Past 9 days and 3 games later

Manly Sea Eagles vs Melbourne Storm: 20May06

Emma, Katy & I arrived in Sydney after a relatively smooth flight from Melbourne in the afternoon. We met Trent, Caz & Campbell at the hotel at about 4.20pm. It has only been four weeks since I had seen Campbell but boy how he had grown in just that time hey.

There wasnt much time before settling in and the kick off to the game. Katy & I went in venture of drinks and also Smiths chips with NRL Tazos (in Melbourne there is only AFL ones). We even swapped them. We also decided to buy the game tickets so that we didn't have to deal with them later.

Just after 6pm we arrived at Brookvale Oval. It was a pretty uneventful game apart from the fact that Storm lost 34-12. They do not have a very good record at this ground... thats for sure. The game was Brett Stewart's 50th NRL game and he played pretty well, although it was the first time he had not scored a try at Brookvale Oval since beginning of last year. The Storm State of Origin players, Greg Inglis, Matt King, Dallas Johnson & Cameron Smith were not playing because of their respective State of Origin duties for QLD & NSW. I didn't even take a photo of any Storm players in the end.

After the game the others caught up with a Matty Geyer, whilst I was off outside the Manly locker rooms waiting for them to come out. I had no luck in my hunt of Brett though. There's always the next game. David Kidwell also made an appearance.

We headed back to the hotel and had a midnight snack of Pizza.

Katy, Emma & I headed off to the airport for a morning flight back to Melbourne. Trent, Caz & Campbell stay back at the hotel for a little while as they packed up. We made it to the airport check in with just a couple of minutes to spare and time for Krispy Kremes donuts before boarding our flight. I tried the raspberry filled glazed ones and they are so much nicer than the lemon ones, maybe not as sugary.

The flight home was interesting. I was sitting at the back in the plane in between two ladies. Lady on my right had only flown once before because has a fear of flying. She talked about it most of the flight to Melbourne and I tried to distract her so that she didn’t keep on thinking about it. The lady on the left side was just as afraid of flying but at least she kept quiet about and didn’t go on about all flight. The landing wasn’t fab either, probably the worst I’ve actually experienced and hit the brakes pretty hard. It was all-ok & we made it all made it back to Melbourne in one piece.

Campbell surely loved the full attention of 5 adults for the time we were there!!

State of Origin NSW versus QLD – Wed 24 May

On Wednesday was the State of Origin I (series of 3 rugby league games played between New South Wales & Queensland). Final score was 17-16 with NSW now one up in the series. Queensland had seven rookies in their team. Greg Inglis, Steven Bell & Matt Scott played pretty solid games even though having shaky starts.

Greg Inglis scored 2 tries, Steven Bell one too. With the scores tied it was a matter of who could get a field goal in and it was NSW. I still remember the try saver push from Greg Inglis on Matt King’s arm to make him lose control of the ball.

Storm Home Game #4 2006 – no 2 for I’ve been to

Tonight was Melbourne Storm number four for the 2006 NRL season. I have really missed the past two home games and was so glad it was time for another. I also couldn’t believe how much all the babies had grown. Beckham, Campbell & Ryan are well behaved as they are now getting used to all the noises at the games.

Enough of the babies, reason why we were at Olympic park; Storm played Penrith Panthers. Storm won 17-16 in extra time. Scary as that was the same score as the Origin game on Wednesday. I must say the first half was pretty ordinary and I even managed a toilet break in, which Penrith scored a try. The second half did manage a little turn around and by full time it was 16all. We then had another maximum of 10minutes. People actually started to leave at full time, as they mustn’t have known about the extra time. The Storm boys I think need to learn how to kick a field goal as they only managed to get it over after their sixth attempt.

After the game Katy, Emma, Glenn Tanya & I went to the social club which was held in a different location to where we normally have it. The musicians were shocking so after a little while they all left and I probably stayed about five minutes longer and then got the train home.