Rookies Rock The Boat

Young stars stun the 360 big guns.  KNYSNA June 8. Wednesday was meant to be the coming out party of the most talked about team in 360ball in recent months; Team Oxygen but the “rookies” of Montessori crashed the party and almost made it a party of their own. The combination of the game’s biggest “trickster” Gavin Hobson with the most stylish striker to take to the court in recent months, Ryan Oliver, has been the talk of the town in the weeks leading up the Big Wednesday Tournament due to start next week but they were tripped up by the young tournament rookies  before the competition even began. Coming into Wednesday night’s warm up matches Oxygen trumpeted that they would sweep all before them on the social media networks. Arriving late and in contrasting kit, the would be intimidators sauntered onto the court for their first warm up match against the youthful combination of Cameron Tailor and Mike Edwards. Tailor and Edwards looked browbeaten at the sight of their fancied opponents, but that is where the intimidation ended. Tailor and Edwards seized control of the game in the first few exchanges outplaying Oxygen in every aspect and the roles were reversed. Hunter became the hunted. Panic set in and by the time Oxygen regained their composure the game was all but lost. To be fair, Oxygen fought back valiantly and for a while it look like pride may be salvaged, but it was already a lost cause and they went down to the rookies by 12-15.  The rookies themselves were in much need of confidence having been dispatched 15-3 by das Fontes and Hill earlier in the evening and they put what confidence they may have gained to good use almost upsetting Collins& Hill at 15-17 and thumping the Red Eagles 15-6 later in the evening. Overall the performance of this athletic duo sounded a warning to every team in the competition. They won’t get weaker. At the end of the evening however, the boys from Oxygen Orange will tell you that they did take home the only thing they really came for and that was a moral boosting victory over the highly rated combination of das Fontes & Hill.  That packed with wins in their last three matches, saw them proclaim the evening “a success” but in truth, the cold and wet “warm-up night” still left the jocks of the game with perhaps even more unanswered questions than when they arrived.