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Welcome
to Kapooka! The action was willing in the ADFA vs Combined
Women in the curtain raiser to the Kapooka 12s grand final.
Photo by Ben Caddaye, service newspapers
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Beaten
by the heat
By
Ben Caddaye
DESPITE a home ground advantage and parochial crowd support, an
exhausted ARTC – Kapooka side proved no match for a slick HMAS
Albatross outfit in the grand final of the 2003 Kapooka 12s Australian
rules carnival.
Owing
to the structure of the finals system, ARTC had to play eight games
on the trot – including three against Albatross – in oppressive
conditions.
Hot,
sunny weather took its toll on several ARTC players in the latter
stages of the tournament, with a number succumbing to cramps and
hamstring strains.
By
the time the grand final rolled around in the heat of the late afternoon,
ARTC had simply run out of legs and rarely threatened the eventual
title winners, despite being handed an extraordinary lifeline in
the decider.
Leading
by 25 points at half-time in the grand final, Albatross had its
score wiped back to zero after it was found guilty of fielding an
extra player in the opening stanza.
With
ARTC suddenly in the lead and a boisterous crowd behind the home
side, Albatross had a battle on its hands.
But
it was a battle it won easily, kicking four goals to two behinds
in the half to run out 22-point victors. The final score was Albatross
4-1-25 to ARTC 0-3-3.
Sixteen
sides from across all three services competed in the 2003 Kapooka
12s – an annual carnival where teams of 12 players fight it
out in a modified Australian rules format.
Preliminary
games, elimination finals and semi-finals were played over two 10-minute
halves, which were extended to 15 minutes for the final.
The
Riverina Football League provided the umpires for the tournament,
while Defcredit kicked in with valuable sponsorship.
The
preliminary rounds, played in the relative cool of the morning,
proved an accurate form guide, with Albatross and ARTC finishing
first and second on the ladder respectively with three wins apiece.
Two
more Army sides, 2CER and 4RAR, also made the finals, scraping into
the top six on percentage with two wins and a loss each.
With
little separating Albatross and ARTC in the preliminary games, the
Navy boys quickly firmed as favourites with an easy 6-3-39 to 1-1-7
semi-final win over the men from Kapooka.
ARTC
immediately bounced back to win a tight preliminary final against
ADFA 1. Playing its seventh consecutive match, ARTC held off a late
charge from the academy to win 4-3-27 to 4-1-25.
Earlier
on, ARTC and ADFA had played a draw, with the Kapooka side declared
the winner after it scored the first goal.
The
grand final, however, was one-way traffic, with ARTC struggling
to score a goal against the deserved tournament winners.
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