G'day Freeze, et al: 
Ever think Minnesota could be warmer than Australia?  Well when I was back a few weeks ago, the warm Minnesota weather was a treat.  As Tiger stated in his previous post, it’s getting cooler, the autumn is here and winter is around the corner.  Last week we had about 4 full days of rain, which sounds like it is needed in Minnesota more than here.  People here say they have never seen snow, but last week’s storms brought us some BB-sized hail too! Footy is becoming interesting with the addition of the bad weather, our evening trainings under the lights are reminiscent of the USFooty National Championships in Colorado Springs this last fall.  Unfortunately the weekend day games will equal last year’s tournament as winter rolls in.  Welcome to Denmark, Western Australia!

Back home was good, truthfully, there is nothing like it; until you are gone for a significant amount of time you may not realize how great it is.  It was fulfilling to see all the family, family, family and friends in my five days home.  For the first time in 7 years I watched a Farming Flames Baseball game from the ‘fan’ side of the fence, and I felt out of place, so the next game on the weekend I suited up like old times.  The game was at home, dedicated to Grandpa and all the family was there.   Looking from the third base dugout I could see Granpa and Granma’s house across the road beyond the right-field foul pole and Granpa’s place of rest in the Church cemetery in foul territory of left-field while ‘spittin seeds’ with the boys and talking up footy and OZ.  I’ll be back next season Flames, as well with the footy mates in Minneapolis playing for the Freeze!
 
Good luck the rest of the season for both teams! 
 
Back down under, I resumed playing footy on the weekend I arrived.  It was Tiger and my team’s second meeting…although for the first time this season I was named to the reserves side, being away without training.  So we got to watch each other! Tiger I can see vast improvement and will be a dominant full-forward for the Freeze come this Fall when he gets back in time for Nationals in Mason, Ohio.  He helped the bulls squeak out a 50-pt win on the rainy afternoon.  For me, I was more than happy to play ‘ressies’ as I got in more playing time and had more time near the ball.  Even took a mark from about 40 meters out, but unlike Tiger I haven’t been practicing the 52-meter bomb!
 
The second weekend back I played probably my best game yet, and it was definitely helpful as we, the Denmark-Walpole Magpies, were missing 6 starters because of injury or previous commitments. The game was unfortunately changed from Sunday to Saturday on two days notice; we were definitely caught off-guard when we got the word in time for Thursday night’s training. At the end of Saturday the scoreboard showed a dominant loss, but with the guys on the field there were many improvements. One of our team’s troubles is that we don’t put together four-quarters of play. In this circumstance the Railways went up by 9 goals at quarter-time, and prevailed to win by that margin as we played a solid game in the remaining 3 quarters.  
 
As Yogi Berra once said, "It ain’t over till it’s over”…we need to play with that in mind!
 
Take Care,
 
Mergo