Perth-Bayswater downed Cottesloe 22-14 at Pat O’Hara Reserve on Saturday to maintain second place in the competition and stay on track for a finals spot in August, although it wasn't a great game from the reigning premiers. Perth scored tries to centre Mike Lee, reserve prop Ben Todd and reserve T Edwards, while lock Jock Stanley kicked a penalty and two conversions. Cottesloe had the aid of Western Force number eight Richard Brown, but his leading contribution to the game was getting sent off for a dangerous tackle.
Fabulous Fifth Grade managed a hard fought 17-0 win over a committed Cottesloe side at Morley on Saturday. The fifth grade this season has had an abundance of players to chose from so time on the field for some players is limited (quite happy about that I must say on behalf of myself) but even with these resources the fifth grade had to fight hard before it scored its first points of the match. After a number of poor final passes the ball finally got out to Dallas "The Star" Godlieb who popped a lovely little grubber kick in behind the defence to pounce on it over the line for a great show of skill.
With Cachi and the Fonz working hard the team lifted and it was not long after that Shane "Barr Fridge" was in for the team's second try. Shane converted and the fifth grade was out to a handy 12-0 lead. Feeling confident, Welsh manager/player Phil "The legend of the Valleys" Oliver made wholesale changes at half time but had to wait ten minutes himself because Stumpy who he was replacing at fly half had managed to get sin binned right on the half time whistle.
The second half was controlled well by Perth even though Cottesloe did its usual tactic of going to uncontested scrums. Now I'm not saying they do it on purpose but it seems a little bit of a coincidence that it now been going on for four or five years. Try as we might we just could not break the defence plus the 20-2 penalty count against us didn't help. We had big Cliff "Man Boobs" Mateseni putting in some big charges with Darren "Copper" Horne showing he wanted to get into the action but still the points did not come. In the end it was "Handsome Danny" Vella who managed to break the drought and score our final try for a 17-0 win.
Well it had to happen, but it's still a sad moment for the team. Long time fifth grade lock Wayne "Japie" Campbell has finally decided to hang up his boots. Japie, who partnered the likes of Peter Westaway and Steve Fink to name a few over the last decade, has turned up week after week through the good times and the bad. He has managed to get away with insulting (tongue in cheek) every coloured member of the team without ending up dead in a ditch somewhere so there must be something likeable about him. As a team mate of his for the last decade I can say we will miss him on the field (and at half time when he used to have a smoke) but he hasn't gone far. He's been adopted by the Westaways and is now supporting the team from the sideline with scotch in one hand and a smoke in the other.