------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Sherwood Bandits ------------------------------------------------------- Showing good early season form the Bandits have rocketed to second place on the Silver ladder. "Hey, those steroids thingies REALLY work!!!", exclaimed new signing Big Bird. Team management quickly bustled Bird out of the press room and attempted to laugh this statement off. "Of course we don't use illegal drugs here at Sherwood", said team coach Diane Keaton, "our players are too drunk anyway...". ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the New Sturt Blues ------------------------------------------------------- No time for frivolity this week folks, Manager Barry has a day job to do! P.S. We are classifying getting within 10 goals of the Redwoods as a win. ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Borg ------------------------------------------------------- *sigh* another long season... ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the The St. Louis Cattle ------------------------------------------------------- The Press droned forward into their seats for another stunning conference in St. Louis. Plantaganet Sommerset Fry stormed in with his face bright red from a flush. "Before I take any questions, I want you all to know that I'm having Michael Sun brought before the tribunal. That kind of brutaility has got to be stopped by the comissioner before it gets out of hand." A familiar voice wheezed out of the crowd, "Uh, sir. Exactly what sort of brutailty did you have in mind. Last I saw Mr. Sun was being carted off to hospital after receiving and elbow to the face." "Oh, sure, Ernie. Just take his side. But what about our Fullback?" "Calvin Rugrat?" asked Ernie as he paused to fix the tape on his bifocals, "He's the one who hit Michael Sun in the face." "Yes, and that no good Ruckman's glasses were actually made of glass. Calvin had to leave the field to get a piece of it out of his elbow." After a brief coughing fit dislodged a huge ball of plegm into his shirt pocket, Enrest Enterman continued "Well, what about your prediction of victory falling into shambles, even after your squad sent a large part of the opposing team off on carts." "I say it's not fair that play is stopped to take someone with a little scratch off the field. We could have scored the winning goals while those medical personell were attending to the Angels who couldn't even play through a few bruised ribs and a little whiplash." "So what's in store for next week?" "Better kicking accuracy should finally result in a long overdue win, and Calvin will be on the pitch in spite of the attack last week." ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Christminster Clerics ------------------------------------------------------- Another lucky win without a coach. Wah Wah Watson will be a hard place to fill. Flowers and choclates should addressed to Christminster Base Hospital. On current form we really oughta mince the borg! ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Uluru Dingoes ------------------------------------------------------- Here are the odds for some of this week's games. (I can't find a bronze matrix.) Buffalo Knights 15/1 v Victorian Mandarins 1/25 New Sturt Blues 10000/1 v Giant Redwoods --- Petawawa Purple Platypi --- v Viking Raiders 10000/1 California Sluggers 25/1 v Uluru Dingoes 1/50 * The Mythstics 2000/1 v Livermore Rowdy Yobbos --- CSUA 10000/1 v Port Coquitlam Circus Stars --- Greymoor Gladiators --- v Havana Spaz Attack 10000/1 Spring Creek Piranhas --- v Black Company 10000/1 Silicon Valley Angels 6/4 v Air-Pacific Groundhogs 4/9 Chattanooga Crusaders 500/1 v Krazy Kenora Kangari --- * Sherwood Bandits 11/2 v Roxburgh Kittens 1/8 * Warrnambool Sea Hawks --- v Wallamaloo Philosophers 300/1 The St. Louis Cattle --- v The Borg 10000/1 Limboland Mists 1000/1 v Nar Nar Goon --- * Christminster Clerics --- v Seren City Supers 10000/1 Manix Maulers 5000/1 v Indiana Fire --- The * games are the upsets according to the current ladder positions. Due to the limited data available at this stage of the season, there's probably a killing to be made here. Despite what I said last year, injuries are not being taken into account at this stage. GameStats: version 970308, with more bugs fixed and scoring by interchange players now summarised, is now available. ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Warrnambool Sea Hawks ------------------------------------------------------- Another round another flogging..... ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Himeji Herons ------------------------------------------------------- The Heron's got out of the blocks early, in what turned out to be a disasterous result for the young club. With the on-ballers dominating play and regularly feeding the forward line, the home side got the crowd alive with a 6 goal first term, but squandered opportunities preventing the tally from being much higher. When John Thorfin crunched Darwin defender, Paul Nyhuis, the result appeared to be heading in the same direction as last week. Until 5 minutes into the second quarter. After his impressive effort last week, Collins started to flag, and his opponent VanDerWesthuizen began to gain the ascendancy. The Destroyers managed to stem the tide, and started to work the ball more into the forward line. At the 5 minute mark, Parsinen of the Destoyers skied the ball into the forward pocket and Andrew Hart scored the evener-upper, cleaning up Connor O'Ryan who sat waiting for the hospital ball. Late in the quarter, Herons' mobile, Darren Buick, twisted his ankle while racing over the pitching mound (strengthing calls to have it flattened before football games). Pardon the pun, but it was all sliders for the Herons from there. In the third quarter Collins was taken from the ground suffering from extreme fatigue, and with no interchange bench, fatigue took its toll on the rest of the team. By the end of the quarter, the Destroyers had cut the deficit from 33 points to 15 and had more than a sniff. A team reshuffle in the final term helped minimise the damage, with half of the forward line plugging the gaping holes in the backline. But it was not enough, and the Destroyers went on to win by a comfortable 25 points, kicking 7 goals straight in the final term. Himeji 6. 5 9. 8 11.11 11.13. 79 Darwin 2. 3 5. 5 9. 8 16. 8.104 Goals - HIMEJI: BigToe, Cummins, Simon, Thorfin 2, Collins, Mercury, Symmons. ALBION: VanDerWesthuizen 4, Swan 3, Dove, Andrew Hart, Keith Hart 2, Breyer, Nelson, Parsinen. Best - HIMEJI: Collins, Harvy, Lang, Simon, Thomas, Thorfin. ALBION: Brake, Grundy, A. Hart, Holmes, Swan, VanDerWesthuizen. Crowd: 9,417 at Himeji Gate: 45,000 Next Week: The Herons hit the road and the Adelaide Hornets. ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Aldelaide Hornets ------------------------------------------------------- After losing our first games, we here in Adelaide are setting our sights toward the future. We are striving for a championship in five years' time. At the end of this season, we will feverishly go after the best free agents that we can afford, even if it means giving up on our team's aging veterans. We want young talent in order for us to win in the future. ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Krazy Kenora Kangari ------------------------------------------------------- We're starting to take this "losing" business personally. At least we can take out our frustrations on Hed Cooke, who delivered his trademark three misses. As punishment, I'll keep him at LHF and hope Indiana pummels him into an incoherent drooling mess next week. _______________________________________________________________________ Grant Current "He who laughs last thinks slowest." ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Buffalo Knights ------------------------------------------------------- The Buffalo Knights managed their first victory in Gold in a closely fought battle over the Black Company. After the game, the players were more concerned about injuries than anything else. "We are just running around waiting to get ours" worried John B.I.G. "It seems like every time I turn around they're showing some guy up on the Jumbotron screen getting his leg back back 90 degrees in the wrong direction. The players' union should really do something. When asked how her team has avoided any serious wounds that other teams continue to suffer, manager Bridget Fonda could only say it was a combination of luck and good planning. "After all," she began, "it's just a combination of luck and good planning. 'Course, we're pumping our guys so full of vodka right now that they wouldn't know if a truck hit'em, but that's beside the point." The Knights' players in general were upbeat about the win. "It's good to get out first triumph," laughed John Leoni, "because I have seen the schedule and we ain't winning again for a month!" Rookie John Kong Phooey could only murmur, "The horror, the horror." A quick schedule review shows the Knights play next, well, every decent Gold team that there is in the next few weeks, starting with the champs, the Victorian Mandarins in week 3. In yet another side note, Buffalo explosives experts, upset that they couldn't blow up the newly constructed ManixDome took a different approach to attack and instead invested a few thousand dollars in the Manix Federal Saving & Loan as well as buying out portions of the tv station that broadcasts the Manix Republic's second most popular program, "Wild Wild World of Wheat." ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Victorian Mandarins ------------------------------------------------------- Another week passes. Husky sits on the bench out of uniform for game two, glowering. The game goes well for the Mandarins, but Husky doesn't look too happy. Chen and Morden, suited up for the game but not getting field time, somehow manage to increase their skills. Our aging year 6 players avoid injury yet again. ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Manix Maulers ------------------------------------------------------- >From the sports pages of the Manix Times-Star-Bugle-Venture: In a startling turn of events, the Manix Maulers didn't suffer a crushing loss to the Roxburgh Kittens last week. The result stunned insiders and resulted in mass suicides among the Manix gambling community. When asked about the match, Manix Coach Max Leiter responded "If you can control the ball across the centre and have a reasonably efficient forward line as well as a steady back line, they're the basic principles of winning games of footy. We don't have any of those things, so I really don't know why we won." When pressed for details on Albania, Leiter added: "This armed uprising could be ended tomorrow if Berisha agreed to a cross-party coalition, but the rebels are ordinary people who blame Berisha for the collapse of the pyramid funds and want him out. If he agreed to a government which included the Opposition, I guarantee that people would lay down their guns and come out strong in the second half." In a related note, funding was approved for a new Manix Maulers' Bureau For Covert Retaliation And Black Ops Against the Buffalo Knights Slimeheads. ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Newcastle Novas ------------------------------------------------------- Newcastle: Week 3. Injuries have taken some of the edge off the celebrations in Newcastle, although there is no hiding the joy that the downtrodden Novas fans have shown at their second week at Top of Bronze. "It should be a cracker of a match this week, with the Technocrats also showing early undefeated form," said coach Bob Simpson. "This will be a testing week for many clubs, ourselves included, to see what sort of depth we've got to cope with the high injury rates." ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Port Coquitlam Circus Stars ------------------------------------------------------- With all three of the Circus Star mobiles leaving the field last week on stretchers, no one bothered showing up for practice all week. Needless to say, the Circus Boys are in hopeless disarray just two weeks into the season. ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Petawawa Purple Platypi ------------------------------------------------------- D Bat-L uv D an E malls frum don un dir waz wun bi D Platypi. Dat wuz gud, but Bill Melater wuz nut ver-E poh lite wen he wuz care Eed uf 2 da hoss pit al. Duck tors tel us eet wuz a sir E us kon kuss shun frum wen Hobogena gut in is herr. Aff tur C-ing da re-zults uv D udder gams, we duz nut tink dis wil be dat las trip 2 D hos pit all dis yeer. Tim 2 fas D Raiders. Loopy Creature PPP ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the California Sluggers ------------------------------------------------------- Confusion ensues. ------------------------------------------------------- Press from the Livermore Rowdy Yobbos ------------------------------------------------------- Another terse commentary from the First in Fallout: "I am happy to announce that High-Yield conventional arms testing has resumed. The usual question and answer period will ensue", with that he left the press room. The relevance of this announcement to SPARF in general or the Yobbos in particular remains a mystery. In other news, the "LRY: Toll Booths to Disaster" have been converted to First Aid stations providing a variety of treatments for a variety of ailments. That and considerable tense negotiation appears to have staved off the threat of eviction by the Livermore City Council. The Yobbos have returned 300% of the tolls collected to the various claimants. Support your local team, Go Rowdy Yobbos! W L T 1 1 0 Okay, you've got our attention now!