CCWHA

My first thought was that somebody had stolen my car overnight however on closer inspection from the safety of my warm motel room I noticed that it was just a layer of ice turning my car from orange to white.  I carefully closed the door and went and put another 3 layers of clothes on.

30 minutes later when I ventured out to greet the world I noticed I was nearly the last to do so.  There were the 15’s all dressed and ready to play standing in a circle in the middle of the motel car park.  I’m sure all of these girls brought jumpers & trakkies with them but obviously it wasn’t cold enough for some to need to wear them…………………..VANESSA!!! PUT A JUMPER ON!!!

Right……… the fields are located at the Armidale UNE (University of New England) just a short 10 minute drive down the road.

Well most of us found the fields okay but we all eventually came together as a team ready to take the field for game 1 against North Shore on the sand turf at 8.30.

The girls fought a valiant battle but came away with a defeat of 8-0.  

Lessons learnt from game 1:-

Crookwell held it's annual Jnr Girls carnival last weekend (22/5/2011).  We were all prewarned by CHA to bring our winter woollies as the weather had been getting quite chilly but they turned on an absolutely glorious day just for the event.

The girls were slated to play Sydney, ACT and Crookwell and they were looking forward to the challenge.  The Goulburn carnival the week before had been a good learning experience for them and were looking to put lessons into practice.

Campbelltown won their 1st 2 games against Sydney & ACT and drew 1-1 against Crookwell putting them top of the ladder.  The playoffs were 1v4 (Campbelltown vs ACT) and 2v3 (Crookwell v Sydney) with Campbelltown and Crookwell winning their respective semis.

It was very exciting waiting for the time to pass until game time.  As we'd played Crookwell already the girls knew it was going to be a hard game.  Ther first game had been quite physical with Hanna and Emilia being bowled over on numerous occassions and Crookwell trying to bustle us off the ball with their aggressiveness.  Well, it was a good lesson learnt by the Campbelltown Girls and Crookwell was in for a big shock.  Our girls lined up and were ready to take the fight to Crookwell.  The 15's were determined to win and weren't going to let Crookwell browbeat them. 

The words Aggression, Speed, Width, Leading, Triangles, Communication & Teamwork to mention just a few all took on new meaning. 

To see & hear the girls calling to each other, encouraging each other, to see the determined look on their faces was a sight to see.

At full time with no score on the board we all started frantically looking at the carnival rules to see what was to happen next.  An offical told us we had to play 5 minutes extra time - NO golden goal (contrary to the rules we'd been looking at) but the girls shrugged that off and just wanted to get on with it.

5 minutes has never seemed so long.  The whole game was perhaps 60-40 Campbelltowns way but we still couldn't score.  At the end of the 5 minutes with still no score Campbelltown was declared the winner as we'd gone through top of the round games.

After a few seconds stunned silence the cheering started.  It's been a long time between drinks for the 15's but they've certainly come good just at the right time.

Well done girls, I'm so very proud of all of you.

LOOKOUT ARMIDALE - HERE COMES CAMPBELLTOWN