Greg was about forty metres out, on an angle, and kicking into the wind. He looked for leads up ahead but everyone was covered. The tag was jumping up and down, waving his arms.
Everything slowed down, then moved together as Greg took his kick. He felt his boot connect, and saw the ball float off in a long, slow arc. Unreal. The goal umpire was in slow motion but he didn’t hesitate to point both fingers. A huge cheer went up. Then the siren went for three-quarter time.
In the final quarter Frenchy was back on Greg.
‘That’s four to me, Danny Boy.’
‘It ain’t over yet, my friend. And need I point out, we’re eight points ahead.’
The first goal for the quarter went to Cockburn, who were finishing strongly. They were a really fit bunch and had no trouble running hard to the end. They were beating South Freo to the ball and making the most of everything that came their way. Greg could see that Nathan, who’d been running on the ball for most of the game, had just about had it.
Then the wind began to tell. Cockburn slowed down, and Aaron Skinner scored with a quick snap from the pocket. He and Greg exchanged grins.
At the bounce down Souths’ ruck got a good tap out and Nathan had just enough breath left to shovel it through to a midfielder running past. Six seconds later it was on Greg’s chest and he booted an easy goal.
Cockburn came back with a point and were three points in front.
For a while it looked like it would stay that way. Greg was desperate for the ball to come his way but the Cockburn half-backs were letting nothing past.
Then in the last few minutes the centreman got one through to Aaron. As Aaron ran on into the goal square, Greg managed a good enough shepherd on Frenchy to give his team-mate a clear passage. Aaron slammed it through. Souths were three points up, and still ahead when the final siren went.
Aaron’s two goals in last quarter had sealed the game and he was totally stoked. But what everyone remembered, what everyone was talking about, was the magic goal the Lukin kid had kicked at the end of the third term.
‘Good game, my friend.’ Danny French gave Greg a high five as they walked off the field. Unreal. The coach was ecstatic, the Fremantle camp was going wild.
For the first time in his life Greg Lukin was a star. He could get to like it.
A RIGHT PAIR
Nathan was exhausted, but half an hour after they’d come off the field he was still bubbling over. He was sitting with Greg, watching the under seventeens match, but all he could talk about was the game they’d just played.
‘What did I tell ya? Killer boots. The first half was wicked, and then, when you took that mark …’
‘Hey, Nat … can we let it rest now. There’s another game on.’ Greg was exhausted too. He hadn’t had to run as hard as Nathan but the mental side of it had been really heavy. Staying focused, not drowning in adrenalin, had washed him out. Before the game he’d been wound up so tight — now he was as floppy as the cloth hat Ashley was wearing.
‘Hey, Ash. See Rowan? He’s got the ball.’
Ashley, who was sitting on Greg’s lap, looked around. Rowan was running down the left flank. She picked him out just as he let go his kick.
‘Wowan. Ball.’
‘Hey, the rug rat can talk,’ Nathan said.
‘Yeah — tell me about it. She’s a regular mine of information, aren’t you Ash? Be running your own gossip column soon.’
‘Nuh.’ Ashley shook her head.
Greg and Nathan looked at each other and started to laugh. When they started they couldn’t stop. All the tension that had been in Greg’s body found it’s way out now — his ribs were hurting he was laughing so much.
A man sitting beside them said ‘SSSHHHHHHH!’
That made them laugh even more. Ashley, who had no idea what the joke was about, was laughing too as she bounced around on Greg’s lap. Brett moved forward from where he was standing and picked her up.
‘I think I’ll take this one off your hands,’ he said. He met Greg’s eye. ‘Great game, Greg. Congratulations.’
‘Is that Banana Smoothie?’ Nathan whispered. That was the name Rowan had come up with for Brett a couple of years back. Brett had just sat Greg and him down and told them very seriously that he was looking forward to having a blended family.
‘Yeah, that’s him.’
‘He’s got the right idea, then.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Keep in the background, make with the compliments and clear away the shit.’
They dissolved again. The man sitting next to them was getting really annoyed. ‘What’s the matter with you two?’ he said. ‘You’re carrying on like a right pair of schoolgirls. Can’t you control yourselves?’
The schoolgirls bit was the end. They were laughing so much they were rigid. If Greg could have got an answer out about being able to control himself, it would have been ‘no’.
South Fremantle lost to Warnbro by fifteen points in the under seventeens. Rowan had an okay game, but nothing to make an Eagle’s scout get on the mobile phone. He was quiet in the car as Nick drove them home.
Greg spoke up though, sweet as pie. He felt good now — tired, but in the happy kind of way that a good sleep will fix. ‘I want to truly thank you, Rowan, for the excellent piece of advice you gave me.’
Rowan let that one pass at first. He knew a set-up when he saw one. But, finally, he couldn’t resist. ‘And what piece of advice would that be, little brother?’
‘You said, I seem to recall — correct me if I’m wrong — that I’d have a great score if I reversed the points and the goals from last week. Well, I did. I kicked five goals one.’ Greg had been rehearsing that for a couple of minutes and it came out even better than he’d hoped.
Rowan was silent for a full five seconds. When he spoke it was like he was Obi-Wan Kenobi talking to the young Luke Skywalker: ‘I am delighted to have been of some assistance. Perhaps you will realise now that my advice is not to be taken lightly. Any time I can be of further help, just let me know.’
HAMSTRUNG
Greg had been so pleased with himself, and so bone-tired, he hadn’t thought about the boots for a while. Or if he had, it had been in a happy, fuzzy kind of way. He’d come to think of them as his. He couldn’t bear to think of having to give them back.
After Greg had had a sleep, he and his father turned on the TV to watch a replay of the Dockers– Roos game. Then it all came flooding back. He watched Toggo run onto the ground with a pair of boots which he knew were identical to his own — but not the same. The boots Greg had were special. There was just something about them that made you feel good, made you know you could play as well as you possibly could.
Greg and Nick had heard already that the Dockers had lost by five points. Greg hated knowing the scores before watching a replay, but the results had buzzed around the oval during his own match. He hadn’t been able to really concentrate on the Dockers just then, but now he could. All his attention was on the man in the number eight guernsey. Come on Toggo, boot a bundle. You show ’em, mate.
The Dockers started explosively as usual, even though the ground was wet and the ball got slippery very quickly. Toggo and Darryl Nannup both scored quick goals. Toggo’s was a straightforward kick, no big deal. But Dazza’s was amazing. He seemed to put a second bend in the banana.
The rain came pelting down then and the MCG was covered in sheets of water. Players were slipping and sliding everywhere, struggling to keep a grip on the ball and the ground. Even little Dazza lost his footing and skidded five metres on his back.
The Roos fought back with one goal one point. They were lifting their game and looked like they were going to run on with it. Even though he knew the Dockers had lost, Greg was getting nervous.
Then, suddenly, Toggo seemed to find something in himself. For ten minutes he had a dream run. He was in all the play, and everything he did came off in a big way. He took a screamer of a mark from the back of a pack and converted, no sweat
. He soccered one off the ground that bounced the right way and scored a major. He grabbed possession in the left pocket and snapped one over his shoulder that went straight through. You could see he was really pleased with that one. He raised his fist in the air. Dazza ran up and slapped him on the back.
At quarter time the commentators were saying that Matt Tognolini was running into form. Greg hoped so. It’d give the armchair critics something else to talk about for awhile.
Toggo started strongly again in the second quarter. He seemed to be really firing. Greg was with him when he leapt high for a mark.
Whether it was the bad conditions, or the contact he made with the full-back going up against him, Toggo got off balance. His left leg took his weight awkwardly as he came down. He clutched the leg behind the knee, and took a couple of those awful hobbling steps that coaches and fans hate to see. They nearly always mean serious tendon damage.
‘Hamstring,’ ‘Hammy’, ‘Hamstring’ — Greg, Nick and the commentator all spoke at once.
Two Dockers runners were out to Toggo in a flash, and carried him off, supporting his weight between them. The cameras managed to get a close-up as they neared the race leading down into the players’ rooms. If the look of pain on Toggo’s face was anything to go by, he was in a lot of trouble.
The commentator seemed to think so. ‘Well, that’s very bad news for the Dockers. If it is a hamstring, Tognolini could be out for weeks. And he was just starting to get into his stride …’
‘It doesn’t look too good,’ said Nick. ‘Bad luck, eh? He was just getting it together.’
‘Yeah.’ Greg was stunned. He had an ache in the back of his throat. It was terrible bad luck. But maybe, if Toggo had been wearing the killer boots, if Greg had given them back, Toggo would be all right.
‘You’re real quiet, mate,’ Nick said.
Greg felt too sick inside to say anything.
‘It’s not the end of the world, you know,’ Nick went on. ‘These things happen in footy all the time. It’s not the first injury he’s had and it probably won’t be the last. He’ll be back before long.’
‘What’s up?’ Rowan asked from the doorway. Replays, even losing ones, didn’t usually involve this much doom and gloom on the old lounge.
‘Toggo’s injured. Hamstring,’ Greg told him.
‘Oh, tough.’ Rowan meant it. This wasn’t a time for crowing. It did cross his mind, though, that Toggo out of action was a plus for the Eagles. They were due to play the Dockers in a couple of weeks.
‘Yeah, tough.’ Greg stood up. ‘I think I’ve seen enough of the match, Dad. I’m going to muck around on the computer for a while.’
Greg went into the spare room and shut the door. He did a sound check. The TV was a faint buzz and the commentator’s voice was just a blur. Good. He couldn’t bear to take in a single word.
What Greg missed seeing and hearing was how the Dockers patchwork forward line-up really struggled. They tried their hearts out with Toggo gone, but it wasn’t good enough. There was a yawning void for a specialist full-forward.
Matt Tognolini, who’d watched the second half of the game from the interchange bench, saw it as clear as day. And he saw what the coach would have to do. Big Luke Vidovich wouldn’t be an emergency next week — he’d be in the team. And the position he’d be playing would be full-forward.
Alison was waiting for Matt at the airport. She’d seen the hamstring go in living colour. It had been terrible seeing the look on Matt’s face in close-up when she was five thousand kilometres away.
She’d spoken to him briefly on the phone, and he’d given her the verdict. The injury was bad as hamstrings went. Three weeks minimum, could be six. And then he’d need a week or two to get up to match fitness again. Even with swimming and upper body work, Fitzy would probably want him to have a run or two with South Fremantle in the local competition. Given his form this year, there’d be too much at risk for the coach to drop him straight back into the team. It looked like he could be on the sidelines for quite a while.
Toggo was rehashing this in his mind as he came through the airports sliding doors. Seeing Alison standing there lifted his mood a lot.
‘Come on,’ Alison said, after they’d hugged. ‘Dempsey’s waiting in my car.’
Dempsey went crazy when she saw Toggo. She was so happy to have him back, but she knew straightaway that something was badly wrong. And why was he limping? The sound she made in her throat was half pleasure, half concern. Which is about as complicated as it gets for a dog.
THE MINESTRONE EXPRESS
Toggo was glad there’d been no reporters at the airport, but the phone ran hot with journalists when he got home. Dockers’ PR organised a photo call with the West Australian, and Toggo and Dempsey appeared in colour in the mid-week sports section. Toggo was pictured lying on his back on the sun deck of his house. His left leg was strapped and his feet were up on Dempsey. The caption read:
TOGGO DOGGO: Injured Dockers full-forward, Matt Tognolini, convalesces with his dog Dempsey. Could be six weeks, doctors say.
That was the second time this year that Matt had copped a rhyming caption. The first one had been at the start of the season. A couple of Eagles and Dockers had been roped in to give their favourite recipes to a cooking feature in the Sunday paper. Stuart Bevan, who lived on junk food when no one was looking, had pinched his recipe out of a book. ‘Old family favourite,’ he said, with a silly grin. It had probably just occurred to him that the main ingredients for poached pheasant with truffles would have been pretty hard to come by on the Wickepin wheat farm he grew up on.
But Toggo’d had access to an expert. And the recipe he gave was a genuine favourite. PASTA MASTER showed him in his mother’s kitchen, with his mum, Aida, standing behind with a big smile on her face. In front of him was a huge bowl of spaghetti, and he had a fork in his hand, looking hungry. At least they hadn’t called it TOGGO HOGGO or THAT’S MY BOY.
Toggo was always a bit embarrassed about this sort of thing. He’d tried to get the photographer this time to take a shot of him sitting down, but the guy was after a catchy angle. That was his job, and it was part of Toggo’s job to be camera fodder.
Most of the PR stuff made Alison laugh, and his mates crack jokes, but his mum loved it. She cut out all the photos and articles and pasted them into a scrapbook. She showed the scrapbook to the neighbours and brought it out after the pudding at the family Christmas dinner. (This wasn’t quite as bad as Uncle Domenic and the snorted oyster but it was bad enough.) She said that she would have copies made of all the stuff and leave them to each of his children when she died. Not that she was looking like going out in a hurry. And not that he was planning to reproduce soon, or in the numbers his mother seemed to be hoping for.
Toggo had just about managed, in the last couple of years, to convince his mother that he was a man now and could look after himself. (As long as she kept up the supplies of Mrs Tognolini’s special pasta sauce.) She was pretty good most of the time when things were going well. But when he was sick or injured or unhappy, there was no stopping her. She’d be around with the minestrone and the cleaning gear before he could remind her that he was twenty-four years old.
He’d half expected to see the old ute in the driveway when he got back from the airport. He’d rung his mother straightaway. ‘I’m okay, Mum. I won’t be able to play for a few weeks but it’s not as bad as it could have been. There won’t be any permanent damage.’ Telling his mother that made him feel a bit better himself.
Alison, who was making some coffee in the kitchen, listened in.
‘No, Mum, I’ve got plenty of food. I haven’t eaten half of the last lot yet … I can walk around and do things, Mum, I’m just a bit slower, that’s all …’
Alison could hear the pain in Matt’s voice, even though he was covering very well. She was pretty sure his mother could too. This injury was a huge disappointment to him. The effect went deep. He’d lost his confidence. And, if this Luke Vidovich guy
really fired, he ran the risk of losing his place in the team as well.
‘Yeah, okay Mum … Say hello to Dad for me. See you soon.’
When Alison came into the room a few minutes later, Matt was still standing by the phone. She put the coffees down, went over and put her arms around him.
‘I think I’ve managed to cut off the Minestrone Express,’ he told her. ‘Mum was just about to get Dad to load up the old ute.’
Matt went quiet again.
‘Hey, Tough as Nails,’ Alison said. ‘You won’t rust if you give me a kiss.’
DEAR GREG
The morning TOGGO DOGGO appeared in the West, Toggo was sitting at his desk in the front room with Dempsey. ‘Not a bad one of you, girl,’ he said. ‘They got your best side.’
Dockers full-forward, Matt Tognolini, has been dogged by bad form this season, and now bad luck has …
Toggo put the paper down. The photo was bad enough — he couldn’t stand to read the story as well.
He picked up the pile of mail that Alison had been reading. When he had time, he liked to answer personally some of the things people wrote to him. He’d have a bit more time now that he wouldn’t be travelling east with the team.
The advice or abuse about his kicking went into the bin pretty quickly. So did letters asking for bits of his hair, bits of his clothes, fingernail clippings, or begging him for a date. One woman last year had even proposed marriage, and she’d seemed to be pretty serious about it.
It was the letters from kids that Toggo liked the best.
He got out his pen and set to work.
Dear Ben
Thank you for your letter. I played against Balga when I was in the junior competition. They were good. I hope you have a good season and kick lots of goals. Here comes my autograph …
Dear Jordan
Thank you for your letter. I’m glad I’m your favourite player. I’m glad you go for the Dockers too. You have very good taste. Yeah, Essendon sucks …
Killer Boots Page 5
