hnpcc | playing netball in the heat

We didn't have a game on Monday due to the long weekend. We don't have a game next Monday due to a bye. So when an e-mail thumped into my inbox asking if anyone was interested in filling in for a team last night I thought "why not?"

At that stage it was 26oC. The game wasn't until 8.30pm. Surely it'd be a reasonable temperature by then!

Yeah well, I was kind of wrong on that point. Driving down the Knox Storage sign had it at 32oC. Hm.

The team I was filling in for is a team set up by the competition organisers. Basically everyone in that team has already paid for a season's worth of games. So I was surprised that they were looking for three fill ins for that night. (I've mentioned I'm cheap before, haven't I?)

When I got to the courts there were disturbingly few people around. Only one court was playing netball, with the other three filled with tennis players all pretending they were in the Open. There was obviously one team getting ready, but I couldn't see anyone from the team I was playing for. Hm.

I went over to the reception and introduced myself.

"Oh yeah, they'll be here in a minute."

I hung around near the entrance. A woman, who was also hanging around, wandered over and asked if I was playing with the team. She was filling in too. The captain arrived, and one of the players. And another fill in.

At game's start we had 5 of us, of which 3 were filling in. The captain was understandably annoyed. "There's supposed to be another two people coming. Really!"

There was a quick discussion as to who would play where. I started as GK, which I haven't played in ages. As it turned out, it was fun. My opponent was taller, but not hugely taller, and slower than me which meant I could intercept (and did.) We started off reasonably well, despite being one player down (the other team had 6.) And for some reason - possibly because I hadn't played either soccer or netball in the previous three days - I was full of energy and leaping around a lot.

Just before quarter time one of our missing players arrived, which meant that we were now even. This didn't actually help us in any meaningful way, as we were still struggling to get the ball past their tall, fit, and athletic goal defence, who also seemed to have extendable arms and possibly an internal cooling system. Seriously, even towards the end of the game when everyone else was starting to obviously wilt, she was still leaping across the court, chasing down balls and generally just being hard to get around.

At half time we sucked down water and compared notes. Our late arriving player changed to WD from WA so that there were no loose players. We probably should have left her where she was, dammit. Oh well. We also noticed that we only started sweating when we stopped moving - obviously the heat/wind was enough to evaporate sweat before it became obvious.

I swapped to GD, as the woman who'd been playing it was getting tired. I was impressed by the captain, who played C the entire time.

We finished the game just as I was starting to obviously fade (not getting back to the line quickly enough, coming forward too slowly at the centre pass, starting to throw more erratically than normal, getting hit in the side of the head with misjudged balls - granted that was also a function of the lights coming on a bit too slowly and my vision being bad at twilight.)

We scored 6 - no idea what the other team got, although it was more than 6. It was a lot of fun. Having said that, I'm seriously unsure of how Thursday night's game at 7pm in 41oC heat will go. At the moment I think we're all hoping the other team will bite the bullet and forfeit first. There's a definite plan to hit the pub after the game for a cool drink happening.