I had corporate tickets to the Fremantle versus Carlton AFL match this evening at the Gold Coast Carrara Stadium via work.

The evening was fully catered and included waiters in each of the boxes, which was a nice touch. The other great aspect of the corporate tickets was VIP parking, situated right behind the Gold Coast football stadium. Getting into the parking was straight forward but getting away from the stadium was even better, straight into the car, onto the road and completely missed the typical traffic chaos.

The first quarter of the match was quite scrappy, with a lot of stray kicks and handling errors. I thought that was going to set the tune for the entire match, which would have been disappointing but I was pleased to see the quality lift by half way through the first quarter.

My one paragraph breakdown of the match is as follows. Fremantle won the match through great defence within their 50m circle and cleared the ball well. While Carlton were able to get the ball into the Fremantle half quite easily, their approach to getting the ball into the 50m circle was very ordinary. I think their approach strategy tonight (if you can call it that) ultimately lost the match for them – which compounded by poor ball control and ball movement choice made disposal a simple task for Fremantle.

I’m not a massive AFL fan, however I do enjoy watching the matches on the TV – however I couldn’t tell you the names of all the teams or who plays for what team and in what position. After seeing a match in person now, I can completely understand why it is such a massively popular sport in the southern states – the aerial acrobatics and sheer fitness of the players is quite astounding.

I could definitely see myself going along to another game at some point – the crowd are vocal and passionate about their teams, which makes the experience that much more memorable I think.

Last week I mentioned that our team was successful in their semi-final campaign and made it into the finals.

My finals match was against a young Scottish doctor that I first mentioned back toward the end of 2007 after I jotted down some squash strategies following our first encounter. Coincidentally, he is also one of the opponents I mentioned in my semi-final post that I had lost to in a recent string of poor performances. If I was to stand any chance of winning the match, I really needed to bring the form from my semi-final match back onto the court.

A couple things I noticed I wasn’t doing in my semi-final was boasting enough and I was frustrated with my lob. This evening, while I still didn’t boast as much as normal – I certainly added more of that back to my game. However the point I’m most pleased with myself about tonight are the lobs, I think I hit more lobs tonight than I have in any other game and with the exception of a handful – they were all on the money. The side effect of a good lob is that it gives me a chance to recover court position, forces your opponent to run back to cover the ball and if the lob is well positioned, also limits the return heavily.

I think that I played at least as well as I did in the semi-final against Steve, however tonight it wasn’t quite enough. We were both moving around on the court so much that by half way through the fourth game I was hurting, a lot. The game score was 2-1 in favour of my opponent and I was up on points in the fourth – poised to draw the match but it wasn’t to be. I lost my serve and that was the tipping point – I lost five points in a row and the fourth game. While the game score was 1-3 against me, I’m happy with my performance tonight as I know that I lost the match as opposed to him winning all of it. What has become quite clear, if I want to move up to B grade the season after next – I absolutely must improve my aerobic fitness.

Despite my loss tonight, our team absolutely hammered our opponents – yielding only 5 games in total! In my time with the Robina Squash Club, teams I’ve played in have made it through to the semi-finals twice but never into the finals. It was a great feeling tonight, not only to be in the finals for the first time but also to win the squash season!

If you’d like to join the club for learn, fun or fitness – get in touch:

Robina Squash Club
University Drive
Robina QLD, 4226
0427 627 229

My team at the Robina Squash Club made it into the semi-finals and they were played tonight. I wasn’t sure how I’d go, as the last few weeks I haven’t played anywhere near my potential and the semi-finals saw me pitted against a senior player named Steve who I’ve written about previously.

A bonus of making it into the semi-finals is that there is no set order of play, each team takes it in turn to decide who plays next. This might seem like a small thing, however it can be used to your advantage if handled well as it allows a team to apply quite an amount of pressure to the opposing team by playing in an order that provides them with the greatest lead. As it panned out tonight, Steve and I were on last – which meant we walked onto the court at about 9:30PM.

Steve is notorious for being a very crafty player on the court and has the ability to create a lot of angles and drop shots off unexpected balls. While he isn’t the faster on the court, those two features of him game and a consistent serve unsettles a lot of people in my grade at the club.

I went into the match knowing that I had to lift my game and had a very loose game plan in my head:

• vary the pace and placement of my flat serve
• include plenty of slower high serves
• make a point of varying the depth of my ground strokes, driving the ball deep isn’t a silver bullet
• capitalise on stray balls to create angles and shorten the point
• better foot movement, poorly managed feet significantly limits shots
• run

This evening I served with consistency and solid accuracy, which meant only a few loose serves. Variety on the serve was very effective and it seemed to be enough to keep Steve on his toes as he wasn’t stepping in. Changing the length on the ground strokes was a good move as well, if for no other reason than it makes your opponent move on the court and pulls them out of position. It took a little mental effort tonight but making a point of getting my feet into a ‘better’ position really helped open up the court through shot variety, which also allowed me to shorten the points.

Those were the things that worked really well tonight but it wasn’t all sunshine and lollipops. I normally boast the ball regularly, however tonight I didn’t do it enough and was fortunate enough that it didn’t seem to effect the score. The trusty lob, not a shot I get to play all that often but is something I have identified that I really need to work on. I can hit the lob itself no problem, what I can’t do consistently is get it deep into the back corner of the court without going a little too high on the wall – frustrating!

The good and bad above produced the following results:

1. 13 – 1
2. 13 – 2
3. 12 – 13
4. 13 – 3

Now I just need to work out how to deliver that type of game week in an week out, but for the moment I’ll focus on the final next week and go from there!

If you’d like to learn to play squash or enjoy a good hit, get in contact:

Robina Squash Club
University Drive
Robina QLD, 4226
0427 627 229

This week was meant to be my bye in squash, so this morning I didn’t bother packing my gear to take to work. Of course, the day I don’t do that – I receive a call late in the afternoon from another player who wasn’t able to make it (his wife sprung a surprise on him for his 50th birthday). I asked if he could call around to some other folk first, as I’d need to travel home to get my gear and then head down to the Robina squash courts; bit of a drive. Long story short, we’ve got a bunch of guys out injured at the moment so I said I’d fill in for him on late notice.

I get to squash on time, expecting that I’ll be 2nd or 3rd up to play and I don’t see my opponent anywhere. I ask around and no one has heard anything, which is very strange but figure he is just running late. After waiting there for about two hours, 9 o’clock rolled around and I was just about to go home when one of the B grade players asked if I’d like to have a hit regardless. Given that I’d made the trek home, then down to Robina – it made sense to at least have a hit while I was there.

First game I lost quite convincingly and I thought that it was going to set the tone for the next three; but that didn’t seem quite right. I grabbed a quick drink between the games, regrouped and preceded to take the second and third games in a similar style to what had happened to me in the first – Darren didn’t know what the hell was going on. The fourth game wasn’t quite as good, started hitting the ball a little loser – which he capitalised on. By the end of the four games, we were both working really hard and were sucking in a whole lot of air coming off the court; pleasing to know that he was working just as hard!

The next squash season is soon to start, so I’d be fantastic if there is an opening in a higher grade as the extra challenge presented by the stronger players is great. Playing against stronger players makes personal development a lot faster, it is quite hard to continue to progress if you don’t have opponents that have superior skills to you; I find you tend to plateau at or slightly above the strongest player after a while.

If you’re interested in joining the club for some fun and fitness:

Robina Squash Club
University Drive
Robina QLD, 4226
0427 627 229