LOSS: 0-3 vs The Punters – Sweet Uncle Baby Billy The Punters Took Our Trophy
With The Trophy, pride and 6 months worth of bragging rights on the line, the Punters took out their frustrations on The Honey Badgers and dominated them on the pitch, earning themselves a deserved victory to even up the yearly grudge match at 1 win apiece.
The Badgers had lots of early momentum off the field durning the pre-game. An unannounced guest appearance from CRU Legend BT. A Ryan Willis sighting. Three generations of Gianlucas. And another long thought lost Dragon, Drew, were all gathered inside Badgertown for the occasion.
With four subs on each side of the pitch, the teams looked primed for a classic matchup. The Badgers came out of the gates looking good early, but that momentum quickly crumbled as the Punters started to connect the dots with their passing game, flooding the middle of the pitch with good ball control. The Badgers were quickly under pressure and could have been down a few early goals if not for the crossbar, some offside calls, a possible hand ball inside the box that wasn’t called, and a bit of heroic defending. The warning signs were there.
Speaking of offside, sure looked like Glendon was sitting at the back post behind the lines as he fired in the opening goal unmarked, but no such call was given.
With the Punters still pressing the issue, the Honey Badgers tried to get back into the game for the remaining 30 minutes of the half.
Chappy should have made it 1-1 as Peterson’s corner kick was on target, but he shouldered it like a damn spineless thug instead of heading it. Danny tried to follow it up but stopped short before impaling the Punter keeper with his boots.
Jake hit the deck about 4x in a row, which was very on brand. The twin tiny ankles of Derek and Ciro were back in the mix and held up nicely. Jefe was back a married man, getting in some minutes with a properly functioning ankle as well.
The Badgers held firm for the remainder of the first half going into oranges down just one goal. They were being outplayed, but still in the game.
Danimal took it upon himself to self-ingest actual pineapples at halftime, showing he was playing three dimensional chess with his own emotions.
The second half got underway with the Honey Badgers looking to get back into the game. Unfortunately, they dug a bit of a deeper hole as Glendon nabbed his second with a close range effort to put the evil Punter empire up 2-0.
Still, the Badgers fought on. Shots were hard to come by, and CRU was doing a lot of work defending. Danimal, Chris G, Billy, Guillermo, Jefe and Big Dave were all leading the charge to stop the bleeding, but any opportunities up front were few and far between. Gianluca had a good chance as he was played through the middle and sent a shot to the far post, but it fizzed agonizingly wide of the post.
The final nail in the Honey Badgers coffin came near the end of the game as The Punters earned a corner kick. Like a 122lb Moses, the seas parted for Ramesh as he glided into the box unopposed to head home their third goal and end this miserable game for Cameron Road.
3-0 Punters, and the Badgers had to watch them hoist the trophy in delight. Not the result that Cameron Road wanted, but they still have everything to play for with two games remaining, and no threat of an unwanted promotion.
Man-of-the-Match: Daminal was a defensive force as usual.
Post-Match-Report: While the 90 minutes of soccer was a bit of a disaster, the post game was quite legendary, even for Honey Badger standards. There were margaritas. Things were grilled. Ciro got hit with 5-6 walking icings, Jake jumped his own tent, a tent fairy emerged, Jefe defended the honor of his sensei’s shoes and dumped out freshly squeezed lime juice for no apparent reason, and Chappy searched for his beloved new chair which was hidden in plain sight deep in Punter territory.
