It was with some intrepidation that those of us that had moved up from E grade to the lofty heights of D grade Masters ventured out to Hawthorn to play R1 on Monday night. The question on our lips was.. Did the big burly CH – we’ll just call him Happy for now – move up with the Hawthorn team that won the E grade Premiership last year. Much to our relief he hadn’t so that was a good start… our last meeting had resulted in 7 yellow cards and several warnings.

With nearly half of the D grade team moving on or retiring there were 5 newbies coming up from E grade to fill their positions (we were wondering if we could handle the pace and I assume the more experienced players were thinking the same!). Things started off quite well with a cracking pass from the amazing Suzie Styles into the D to the star striker (well ok me) who just got it under the goalie and into goals. Celebrations all round!! Things heated up a bit after that with Hawthorn scoring 2 goals to have the score 1-2 at half time…..

During an informative half time talk we realized that we needed to play a more short passing game which resulted in some good hockey….. Graham Styles showed some pace down the wing and ended up spread eagled twice on the pitch from some interesting tackles…. The most common word used on the team from the E grade graduates was “sorry” as we did our best to keep up. The final score was 1-3. Although we didn’t win we did show signs of promise for the future.