Wolves chew out Young Guns in pre-season showcase

Wickham residents were out in force on Saturday night to see the Wickham Wolves Legends beat the Young Guns in their first ever pre-season showcase match.

Hundreds gathered at Wickham Oval to enjoy a sausage sizzle, family entertainment and to see experience beat youth in what turned out to be a close showdown.

The Young Guns were on scoring fire in the first five minutes and racked up an early lead while the Legends took some time to get into the game. It meant the young side went to quarter time at 31-18.

From there the Young Guns were up for most of the match, though their lead progressively shrunk. The Legends had reduced the margin to 56-43 by half-time, and to only seven points at 62-55 at the three quarter mark.

Things got competitive in the final term when the young team suddenly found the Legends hot on their heels. Minutes in, the veterans had scored two more goals and a point off a narrow miss to be six points up.

They brought it home to finish with a close win, 83-81.

Though there was some speculation of score tampering to favour the past players, the scorer’s own word was that supergoals made the difference.

Organiser and Legends player Aaron Sheldon said arranging the match had been a whole club effort.

“The idea of the game was to get all our past players back a part of the club again and support our young guys, and hopefully we can support them for the rest of the year,” he said.

“Possibly next year we’ll have another go. They want a re-match already.”

When it came to his team’s strengths, he said “we weren’t fast but we were smart”.

AFL legends Dale Kickett and David Wirrpanda had been slated to play but had to pull out at the last minute.

Sheldon said the game could become a fixture of the Wickham Wolves’ preseason calendar in future.