Bunbury Carnival 2022

2022 Bunbury Carnival Report

Another exhausting and fun filled long weekend was spent at the South West Hockey Championships in Bunbury by three teams proudly representing Fremantle Cockburn and their families. This year we had:

7/8 Girls – the team was made up of 8 of our 7/8 girls with support from one of our 5/6 girls, Lucy Lillis, and siblings of some of our 7/8 boys, Abbey Brolsma, Melody Brackstone, and Nicole Wharton Street, the latter two were having a break from netball for the weekend (hopefully they realized how much more fun hockey is). They were all valuable additions to the team. There were also some  guest appearances in goal by Eliot Northcott and Macy Newman after the team’s goalie, Gemma, had to leave after day 1.

The girls started strongly with a game against Melville that they were unlucky not to win with many opportunities to score. Unfortunately, that was the theme of the weekend for the girls as they had a number of draws that should probably have been wins! Just couldn’t quite get the goals in! Many thanks to Sharr for coaching and being so encouraging. The girls learnt a lot about holding positions and working together. Also thanks to Sarah for managing the team. It was a tough year for the team managers as the fixtures were changing continually over the weekend with very little notice.

The girls put in a nice effort with their skit at the team dinner – a dance where three of the girls grew beards. There appeared to be some actual preparation involved! I think they were the winners on the night although Coco and Kairu’s dad, Matt, did put a fine solo effort with some excellent dance moves!

7/8 Boys – the boys had a bit of a rotating line up with a full team on Saturday with Keegan, Alec and Jonte joining for the day and 11 on Sunday with Shaan down for the day and then the girls supporting the team on Monday. It was great to see some siblings having a chance to play together; Abbey and Bailey, Melody and Joe and Nicole and Xavier. Lara also had a chance to be coached by her brother, Jared, who took on coaching duties for the weekend.

The boys had a strong carnival with a number of good wins. They were beaten by a very strong Whitford team and YMCC both of whom were undefeated and in the GF. They ended up 4^th which is our best result for a boy’s team for quite a few years. Tom Curd told them they had more wins than any team he played in for the past 4 or 5 years! Big thank you to Jared for coaching and Tahlia for assisting him with subs. Thanks also to Tori who was team manager for the first time in a very challenging environment. It was a bit of a minor miracle we managed to get every team to the right field at the right time with the number of fixture changes!

The boy’s skit was a talent show with Jared as the MC. We saw a few jokes, a bit of dancing – I don’t think there was a lot of pre-planning so the boys need to work on something for next year! There were some individual efforts during the evening – Bailey ran a session of Dad Jokes, Augie busted some hip hop moves and Oli and Eliot did a dramatic fight scene, complete with sound effects.

9/10 Girls – almost a full team, yay, of girls from our two 9/10 teams with a couple of year 11/12 ring-ins, Charlie Wyatt and Tanayah Reynolds and a sibling of one of our 7/8 girls, Annabel Knowles. With the arrival of Paige, Marlee and Havana on Sunday, Tanayah was released to focus on her umpiring! Unfortunately the team also saw the departure of Milly and Maddi who tested positive to covid on Sunday morning.

The girls played well and had some very close games with their worst result a 3-0 loss to N C Raiders who were undefeated at the end of the carnival. They needed to score a few more goals, which they came oh-so-close to doing on many occasions. It was great to see how well some of their newer players held their positions and were ready whenever the ball was thrown out of defense.

Thanks to Darrel for – yet again – coaching the girls! Thanks also to Delray for being the team manager.

The 9/10 girls’ skit was a rap from the musical Hamilton. Whilst their recall of the words of, what seemed to be, quite a long song was impressive, they needed to add some dancing or other visual enhancement so the audience could be more engaged. They then returned to their table and continued to belt out Hamilton numbers so clearly this is a firm favourite! Charlie did lead a group of girls in an epic dance to Single Ladies – Beyonce would have been impressed!

Dinner Winner - Overall, I think the ancient Y-M-C-A got most of the kids out of their seats and dancing. Classics never go out of style!

Umpires – thanks to Tom, Coco, Tara and Tanayah for taking on umpiring duties during the carnival. Special thanks to Tom who covered 13 of our 23 games!

Spectators – thanks to all the parents, grandparents, siblings and friends who came along and supported all our teams. There was a lot of laughter and cheering. Spirits were high and the atmosphere made the games fun, even in the rain and cold. Thankfully we didn’t have too much rain or cold this year!

Great Big Thanks – to Lee Abbott who, yet again, was instrumental in keeping our preparations on track, including organizing the swimming club for accommodation, our team dinner, the tent, team presents and so much more. It was a shame to lose you and Milly on Sunday after the dreaded virus hit.