Australia Blog

Touch Footy Champs

Last night was the grand final of the mixed touch footy competition I've been playing in to keep myself fit. My team, "Touch Us If You Can", is a team loosely held together by people who know people who know people. The only person I knew is my brother.

For those unfamiliar with touch football, it's like rugby league except you don't tackle anyone, just touch them. It's like flag football is to American football. It's usually 7-a-side, very fast and a lot of fun.

I'll spare the details of the season, but we've had a mixed roster throughout, including the imported services of US athlete Sean Keener. Our team manager quit partway through when she moved to some small islands off the northern QLD coast. We finished next to last, but thanks to a small field (6 teams), we made the finals. In our semi final we beat a team that had been undefeated all season (they were filthy about it too). Not resting on our laurels we backed up for the grand final last night at a new ground.

Perhaps it was because we hadn't expected to win the week before, but everyone was very relaxed about it all and we looked good in all areas of the park. The scores were level at 2-2 at halftime, but I think we felt in control. The opposition scored a try in the opening set of 6 touches of the second half which gave us the wobbles a little bit, but we turned things around to eventually come out winners 5-4.

After the game, we found out where our team fees had gone when winners and runners-up were presented with these trophies.

We also received a cup as champions, but no one really knew what to do with it and no one wanted to claim it since we didn't really know each other that well. I would have suggested we go to the bar to drink victory champagne from it, but two of our team members were under-age.