New York Magpies vs. Philadelphia Hawks
Belmont Plateau Park, Philadelphia, PA, 2:00pm

As the clouds started to clear and the sun finally emerged, New York squared off against the 2004 Division II runners-up, the Philadelphia Hawks in the biggest test for the Magpies so far in 2005. The EAFL’s main sponsor “Mr. Softy’s Ice Cream” was in attendance providing the right background for footy, children’s songs played over and over. Philadelphia is a hungry and strong team that has always provided New York with a very tough contest, and nothing less was expected for EAFL Round 3.

Philadelphia started off the match with a fierce attack on the ball, and was able to spend a good deal of the first quarter in Magpies territory. However, the staunch Magpie defense kept Philadelphia off of the scoreboard. The Pies were able to clear and push the ball quickly down the field, but inaccurate kicking led only to a behind. Solid Magpie pressure kept the ball in Philly’s end, until New York scored its first major. This was the result of some inspired play by Walt “Take a Walk with Jesus” Lin, who smothered a Philadelphia kick, scooped up the ball and hand passed to Reuben “Can’t Get No Satisfaction” Murray, who snapped quickly and truly. Continued pressure by the Magpies was frustrated by inaccurate kicking, netting only two additional behinds.

Q1: New York 1.3 (9) to Philadelphia 0.0 (0)

The second quarter started off with renewed pressure on Philadelphia’s backline. But the Hawks stood firm, and kept the Magpies at bay. Then after some strong play in the Magpies midfield by Chris “I kick goals” O’Keefe pushed the ball into Philly’s backline, Adam “You Have to Earn It” Manners kicked the Magpies’ second goal of the game. A center square penalty after the goal hurt the Magpies, as Philly moved the ball down the ground quickly. The Hawks’ President Ryan Kavanagh marked, and kicked a major for Philly’s first score. The Magpies weren’t phased, and moved immediately back into attack. A couple of behinds were followed by a nice centering kick from Manners to Murray, who finished with his second goal of the day.

Q2: New York 3.7 (25) to Philadelphia 1.0 (6)

After a short rest at halftime, the Hawks’ defense was back on their heels to start the third quarter. The Magpies quickly slotted another behind, and on the resulting kick out, Jimmy “Proud Papa” Vanasek picked up a nice crumb and quickly hand passed to Manners, who snapped truly for another goal. After a sharp passage of play, a free kick to Lin resulted in a goal, and another Magpies goal was manufactured by strong work in the center square from Kym “Golden Boot” Laube. Two more goals resulted from strong running through the midfield by Joey “Disco” Discepola, and a nice shot from Nick “I kick behinds” Quinlan.

Q3: New York 8.10 (58) to Philadelphia 1.0 (6)

The Magpies’ relentless attack wore the Hawks down in the fourth quarter. New York simply dominated the ruck, and had continued run through the midfield. To the Hawks’ credit, they never gave up, running and hitting hard throughout the game. Great ruckwork by Andrew “Bubba” Bridges directed the ball to O’Keefe, who bombed it into the forward line, Vanasek scooped the pill up and scored a goal. In a good show of persistence, Ben “Unicycle” Vonwiller fumbled, stumbled, got smothered, but still was able to get the ball back and kick a goal. The last goal of the day went to Mike “Mad Dog” Dixon, who was able to kick truly after a fifty meter penalty landed him in the goal square. Disco and Mad Dog brought along their own group of cheerleaders, there were no reports whether or not they continued to kick truly the rest of the weekend.

Q4: New York 11.13 (79) to Philadelphia 1.0 (6)

Goals: Manners 2, Murray 2, Discepola, Dixon, Laube, Lin, Quinlan, Vanasek, Vonwiller

The Magpies’ victory pushed them to 3-0 to start this first season of EAFL action. Many thanks to our hosts the Philadelphia Hawks for a well-organized tournament at Belmont Plateau. A special thanks goes out to the other occupants of the city of brotherly love for selling us 10 cases of Corona’s out of the back of their vehicles.

Match video highlights

To download to your computer for local playback right click on the following link and choose “Save Target As...” or “Save Link As...” Video Highlights ( 17M Windows Media). Or watch in the player below & note – Broadband connections: playback may take a couple of seconds to start – Dial-up users: these files are too big and you will NOT be able to download or play – sorry.