Fasion Police - They are the Law

Today Wales 8 def Bermuda (ie team who think navy blazers, shirt, tie, and bright red shorts are a good idea) 3.

And to think people think the universe is heartless....


Earlier of course German def Japan by one goal in extra time. Germany of course is Red 1 and Japan Blue 6 so this counts in the global scale as an 'upset'.

Sorta.

Germany has had a good tourny and Japan, to be honest, an average one. Okay Japan is not a really strong nation. Not so much for want of trying but the fact that their 19 year olds are not really as big as everyone else's 19 year olds has not helped them in this grade. So referring back to my game notes...

Two enthusiastic but largely unskilled team head to head. Played out a bit like a club game but without the club level thug.

Germany were pretty happy, and to be honest so they should be. Not only have they won their pool but managed to finish out of it (they play Australia tomorrow for the 5th spot). None of this however excuses the cowbell. Sorry German fan base but if you want to use a cowbell 24/7 then grow yourself an extra 3 stomachs.

So Germany get to play Australia as not only did Germany beat Japan but also because Scotland, as predicted by nearly everyone, went down to Australia 25 to 3.

Again, let us cut to the Parker pencil and Moleskine diary...

1/2 time - Aust v Scotland
13 to 1 up @ 1/2 time. Sort of to be expected really wasn't it? Blue div v Red div and all that.

Flat start. Didn't look that impressive. Start of second 1/4 more flowing with some sharp quick goals off fast ball movement. I think this is a bit of a 'everyone' gets a run game and I doubt that, given the 'ranking' difference, the boys would be 100% serious. 94% serious maybe...

We seem to swing between impressive and fast and yeah whatever.

Hard to say what I think of Scotland. They don't look flash. Competent yes, but not skilled enough to be exciting.

and then 20 mins later

3/4 time 17 to 3. A largely unexciting game broken up with flashes of medicoracy (sic). Looks very casual.

Remember I had turned down an invite by some of the Iroquois people to go ocean salmon fishing to watch this game so maybe I was a little bias.

Maybe.

I was also sitting in the stands with the other Australian supporters who are of course 90% family and parents. By three quarter time most of the ones near me were chatting between themselves and wishing the game would hurry up. As an example of a class Blue Div team giving a leason to an 'upstart Red Div' team we were ripped off.

However, while we supporters did have the conversation that if the boys were not interested in being there and playing in THAT uniform then they should bugger off and let someone else on the field, I myself can also feel some sympathy for their work ethic.

Coming into this championships we were clearly a top four nation and were at the very least expecting to be playing off for the Bronze come the last day. A big solid game against US or Canada and we may have been playing for the Gold after an upset win somewhere along the game reports.

Instead England got the upset over Australia. We then went on to not defeat Iroquois and so finished out of the four and out of the medals.

(interestingly I was discussing the situation with one of the championship administrators earlier tonight. Since if we had beaten Iroquois points would have been level between Iroquois, Australia and England the places would have gone down to goal differences. Since England had only beaten us by one goal and Iroquois def England by five, England's hope for a top four was with either us losing (as happened) OR Australia beating Iroquois by a bucket (which would have pushed Iroquois down into 5th on goal differences). In some ways it is a good thing the results broke down into a simple win/loss system without a countback.)

So, like the story goes, second is simply the first of the losers. We had came to Vancouver to finish top four and now this has been taken from the team, is it really a sin to play out the remainder games at less then 100%? True the team looked less then outstanding against Scotland but you at home only know that as The MudCrab at the ground has told you so.

Eighteen months from now all you will read is Aust 25 def Scotland 3 and you will be thinking how unsporting we were to them while secretly feeling smug over the 'good win.'

Tomorrow Australia play German. In eighteen months you will look at the scoreline for that game and pity the poor Germans for such a one sided game.

Scorelines go into history. Match reports go unread.