Anything but Dead 7!

This week Sandria is our guest blogger, leaving me to provide the supporting visual footage from the match.  I couldn’t play due to injury, but sideline supporting is a heap of fun – trust me – Mes won their opponents in fine style with a great final score 35 / 8 I believe.  Below is Sange’s perspective from a players view point,  great to have a report from the trenches.  Enjoy the blog and enjoy the vid’s. 

Peace Sylv 

 

Yes, it’s still Monday but I know some of you wont read this until Tuesday but I’m here nursing my back with the ice-pack. No bed for me for a while!! hush, I say!!

Ladies, we did more than ‘well’. We were brilliant if have to say so myself!! The ‘dead 7’ put on a show. Bad backs, bad hips and bad knees were the order of the day but we showed off and believed in ourselves the most of us are old but not cold!
We didn’t have both our gazelles but found a mother gazelle in the making. We knew our Dels had the skills but she pulled it out with her bad hip. We have to pray hard that she will be able to walk tomorrow! Both Dels and Rhirhi played like professionals and stopped the PLT from scoring in the 1st quarter. 2nd quarter saw Team MA relaxed a little and took our eyes off the ball letting them score 4. We had our talking to and fixed up let them get 1 in the 3rd. You guessed what happened next. Tired old legs was the next. They were happy to score 3. That made up their 8. Go Defence!! Good work

Well big hands for our shooters on the night! Miss Helen and Miss Verna were on fire. The talked to each other and scored like the days of old! Go Shooters. You were awesome!! Well that’s 4 down 3 to go! Babsy, Karla and myself chopped and changed and helped to keep the ball moving in the right direction. Wee did our best! Go centre court players! Only if we could turn back the clock and move a little quicker we would be unstoppable!

Again a huge thanks to our supporters. You surely made a difference. The encouragement from the sidelines, was indeed, needed at times. At the end of the 2nd half Team MA was nearly going to be playing with 6 but seeing you all standing there in the cold I just had to pull out all the stops and see it through.

Injured players, get well soon! If no one else needs you I do. Well that’s it for now! Ms Blogger can you ‘big up’ Team MA on the old blog site, please. If ever we deserve a mention is ‘now’

All, have a great week and see you Friday! Team MA, it’s not over. We have to do it all again on Monday against N7. ( not another ‘dead 7’, please! not sure, we can do it!!)

Easy ladies!!!

 

Oooooooooooooooh real close, but not close enough!

FINAL SCORE; MA 21 / TT 22

Hot off the press Dix just sent me a quick paragraph on her take of events last Monday, thanks for this Dix, especially as you were on your way home from Derby. For those of us who were not there this gives a flavour of what took place, I would encourage those who played and were supporters to add our comments on our blog site. We need to get into responding on the site, i invite you to visit the site, read the entries and add your comments – lets bring our blog to life, lets be active and not passive ……..it all adds to the fun of club life :-). So Dix, I’ll hand over to you;

On my way from Derby, here is my likkle piece of d action;

Game was already in progress when I got there.

Our manager was noticably missing, heard she was under d weather and hope she gets better soon:-).

The opposition was ahead for d whole game, we did catch up but they slipped ahead. This game was fast and very exciting!

Team MA again made it easy at times for the opposition by giving away passes. Our cappy had to deal wid the umpire who could not count and blowing her for held ball every time we Cappy had d ball.

MA supporters were not pleased.

Although we lost, we fought back and were dignified in defeat, dat is how to loose a game.

‘Our Liz’ said team MA hav d best supporters and everyone love us………… not sure if umpires included hahahahahaha:-)

Dis is my take.
Dix

Once again on behalf of Team MA, thanks for this Dix, don’t forget to add your thoughts and comments – lets bring our blog alive dis season.

Peace sista’s
Sylv 🙂

We’re back, we’re wet but we WON! N7 @15 Mes Amis @38

Well after my VERY HOT SHOWER as I arrived home as wet as a bleeding rat, I happily thought to myself DIDN’T WE DO WELL, didn’t we do real well.

Our 1st game of the season, new division, and what a start………it rained all day, let up as we travelled to Harlington and then started pouring buckets sometime mid second quart! Nevertheless we had strong team attendance and were able to make changes as the game progressed.

We had an advantage to start, N7 didn’t have a full team – and of course my playing WD was a dream to start with ‘no marker’ hehehehehehe! We managed to get a good lead in the first quart and sustained this throughout.

The wet conditions were a little worrying and we had to be quite careful – not our younger girls doh, those three see no danger and leap, jump, turn no matter what! The veterans took ti easier, although Cappy’s still got a likkle spring left in her step! We’ve got some bits to work on in training but I’m sure after such a great outcome motivation should be good, we’ve got 9 more games ahead and they’re going to get more challenging as the weeks go on, but we can build on what we’ve started; with our new additions to the team, our coaching duo and our greater understanding of what we need to do, SKY’s the limit!

Our side line support this week was awesome, the weather was really wet and our supporters took it all! Thanks y’all it makes a real difference to have you with us, hopefully the colder nights won’t deter you from coming out and you’ll give Corri a miss just for us:-)

Must mention that we were not entirely happy with all the umpire decisions against us, but we can’t waste time grumbling, we need to press on, work through our stuff in training and aim for victory! I know that’s what MA is all about, so well done ladies, welcome to our new players, great debut, thanks to our sideline supporters – hope you make it regularly:-)

Last but by no means least, let me give a special thanks to my TEAM MATE Ms. Solomon, tonite she stop me in my tracks, left me speechless, I had to shut me mout! Here is why, no MA Team member should have no excuse for not knowing when our matches are, the times and the court we’re playing on as we have all been issued with a pretty ‘laminated’ game schedule. Ms. Solomon has been kindly providing this service for the past three/four seasons now and it has become an expectation and the custom as has this post match blog, I had been giving her a hard time about where they were and why we had not yet rec’d them………she responded several times that I should ‘wait’, I of course thought she meant next week so carried on giving her a hard time, just as she gives me when i’ve not delivered the blog, at de end of de game I had to shut me gob and eat likkle humble pie because as if by magic Ms. Solomon pulled a pile of schedules out of her bag and promptly distributed these. I however got rolled eyes and a ‘tek dat’ hahahahahahaha ha!

Have a good week girls and see ya Friday all being well:-)

Peace
De Blogger

Whose gonna tell 20/19 to dem

Our Manager was away poorly last night and our second coach was away, so i will tell dem what happened and hope they don’t roast us lol.

It was left to our poor cappy to keep us together and concentrate on her game!

It was hot as you all know, but not wishing to make any excuses………..

We started VERY SLOW, in fact our opponents put us thru our paces from the get go, and this was reflected in the scoring. They were ahead of us from the first quart and this remained the case throughout the entire match, at one point I believe they were ahead of us by about 5 points.

We made loads of errors, dodgy passing, bunching, shooting was off, we weren’t dodging well enough, we weren’t calling for the ball etc etc

BUT somehow! from somewhere, we dug real DEEP and began to find our Mes ‘rhythm’ – in the words of our side line support J. A little too late though! Had we found our groove earlier, we wudda beat dem girls. Take nothing away from our opponents they played well and we are always gracious in defeat!

It won’t happen again! One more game to go and we’re not gonna loose that one trust me!

Ain’t no stopping us now, we coming home with metal!

Sent from my iPhone

FIRE, FIRE, FIRE!!!!! We’re almost there!

We’ve got two guest bloggers this week, our Team Manager /player – Sandria and our Match Stats analyst /player – Carol. Thought I’d give them some space to express their views on what we achieved on Tuesday and overall for the season! Read, enjoy and leave us a comment 🙂

The website has been updated and we are winners with 2 games left. We just need to turn up and not give way a w/o to SL or Rubies! We can’t be caught now.

We played, what I thought was one of our best games ever. Not just by the margin but the team spirit was overwhelming! We knew we had to put out our all as the margin on our previous game was so narrow (1 goal win).

What can I say, still a few dodgy calls from the umpires but that’s something we are going to have to live with. 424 goals in 12 matches, lets see if we can get to 500 in 14. A tall order!! with the ‘fire in de belly’ as Ms Blogger would say, I think we are on for a challenge!

Sadly, no match on Tuesday but i need to rest the knees, thank God! I know we are hyped up for it! Bring them on.

On another note. SDT were victors over SL. Great win for them, our new bessie friends. ( Babs and Caz at least!) lol

Go MES AMIS! Great work everyone.———————————————–

We met up with our arch rivals this week (I call them that although lower in the league than us, they’re more on par with us game wise) we thought it was going to be the match of the titans but alas it was much easier than we initially thought.

Anyway what a game. We started with a two goal lead courtesy of them not fielding a team at the start, it then took a bit of time to get started with the goals having had a few chances at the start but that didn’t sway us, oh no we put a licking pun dem and punish dem FIFTY – SIXTEEN, had to write it out as it looks better in letters, lol. I was real sorry to miss out playing having damaged my foot in our game last week with our new BFF the SDTs, talking about them they BEAT the Leavers 37 – 30, their first meeting on 16 April they lost 33 – 19, that’s a very good win for them. We meet up with the Leavers for our next game, our score against them on 23 April was a win as you know 33 – 29, so if the SDTs can do it we can surely do it again.

Only two more matches, no game next week, a well deserved rest.

7.30 or 8.45, who knows? Must’ve been the Heat! 35/18 to us

Yes I had a long soak in the bath last night, and yes I’ve been hobbling around London all day but YES! I’ve had a big smile on my face whenever I thought about our game last night. It was great fun, and didn’t we do well as Brucey would say (for the younger ones ask your parents bout dis reference)

Yes couple of us arrived a likkle too early not realizing that we had a late game, but perhaps some of us needed to arrive early to check out the other teams (one we’ll be playing next week) It certainly seem to do my game the world of good cos I had a whole heap of energy to burn by the time our game started. It got me thinking doh perhaps there are some things I need to do a bit more of! and before ANYBODY asks what, I meant a good nights sleep………..ok to the game……..

There was never any doubt that we were gonna beat our good friends SDT, but lawd we made hard work of it!

Give our opponents their due, they’ve recruited couple new legs, and I suspect they had a plan for us! The first three quarters were hard work, we were slow but it wasn’t fatigue in my view, I think we were still gripped by our game last week – our opponents last week were fast and we needed to slow that game down, SDT on the other hand needed different treatment and I think we were slower to begin with because we were ‘thinking’ more! Other’s may disagree but I really think that was what it was……….

Anywayz, they were neck and neck with us in the first three quarts, yes we were slightly ahead after each quart but they were on our heals and we had to pull up our boot straps and get on with it!!! After a few stern words from our side line coach Pat – yes she’s back, looking well tan-up-and-ting from her birthday trip to JA – we managed to get our act together and clearly obliterated our opponents in the 4th quarter!

From where I was standing I saw increased confidence and flair in the last quarter – our shooters were on fire! we need to bottle those ingredients for our future games. Hopefully in our training we can work on these skills.

We had an injury last night, our WA twisted her foot and has been advised to rest it – our WD is out at the moment through injury so I took care of WD for two quarts and GK for two, I have no doubt that other team members like me today are feeling some aches and pains but it was a great game, great win and great team spirit! Just three more to go – our aim, score as many goals as we can, play some smart netball and continue to improve our game strategies!

Thanks to all our side line support; to our scorer anudda Trini (dey seem to like de numbers), our most recent male supporter who seems to take a keen interest in our game play and also contributes to side line shouts; ‘defence, defence…..’ and of course our young J watch and learn girlfren, watch and learn 🙂

Well done Mes Amis, go Mes go!

Yep we beat them, but it was ‘ard work’ 25 to us 13 to them:-)

It was a slow start! We seem to lack luster – perhaps resenting having to play a game on what should’ve been our night off!

Anywayz, we get going in the first quart, and it was a nightmare trying to score a goal, it took us ages – it took them ages too I hasten to add.

At the end of the first and second quarts there was not much in it at all!

The buggers were really after us, they seem to have fielded a different team, there were some familiar faces but some newer and younger ones too.

Nevertheless we stuck it out and dug deep! By the third quart we seem to find the Mes in our Amis and began to pull away.

From our side line supporters all that could be heard was SLOW DOWN, you’ve got 3 seconds…………even our male supporter was giving advice ‘square off’ he could be heard saying……..well when the third quart was over, we had just one more to go and Cappy said ‘lets make this a good one and play some good netball’, that did the trick and we played a blinder in the last quart and managed to pull away even further – tank de lawd –

We must give them their dues, their shooters seem to find their groove and shot a few good goals – they were very pleased with sinking some good ones, alas however we were too far ahead to be caught.

Finally I must praise our little starlet Rosh, she played very well………even had to tell her she was on FIRE!

Well done again MA, although I’m sure we’re all in pain, it was another goody! See ya Friday at training:-)

Peace Sistrens
Your MA Team Blogger

Mes Amis – We dun good eh?

26 to us & 12 to Dark Comets (DC)

Well here we are again, keeping it real, keeping it local and keeping up our winning streak! I’ve not played a game in a while since I hurt me chest plate bowling, yeh you read correctly bleddy bowling!

We were not a ‘dead 7’ as was the case last week, Rhianna couldn’t resist and joined the team on court for 3 quarts. Jacklyn is back, after time out due to injury and Dixie was available in her kit, so I guess this position just ‘lifts’ our spirits when we have options!

Anywayz, tonites game was a cracker, the DC’s were good in that they were young, fast, agile and if they keep developing they will get better! Overall we couldn’t afford to relax, it was a warm evening with some wind in the air, but I feel we played a good game; we did some speaking on court – unlike us! We did ‘some’ accurate passing (although I vividly recall two of mine which were very dodgy), and we tried to play ‘our’ game when things got a bit tooooooo fast for us. We need more of this type of play, where we keep our heads and play smarter not harder! We must keep practicing more strategies cos those of us who are a likkle older cah keep up wid dem young tings, but we can certainly try to outsmart dem:-) Speaking for meself, I felt a bit puffed as my WA was a little wippa snapper, but it was all good. I tried to block her when I could and I was satisfied wid dat! When we are winning, we can be very gracious in victory, and recently we’ve not been tested in defeat:-), better not happen either!

I thought in this blog I’d include a team members analysis, this time it’s Karen Connells post game comments; ‘Ladies the 1st and 3rd quarters were spectacular. The speed and accuracy of play at times particularly in the 3rd looked very professional. Dark Comets deserved more goals than they got (well they did try against our gazelles) it was a good clean challenging match for us. Good win girls!’ Thanks Karen (WD)

Hope you enjoyed this weeks blog……..still waiting for last weeks one 😦 from dem gyal dem! If you have any comments please feel free to add them below.

Peace
Sylv
Team Blogger

Summertime makes us feel fine!

Listen ladies, this week we have another guest blogger or Team manager Sange she certainly conveys the excitement of the nite! She and I (due to injury) along with other supporters were watching from the side lines – it was a great match, and I tell u I learn so much from the side lines. I hope all that watching converts to substantial improvement on court lol – anyways thanks to Sange for this weeks offering;

I heard Cappy say; ‘EXCELLENT PLAY!’ I don’t think I have ever heard this! Looks like its all coming together for the Great Mes Amis! I was on the sidelines admiring the ladies doing their thang after a shaky 1st 1/4. No lack of goals however, but a general lethargy on the field! Perhaps because it was warm and we are not used to having our legs and arms to the element.

After some motivating words from our Fitness Instructor, Cappy, Head Coach, (however it fits) the ladies settled down and it was such a pleasure to watch.

Cappy made a little change in the last quarter and with our 2 young ladies in the defence and you guessed it! Our Opposition didn’t score a goal! None ! nada! Go gazelles, it was great to watch.

Isn’t youth precious!! As the saying goes (Eggheads) ‘who will beat you?’!

Very well done ladies, Promise I will get these knees working for the return matches! A little less badminton as that league is over and more netball while the weather is, hopefully, warmer!!

Thanx Ms T, you captured the thrill of the nite – everyone got a game last night – it just got better and better

MES WERE INVINCIBLE!

I’ve got some film footage capturing some of our play tonite which I will try to upload on our blog site and our Fb page.

Peace sista’s, enjoy the rest of the week!

Here Comes the Sunshine Here Comes the Sunshine Girls!

33 to us 29 to them

I don’t have much to say this week, read on and you’ll see why!

We had lovely weather tonite but oh lawdy, what a game!

I’m two finger typing, guess why……..cos me brock-up! Third finger swollen, right thumb feel funny, left elbow scrape up, toes killing me…..funny doh, knees not too bad tonite……..may be in more pain tomorrow doh.

Needless to say the one saving grace it dat WE WON DE DAM GAME YIPPPPPEEEEEE!

It was well hard doh, they gave us a ‘run’ for our money! I played WD tonite and I’m feeling it. In quart three, I got too excited and tripped over their WA’s feet, thankfully my fall was broken by our centre with my face landing on her trainers – or did she kick me in de face?????? Not sure but it save me ………bwoy I saw some stars but managed to recompose myself! The game was tough mainly because we’re still struggling to get ‘0ur game’ together! We def benefitted from our sideline observers and this week Pat gave us some VERY sound advice, so it’s wok on Friday – dem teams we beat in the last two games are coming back for us with a vengeance so we need to get our game ON in the next couple weeks! I’m not going to pretend to know how we can get our game on, cos I’m not dat bright, but I think now that Dels has Pat to back her up with de training and strategy perhaps they can split the job on Fridays so that we start to step up our game. I’m confident we can get it if we keep going, listen and recall what we need to when we’re on court!

Lets ‘big up’ Babs and Carol who still had energy to help out our friends SDT after our tough game…………I couldn’t do it, me mash up.

Peace til next time
Sylv
Team Blogger