Here at the manor we have just caught up on the lack of sleep that resulted from sitting next to a snoring Canadian on our red-eye flight from Perth and decided to deliver further details of Firestorm's 5th place finish. Its best result at Nationals in its 3 year history. After finishing 3rd in their initial pool, FS dropped down into the bottom cross over pool, with no team in this pool able to come anywhere close to the boys. After that they played their way up the big boys to finish in a very commendable position in the end.
Day One:
FS defeat Sublime O 17-9
Firestorm were very rusty early on, but managed to pull away and beat the Sublime B team. Special mention to John McNaughton who managed to float a huck just enough for his brother, Sublime O captain Dan McNaughton, to bid at it, rolling his ankle.
FS lost to Karma 16-15
Game finished on double game point. Firestorm lead the entire game, except for when it really matter, at the end. Firestorm were up by 3 or 4 points for most of the game but crumbled late.
FS lost to Heads of State 17-8
With the Karma game going about 20mins over time, there was only a 10min break before the HoS game. A combination of this and a well drilled HoS outfit were too much for Firestorm to handle.
These 2 losses meant that Firestorm went into the bottom cross over pool, and the highest they could finish from this point was 5th.
Day Two:
FS defeat Umlaut 17-6
FS defeat Happy Pig 17-5
FS defeat Sweet Chilly 17-3
All 3 of these games were a cake walk for the team with the entire roster, including Messr Burwell, feeling still fresh and ready at the end of the day.
Day Three:
FS defeat Fear 17-2
This was the final cross over game and insured that FS finished well on top of the bottom cross over pool. It was just the warm up that they needed prior to their cross over game against Fakulti X, who lost a close game against HoS to finish bottom of their pool.
FS defeat Fakulti X 17-16
This truly was the game of the tournament for the FS boys. After trailing for most of the game, FS found themselves down 14-10 and in danger of falling back into the bottom beer pool and playing the chumps all over again. For the 2nd time in 3 years, FS staged a huge comeback against a Fakulti team. Time cap expired and it was game to 17. FS scored to lead 16-15, then Fak responded to make it 16-16. The final pull came down.
McNaughton dumped it to Don, who gave it to Neild cutting in down the right wing. He saw McNaughton streaking long and let out a big forehand huck. It was bladey and McNaughton layed out in the endzone to grab it millimetres from the ground, sending the FS boys into histerics and into the top 8.
FS defeat Karma 17-8
Following a playing of the last post and a minutes silence the team layed down some smack and showed Karma that Queensland is better than South Australia. FS into the 5th/6th playoff against Sublime A at 9am the next day.
Tim Booth defeat Party 1-0
Boothy climbed up into the rafters at the party, forcing the organisers to wind things up early. This reporter's recollection of events following are quite hazy, but everyone ended up at home eventually...somehow.
Day Four:
FS defeat Sublime A 17-3
In a game that FS was fired up for, Sublime A was barely at the fields on time. JD was dry retching for most of the game following a hard night of partying. FS really wanted it more, and took half 9-2 to shut Sublime out of the game.
While not all the Sultry results are known, we did receive a telegram informing us that they finished 8th, following some close heart breaking losses. In their match to try and get into the 5th/6th playoff, play went down to golden point. Even with the FS boys on the side cheering them on, the Sultry girls could get over some rubbish calls by the Primal team (two such calls were to tell a particularly wet nosed member of FS to "F**k off" following his warning about bad language and to tell the entire FS sideline to "Shut the f**k up") and lost.
Another close game game in the 7th/8th place against fACTory Girls saw Sultry go down in another nail biter.
