Three weeks out from the kick-off of the 2018 LASA Competition the Grenfell Stingers held a special meeting before beginning training, the reason – would we have enough players to field a team? Grenfell had had a men’s soccer team for the last 20 years and while we certainly didn’t want to fold, 8 players wasn’t enough. We put out a desperate call for help and it was answered. Suddenly we found ourselves a squad of 20 players. Often when a new team is put together it takes some time for players to click and results to come. This proved not to be the case for the Stingers and in the very first game of the season, against a traditional rival Parkes Rovers, recorded a good 6-3 win. Grenfell continued their strong start by winning the following 2 games. 3 games into the new season and we were undefeated and had scored 15 goals whilst conceding 7. This trend of scoring plenty of goals but perhaps conceding more than we probably should’ve continued throughout the whole of the 2018 season. We had played 7 games (for a strong 6 wins and 1 loss) we had scored a total of 36 goals and conceded 20.
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Throughout the middle 3rd of the season Stingers struggled for form and consistency. We were still sitting in second place on the competition ladder but only a couple of points ahead of the 3rd place Rovers. Parkes Wanderers had shown themselves the competition favourites and were well out in front, thanks largely to a 7 game straight run of wins. By seasons end they would only lose 3 games from 16 played.
With finals approaching it was time for the Stingers to rally and rally we did. We beat Wanderers at home and then in our final game of the regular season we beat them again in Parkes in a closely contested match that finished 3-2. We retained our second place on the ladder with – 9 wins, 2 draws and 5 losses from our 16 games.
The first semi-final would be first vs second, winner straight through to the Grand Final and while we knew we could beat Wanderers, they were the team at home and certainly carried the tag of favourites. It was a tight hard fought match but in the end Grenfell walked away victorious 4-3. We had won a week off and a spot in the Grand Final.
The Grand Final will be played at Harrison Park in Parkes at 12pm. It will against Wanderers so it promises to be a cracker of a match. If you are interested in attending and would like more information please feel free to get in contact with us by our Facebook page or by calling Mitch on 0439455596.
A special thankyou goes out to our loyal supporters, though slight in number you make the time and the effort to come and cheer us all on, it is much appreciated. To the Royal and the Grenfell Meat Barn thank you for your continued support, without it we wouldn’t be able to keep the team going. Thank you to the club and committee members who put in the hard work behind the scenes so that we can rock up on the Sunday and play. And finally a massive thankyou to Grenfell Stingers players both new and old for a terrific season. Win or lose on Sunday (hopefully win) its been a mighty effort by all to make it to the end and we have done it while having a lot of fun.
