea Aspiris filled in the Javelin spot, throwing just below 33 metres, yet still managing to take 3rd place. Our throwing group is our backbone at the minute and should be congratulated, as should Megan.
On the track, Katrina Steward showed that she is definitely in sparkling early season form with 12.58 in the 100 and a strong fourth in the one lap event. Katrina is only likely to improve as the season prgressess, as is Tara Gleeson who finished strongly in 60.11 to take out her heat of the 400. Hopefully Tara will step up and make her presence felt in an 800 very soon. Sarah, Jeanette, Jaime Wallace and Katrina showed some fine baton work in the short relay to take third.
Jaime also competed by invite in the Triple Jump and helped us out in the 100 immediately afterwards which was much appreciated. Hopefully, we will see more of her as the season unfolds. Jeanette Bowles took the title in the Triple Jump with a leap of 11.13 metres and Emily Ryan cruised over 1.60 metres in the High Jump and showed that she has plenty of room for improvement.
Last but not least, Shirley Hay performed close to her best in the 5k walk, which added valuable points to the team. Shirley will be a regular contributor throughout the year and was one of our highest overall points scorers last season. Hopefully, by next week, we will have a second walker by her side.
So, a loss by such a small margin is not a bad thing and our team should be commended, however circumstances make it all a little bitter. As punishment for our sins, Andre and myself have offered to put on a public display of humiliation on Saturday by running the 1500 metres in the mens section 3. BYO rotten fruit. We should be out there for long enough so you will get plenty of chances to hurl fruit, abuse or anything else that you can find at us.
Next week: Programme 2 against Doncaster (who we drew with in Round one), Ringwood and our country friends from the goldfields. Please let us know of your availability over the coming weekend as our search for distance runners continues.
Men's manager Jussie is off playing golf today and has asked sidekick Sammartino to ghostwrite his report:
While Matt was having all these dramas (and Boyesey was calmly performing her duties), Jussie was panicking about singlets and standing André up for a pre-match training session. No need for panic of course because the Men's team certainly has its act together.
The night kicked off well as always with our resident team Speilberg Dave McCaffrey remaining undefeated in the Jav. Tim-Tam genie Nfa was running late for the 100m, so Evan Rees stepped in (it pays to be lurking around and to not need much warm-up). And with Eastside making the same cock-up Matt was later to perform, we had the only sprint scorers in Justin Lewis (2 for 2), Peter Hoggan and Ev.
The 1500m saw Clint Perrett return to the track post-exams and show he's lost nothing, running a 3.55 PB. Anthony Park made his scoring debut with a solid run, while Brenno was uncharacteristically down on form. Our crack relay squad (plus Ev) got the baton around for a solid run, although Justin Lewis cramped and had to give up his 400m spot.
Then the moment we'd all been waiting for - the State League debut of Mentone cult figure Corey "Fuzzy" Lawson in that most unforgiving of disciplines, the 3k steeple. Fresh from a stunning 3k flat victory on Saturday, Fuzz steamed out, looking startlingly Kenyan. It was 5 laps of pure magic. Unfortunately the race still had 1000m to go. Fuzz paid for early enthusiasm and missed qualifying. He will be back and will qualify - look out for him.
Meanwhile in the field, Matty Brown had put a metre further on his shot put performance of last week. And at triple another Matt was making his debut. Matt Cooter is only 14 but has been jumping big and pulled out a first-up victory. His housemate Peter Hoggan was off winning high jump at the same time.
Back on the track Nfa was making up for his 100m disappointment with a very impressive hurdles victory with Aaron Petersen not far behind. With Liam Wallis as a back-up we are certainly strong in this event.
The 400m is an increasingly deep event for us also. Brendan Cole looked very relaxed running mid-48s in a hard-fought race. Peter Hoggan stepped into Justin Lewis' shoes with ease, striding around in mid-49s and Adrian Harvey showed his 800m strength. Evan Rees showed he's not just a 100m runner with a strong run.
Matt Brown finished it off for us with another discus victory. Continued doubling up from him will make him hard to beat in the point-scoring title.
So what was the result of all this activity? We had another comfortable win… and Jussie found the singlets in time.
Next week we have another 3 team comp, this team against Doncaster and MUAC. These are real opportunities to rack up as many points as possible. Both of these teams had a pile of 5k runners last week, so we will reduce their scores substantially with a few more of you many lap characters.
Results are here.