Being a good sister, and the only sibling with a licence and car, can suck sometimes. I didn’t realise these things could negatively dictate my ability to watch a quality W-League game on TV though, until this weekend.
Normally early Friday evenings are reserved for W-League game watching. Games starting at 5.20pm are annoying, but I’m on holidays, so I manage. This week however was different. After having watched the Sydney FC/Newcastle Jets midweek draw, I (only half reluctantly) accepted my sisterly duties to drive my younger, unlicensed and car-less brother to his 6.30pm gig on a Friday down in the Huon Valley (about a 25-30 minute drive from Hobart). Most Friday’s I would have probably tried to weasel out of it because watching football is often much better than sitting in a place full of cider whilst being the designated driver. But I thought “hey, Brisbane ought to have this game in the bag. Worse case it’ll be 1-0 Brisbane win”.
Now with these thoughts, I got to watch the first 10 minutes of the game. Sure Melbourne Victory didn’t look like a push over, however there was no real threat to indicate they could get through the usually reliable Brisbane defence. In complete ignorance (and stupidity), forgetting the number one lesson of this season being that no game is predictable, I left my spot on my bed-come-couch to drive my brother to his gig.
Unknown to me, as I was bombing down highways in my old faithful Ford Festiva, with my brother trying to convince me to let him smoke in the car (“But your car doesn’t look like one you can’t smoke in!”… Nice try brother, but you ain’t lighting up your ciggie in any car I’m driving), Melbourne were bringing it to Brisbane. We eventually make it to our destination, I settle in with my one and only cider for the night to listen to said brother play some sweet tunes, flick over to Twitter knowing it would be about half time, only to see ridiculousness before my eyes. Melbourne had clinched a goal in the first half and kept Brisbane at bay. I was spewing!! Brisbane had yet to come back from behind this season, so Melbourne had a chance yeah.
This made me question things. Why did I give up my Friday night of normally watching football to be in the middle of apple orchards, in a barn, listening to my brother play? Why were there no TV’s in this place of cider? Why couldn’t my brother find another way down there? Why have Melbourne suddenly turned up? How can anyone score against Brisbane?
After a rant/plea to the Twitter world, I got reminded the world game app streams games. Thank goodness! So, having no idea how much data I had, but hoping it was enough, I downloaded that app and got to streaming the game. By the time everything downloaded, the game pops up at 1 – 1. I tuned in at the 58th minute, Brisbane had pulled a goal back in the 56th. Slightly bummed I had missed a goal, but nonetheless stoked I had some way of watching the game, I settled in to watch the last thirty minutes. Twitter informed me it was a Claire Polkinghorne header that cancelled out a Melina Ayres’ first half wonder strike.
Watching a game on an iphone, with lots of distractions around is hard work! Plus switching between the actual feed of footage to Twitter, in the hope of saving some data so my other brother doesn’t end up ringing me next week claiming I used all our shared data, just adds onto the difficulty of the whole evening really. But in the end I was totally grateful to get any sort of access to the game whilst being away from my TV. Each of these obstacles don’t really lend themselves to allowing me to come up with any real quality insights to how this game actually went. But from what I could gather on my tiny screen for the last half an hour was both sides were unhappy to leave it at one all, and were pushing on to clinch the winner.
Unfortunately for Melbourne, the story of their season is keeping pace with a team until the last 10-15 minutes and waning at the end. This curse was set upon them once more, with Brisbane clinching the game winning goal in the 80th minute. But gee, Brisbane’s second goal was quality. A cross whipped in from midfield by Carson Pickett, for the head of Celeste Boureille to place in the bottom left hand corner of the goal is better than what they would have been attempting at practice all week. It was classy. Still a bummer of Melbourne though.
My cider well and truly finished by the end, the game finished in Brisbane’s favour at 2-1. You should all be happy to know I got a delicious apple pie and a case of cider for my brother inconveniencing me for the night. But still lucky for him he is damn good at playing guitar and singing sweet, sweet tunes, otherwise he would have been the brunt of death stares for the rest of his (very long) set.
Round 10 Results
MOLLY'S FOOTY RANTS 