Ram of 2011: Graham Cheney

Some minor awards other than Cheeno’s title of Ram 2011.

Toughness and endurance award: very close between the Temora boys of Jules and Rossco, but one must give it to Jules. Not only did he play most of the games on offer for the Rams, but also filled in for many other teams, AND produced his 8th child during the season (that alone wins him the award)

Gone walkabout award: — Mr. Craig Footman. Starred at full back in the first game and wasn’t seen again. Was last seen at the local retirement home, but there are beliefs he will reappear.

Side step of the year: — Simon Crouch on Paul Kelly. Made Kelly look very very ordinary.

Good luck to those playing in the National Titles

Cheers

JP

Another successful trip away for the rams, winning our first game against the host side, Illawarra by 6 goals. Our second game was pitched against the Sydney combined side where, in a close match, we went down in the second half, thanks to a strong breeze favouring the syd side. In our final game against the new comers Shoallhaven  Sharks we were outclassed, and being a very warm day and with slow old legs we faded in the second half to go down by 4 goals or so.

The highlight of the trip was the succession of coaches we had, due to Joey doing an Ezza! We had three coaches for the day. Simon Crouch experienced a brief 3 min period, but then was railroaded and Ross Dev was appointed the new coach. However after a no show during the pre-warm up exercises  another vote was had, and Cheeno was then voted in to lead the mighty rams for the first time. Playing with new vigour and responsibility Cheeno was everywhere and was deservedly voted rams player of the carnival. This would be Cheeno’s third or fourth best award and must score him the Ram of the Year for 2011.

A mighty effort as well from the comeback knee operation and hamstring kid crouch who seemed to find another gear when, within range of goals. Jules, cheered on by his own personal cheer squad got better and better  the more games he played, narrowly missing a 65m drop goal from the boundary line,  after a 2 min discussion with the goal umpire it was deemed to have been touched on the line .A great effort from Mick Ped driving down and back on the same day as well as playing every available game, and making everyone look slow with his great running and bouncing game. A fine effort as well from danny, ross and new boy Norm who impressed with his fine hand and ball skills.

Ross and danny were disqualified from voting after it was found the two of them displayed un-sportsman like behaviour by constantly bickering with each other  about who is the better player.

All in all another great w/e away. Thanks again to all who made the effort to travel .

To those play­ers who turned up for Coola­mon last Sat­ur­day– what a blast it was. To those poor souls who missed out– well you def­i­nitely missed out!!

We played a very enter­tain­ing game of 13 a side, which allowed for VERY open foot­ball, which allowed the speed­sters to really show their stuff. Paul Kelly’s expected dom­i­nance was annulled through the bril­liance of the tag team of Cheeno, Kris Hughes and Mick Pedler. They kept Kel to a min­i­mum impact, despite him read­ing our ruck­man, “Yuk”, with, what seemed pre­mo­ni­tion to know where the ball would land. They swooped on him like eagles to a baby hare and will be able to proudly tell their off– spring of the day they con­quered a brown­low winner!Imag­ine the sto­ries the ever elu­sive, Simon Crouch, will tell around the bar, of the day he side– stepped Paul Kelly with a move that would make Benji Mar­shall proud.

Maybe Coolamon’s prob­lem was they relied too heav­ily on the King. They did have other stars, like Bar­ney, Tur­tle and big Owen, but once again our boys were every­where. Rossco and Jules played their nor­mal influ­en­tial games, whilst Danny Boy must have almost won the man of the match. Big Joe, “the Scot”, Far­ish col­lected the BOG award and appar­ently cleaned up the bot­tle, later in the night with his lovely lady Helen. On that note, thank you to Cheeno’s gang for run­ning water etc and for Jules boy, Dominic, for his goal duties. We REALLY appre­ci­ate this assistance.

Finally, con­grat­u­la­tions to the first gamer Dave, “the Pom­mie”, Ren­dle. Some of his quick hand­balls were a plea­sure to see. Just a shame the umpire thought he was doing a rugby pass!!! There are not many of us who can say we kicked 2 goals in our first ever game– geez I haven’t kicked 2 goals in my 40 year his­tory of playing!!!

Cheers, and by the way, we DID win the Coola­mon game, by a healthy mar­gin, but at the end of the day– that does not really mat­ter, as long as all play­ers from both teams had a good time.

A cou­ple of the boys made it to the Syd­ney Car­ni­val, namely Rossco and Cheeno. See below excert from camp­bell­town paper

YOU’RE never too old to pull on a footy jer­sey and have a go.

But the mature-age fel­las from the Macarthur Wom­bats AFL Mas­ters Club went one step fur­ther recently and held a gala day with all money donated to the Call to Arms cam­paign to raise aware­ness of men’s health issues.They were joined by their peers from North West Syd­ney, Wagga Wagga, Illawarra and Bathurst at Fair­fax Reserve, Har­ring­ton Park. Three matches were played dur­ing the day. The Wom­bats won the first two games and the com­bined Illawarra, Bathurst and Wagga team won the last game.

Despite heavy rain later in the day, the event raised $300 for the cause.

Wom­bats spokesman Andrew Smith said the best play­ers on the day were James Niel­son (Wom­bats) and Gra­ham Cheney (Wagga).

“It was a good hit-out before the final of the NSW Cup against North West Syd­ney AFL Mas­ters Club,” Mr Smith said.

He said organ­is­ers were grate­ful to busi­nesses which sup­ported the car­ni­val, par­tic­u­larly employ­ees from The Out­back Steak­house who donated their time to pro­vide a gourmet barbecue.