Wombats Destroyed By Bell-Ends

Game Date: 10/07/2002 Well, the Wombats' season continues to spiral deep into the heart of browntown. Like baby Superman growing up into grownup Superman and getting lots of cool super powers, and then meeting a skanky old chain smoker called Lois Lane and sacrificing all his super powers in a disco-like ceremony in the chilly interior of the Fortress of Solitude, and then returning to Metropolis and getting beat up up by a couple of amateur punks, the Wombats were beaten into comical submission this week. The opponents were the Bell-ends, the umpire was Wombats guest columnist, Dirty Sanchez. As usual, the evening commenced positively enough, with a massive wombats turnout turning the tables on previous weeks. Damo in particular was on an attendance high, managing to string together two consecutive appearances, much to the delight of his charges. Kel also was back into her lucky red volleyball pants, her new-old strides having been aired the previous week. The other stalwarts making it to the late night fixture were (in no particular order of brilliance) Bayls, PJ, Craigie, Murgs, and Rick. Also, fresh back from Cyberdyne laboratories was the player formerly known as Kempy v3.0, now known as Kempy v3.01. Wombats fans will remember the horrific injury suffered by Kempy v3.0 after slipping awkwardly on a puddle of saliva left behind by the Salvies' dummy spitter, Mr Furious during last year's final. Crashing to the polished wooden deck, Kempy v3.0's left leg was torn from his body, while his groin burst asunder with a sickening tearing sound that will long haunt the memories of all those who witnessed such a catastrophic event. A distressed Kempy v3.0 later said - "It all happened so fast. All I remember is standing on the court warming up before the game, then the game started, and the ball went over the net and back over our side, and then back again, for what seemed like scant nanoseconds, and then I was suddenly down with my leg ripped off, and we were deep in the third game of the night. It was as if I was standing still while the game went on around me. It was freaky. Man.". So, having sticky-taped Kempy v3.0's leg back on, filled him with Whoppers and beer, the Wombats sent Kempy v3.0 back to the Cyberdyne labs where he's been rebuilt plenty of times before. Rolling off the production line recently, Kempy v3.01 is now more machine than man.

Kempy v3.01 was back!

So, with a lineup bristling with eager talent, Dirty tweetled his dirty little noisemaker and the main event was underway. And what an event it was. The Bell-ends may look like an incontinent cluster of wizened old farts, but they possess a Yoda-like, deceptive prowess and were quite spirited in their gameplay. The Wombats too, were eager to please the small crowd, disappointed that the main attraction, Totti, was cruelly unavailable to play. Let us analyse each action packed set in turn: Set 1: The Wombats were defeated. Set 2: The Wombats lost. Set 3: The Wombats were overpowered. Set 4: The Wombats were beaten. The 'Bats could have overpowered the Bell-ends tonight, but sadly it was not to be. Again, miserable serving plagued the Wombats unit, with serve after serve dribbling onto the floor, like a pensioner at the urinal. Sadly too, the spiking radar was generally malfunctioning as well, with furious hits either angling way out of court, or slapping into the net, scant millimetres from the bottom. It was cheap, lazy and unprofessional volleyball, culminating in some ridiculous events, the joint pinnacle of which was either Damo's stunning Bingo-Wing, or Craigie's double-footed kick. Generally though, it was a tired and misery-laden outing for the Wombats, with very few positives to emerge from the game. The umpiring again was disgraceful, with Dirty Sanchez's obvious myopia wreaking havoc with the integrity of the sport. Seen to be heavily influenced by an intoxicating and potentially lethal cocktail of Tequila and El Salvadorian peyote, Sanchez was hallucinating all night. Dressed as a slinky teenage prom queen, he sported long satin gloves, and a very fetching cashmere scarf as well as feminine suspenders beneath his designer tracksuit pants. Calling a season high 47 double hits for the night, and at one stage suggesting that Bayls' ball returns might have bordered on approaching anything less than gentle rollbacks, Sanchez was clearly on another planet.

Sanchez coyly called the toss

The Wombats too were on another planet. Sadly the planet was Uranus. It'll be a long road back if this once proud Superteam is to make the finals and avoid relegation to the D-grade Special Olympics backup reserve squad, but one feels that the previous 5 straight dismal losses were just a bad trot. Merely an atypical outlier on the far reaches of the normal statistical population distribution. As Wombats Captain Damo said during the after match press conference: "Yeah, nah, we know we're a bit out of form at the moment, but we'll come back. We've had a tough draw so far, and it's a credit to the boys that we've played as hard as we have. We'll take a lot away from tonight, and rebuild for next week. We're just taking it one game at a time. We're happy to get the one point. It's a team building experience. We've just got to put our hands up and be accountable. We're asking some of the senior boys to stand up and be accountable". On to next week!