This week’s match report brought to you by Wild Kiwi Pies

This week the mighty Cudas took on the Port Malmö Maulers for the second time in the 2022 season in the battle for supremacy of the Øresund. The game would be the last for the club before the summer break, also coinciding with a public holiday long-weekend, Father’s Day, and a music festival weekend, so safe to say the first battle for the Cudas was securing enough numbers to field a team!

Fortunately on the morning of the game, like a flock of prodigal sons returning to the promised land, many late-inclusion-Cudas appeared down at the Pond to both barrack for and pull on a guernsey. The most notable last minute call up being the long awaited comeback of the ‘No-Mercy-Man’ or ‘bane-of-the-young’, Ziggy Lange, returning after a lengthy stint on the sidelines with a foot injury, ready to dish out some punishment to the Maulers. Two new late call-ups joined the side in the form of Sam ‘the Sheep-’ Shearer and Max Anderson. Before kick-off the Cudas were now looking at one of the strongest sides fielded all year, with a full bench, and a bunch of blokes hungry to bring home the bacon before the summer break.

It turned out to be somewhat of a family-affair, with cousins – Ziggy and Kaj, brothers – Tom and Max and father-and-son duo – Richard and Thomas all donning the gold, navy and red for the game.

The conditions were perfect for a great game of footy, a breeze could barely be felt, the sun was shining at a high-performance temperature of 21 degrees, and the grass had been trimmed to a perfect level under watchful eye of club legend Eddie Marin. When the first quarter kicked off the Cudas came out strong, looking to not repeat the same mistake of underestimating their opponents as the week before. Tom ‘Hollywood’ Wilkinson immediately made his presence known in the midfield, displaying his silky skills to get clean deliveries out of the center, allowing for the work horse combination of Emil ‘Friday-Night-Fever’ Thaning and Thomas ‘Colombian-Christmas’ Page to punish the maulers with serious gut-running and entries into the forward 50. Clearly getting a sniff that no hard work was going to be required, the late self-callup of Frosty ‘License-to-shoot’ Lane was in his usual fine form, stealing goals from opponents and teammates alike and backing himself to rack up some early points for the Cudas.

Frosty Lane shows off his dance moves before kicking a couple

Jason Nunn

Always reliable ruckman and club-spirit guru Tom Boyd, was strong around the ground. With clean hands and an impressive ‘don’t argue’ in the first term he, as usual, got the team fired up early.

Boydy says 'no'

Jason Nunn

The backline proved very solid, showing fortitude and composure with whatever the Maulers could throw at them. Fraser ‘I-work-at-Implement’ Hall continued his streak of hardballs gets, attacking the footy and allowing for the dynamic hard-running of the club captain Kaj ‘Kajak Daw’ Kremer to repel the Malmö offense with ease.

Despite the scoreboard, Malmö never stopped fighting, mounting solid pressure through the middle and into their forwards to score some of the best team goals seen in the DAFL.

Throughout the game Mark ‘Why-look?’ Bormanis continually displayed his elite skills, with clean link ups and deliveries to the likes of Richard ‘The-greater’ Page and Brett ‘Surely-he’s-not-40’ Daze, who used their experience, speed, and toughness to steady the ship when needed. As the game progressed, the two big men Bram ‘Tarzan’ Kerkoff and Rasmus ‘Can-salsa’ Ditlev put their stamp of authority on the game, with hard contested marks and tough tackles that kept the game’s momentum in the favor of the fish. Ziggy lived up to the hype for his return, giving some great run-down tackles and dominating in the ruck to keep the momentum through the middle in the direction of the Cudas.

Highlights of the game included a great pack grab from debutant Max Anderson in the first 5 minutes of his entry into the game, Rasmus proving himself as a valuable defender, and multiple goals from fullback by Kaptajn Kaj who was looking to impress select members of the crowd, later being disappointed to find out they would not be joining him to Distortion festival.

As always a huge thanks to the umpires – another set of brothers in Chris and Nathan Campion, who as always did a fantastic job. Thanks also to Rasmus, Atiba, Loke and James for sitting behind the goals; Emma for keeping the spectators fed; Josephine for keeping score and el pres for almost keeping good time.

All-in-all, it was a great day of footy for the club, and a perfect conclusion to the first half of the 2022 season with a lot to be happy about, and to work on for the remainder of the year. Looking forward to the return of the Cudas in August against arch-rivals, Farum Cats.