Body Swap with Sister's Boyfriend Ch. 04

The reserve grade game between the Crocodiles and Roosters was in progress, and Dakota, Kaley, Dwayne and their kids along with Richie made their way to an area populated by Roosters' players, fans and officials. Crocodile fans outnumbered them significantly, Richie noting that many more supporters of the team were entering the ground each minute, many of them coming from the flats and smaller but almost as scary three story walk up apartments.

Richie's sense of fear increased watching the reserve grade match. The teams - the Roosters wearing royal blue jumpers with red collars and cuffs, white numbers and a white rooster on the chest- and the Crocodiles, who wore red, black and green paneled jumpers with red backs and black numbers were engaged in a brutal war of attrition, tackling hard and relentlessly, the Crocodiles holding a narrow lead. When players did get some space they sprinted like Olympians and kicked the ball long and hard. Even their hand-passes were twice as long as Richie could kick a football. If this was reserve grade, Richie was in big trouble playing first grade.

Jim, Barbara and Justin arrived and immediately went to the 'safe space' for Rooster fans, while more and more Crocodile supporters turned up to watch their team on such a fine and sunny Saturday afternoon. The small grandstand was full of them, all getting tanked up on beer, goon and mixed spirit cans, and it was just half time in the reserves.

Richie shook his head. The Roosters and their supporters were bogans, that was for sure. But they were different bogans, bogans who had jobs, maintained houses and had trades or qualifications. The bogans supporting the Crocodiles for the most part could not even be called bogans, they were like the concentrated of worst Homo sapiens. Some other Crocodile fans were far worse and did not even seem to be Homo sapiens, they were like groups of Neanderthals that had avoided evolution and survived to the present day.

The next challenge for Richie was getting to know Graham, a coach he had never met before and team-mates he also did not know, but who of course all knew Troy. It was confusing too given most of the players went by nick-names. For example, while Troy's nickname was simply 'Troy-boy', the Roosters' full-forward had the surname 'Thompson' and was always called 'Thommo' and one of their defenders had the surname Frederick so he was called 'Freddo'. It was similar for one of the Roosters' midfielders, a young Aboriginal guy with the surname Yarran, which was shortened to 'Yazz', but another player had the first name David which was shortened to 'Davo', and another player named Dean was called 'Deano'. Some had different animal nicknames - a player with the first name Cain was aptly called 'Toad' while the Roosters' main ruckman and team captain was called Chook, appropriate given he was a Roosters player.

The reserves game was approaching three quarter time, and the Crocodiles kicked three late goals to move away to a 28-point lead at the final change, the same time as Graham the coach and other officials called the Roosters team together and to the change room, to get prepared for the match.

Feeling like a lamb being led to the slaughter, Richie followed the team inside, and soon he was wearing something he thought he would never wear - the Roosters' blue red and white jumper, tight blue football shorts, red, white and blue football socks and sprigged football boots. Not being used to these boots, Richie struggled to keep his footing at first, and watched as the team trainers prepared the team for play, taping up weak and injured joints. The smell of sports liniment filled the change room.

Sitting down with the team, Richie listened to Graham as the coach stood in front of a white board where he had drawn an oval shape and written some names of the team within it and went through the game plans and tactics. To Richie, Graham might as well have been speaking in Norwegian, such was his lack of understanding of the game. All Richie understood was that the fact that a star Crocodiles veteran playing his 300th senior game would provide the team with plenty of motivation, as would a poor performance by the Crocodiles the previous Saturday which made them a dangerous opponent. It was also important for the Roosters to get off to a good start, and stop the parochial and intimidating Crocodiles crowd becoming a too much of a factor. Richie also could figure out that a major ploy to assist the Roosters to win today was to stop the Crocodiles' powerful full forward, a guy known as 'The Tank'.

Richie hoped very much that he wouldn't have to play on a person who was called 'The Tank', but these fears seemed allayed. Richie, or to be more specific Troy, was playing center half forward, a position that to Richie's horror seemed to involve marking the ball when the Roosters went into their forward line, passing the ball to Roosters players in better position, kicking goals himself and creating decoy leads to draw the Crocodile defenders away and allow Rooster midfielders to kick to their forwards closer to goal.

Richie was quite certain he would not be able to do anything like Graham described, but he like the other Rooster players were having a hard time hearing the coach thanks to the noise outside. The last quarter of the reserves game was in progress, and the Crocodiles were busy turning what was a tight contest for three quarters into an absolute rout in the last, much to the delight of their fans who got louder and louder as the Crocodiles kicked away. They ended up kicking 10 goals to the Roosters' 1 in the final term, crushing their opponents by 81-points in a 22.16-148 to 9.13-67 thrashing.

The final siren was a relief to the Roosters' reserves, but not to Richie who looked nervously out of the change-room door as the Crocodile reserves formed a guard of honor and some fans put up a large banner for the team to run through.

With the Crocodiles' theme song playing over a loudspeaker, Richie watched the team run out onto the field and through the banner. If Richie had seen any of the Crocodiles' team coming towards him he would have crossed the street or turned and walked the other way in fear. They were a scary looking bunch of guys that was for sure. The noise of the Crocodile fans cheering on their team was intimidating, as was the booing, jeering and abuse when the Roosters ran onto the ground a few minutes after. There was some cheering for the Roosters from their pocket of supporters, team officials and the beaten reserves team who had stayed on the field to cheer the league side on, but it was drowned out by the disdainful supporters from the Crocodile camp, who significantly outnumbered the Roosters.

It wasn't long before Richie's lack of sporting prowess began to make itself apparent, and the game hadn't even started yet. The warm up included running a lap of the oval as Crocodile supporters leaned over the boundary fence yelling abuse, and it wasn't long before Richie was puffing and trailing his fit, seasoned teammates. Then came stretching, and a series of football drills that involved kicking, marking and hand-passing, none of which Richie could do, and soon the other Roosters players sensed something was amiss. The Crocodile fans fortunately did not seem to notice, they were too busy stocking up on beer, goon and mixed spirit cans so they did not miss any of the game, and booing the umpires who had just made their way onto the field.

"You okay, Troy-boy?" Chook asked as Richie failed to catch a simple hand-pass.

"Yeah, um fine," stammered Richie, to the anything but convinced Chook.

Next up was goal-kicking practice. His heart racing Richie ran forward and kicked at the football, and by some fluke it was a reasonable kick, but faded to the right and if in play would have scored a point not a goal. Richie, however, was pleased for himself and said, "Yes!" as he ran to the back of the queue.

"Troy-boy, you know that was a behind and not a goal, right?" the puzzled Yazz asked. Troy was one of the Roosters' most accomplished goal-kickers, so why would he be celebrating kicking a point in a pre-game warmup?

As bad as the warm-up was for Richie, three blasts from the siren indicated that the teams had to take position for the real thing. Graham called the team in for a final rev-up, and as the huddle broke and the team got into their positions, the Crocodiles doing the same.

Before walking back to the bench, Graham approached his star young player, concerned about his poor performance in the warm up. "Are you okay today Troy-boy? You're not carrying an injury you didn't tell me about, or getting the flu or something?"

"No um, coach, I um should be fine," Richie muttered.

Richie felt anything but fine as he walked to the center-half forward position, he felt like he was about to vomit from fear. If he was surrounded by 18 actual saltwater crocodiles he could not be as frightened as he was now. He looked at some of the Crocodiles players. Their full-forward 'The Tank' was a Pacific Islander who looked like an Easter Island giant statue that had been brought to life and placed in a Crocodile uniform. The Crocodile ruckman looked like a professional wrestler, his muscular body adorned with tattoos. Then there was Richie's direct opponent, this player looking like what might be the result if a grizzly bear and a mountain gorilla had an affair together and did not use birth control precautions. Hair covered most parts of his muscly body and as Richie got closer, he could smell that this player was not a big fan of deodorant, soap or mouthwash.

Richie desperately wished he was on the boat on the Gold Coast with his father and other relatives, not here and he wondered how Troy was going in his stead.

*

Troy at this very moment was completely at sea, both physically and metaphorically. Aware that he seemed to fuck up every time he opened his mouth and that Richie and Dakota's Uncle Gary clearly had his eye on him and Troy found the judge rather intimidating, Troy decided it was best to keep quiet and say as little as possible, just enjoy the fresh sea air and the scenery on such a fine and sunny day.

This tactic worked well enough as they went to the marina and boarded the cabin cruiser, Gary sailing his boat out into the scenic waters where the Nerang River flowed into the Spit and Broadwater, the palm and Norfolk Island pine trees on the shore and the glittering high rises catching the morning sun making the scenery even more beautiful. The waterway was busy, with rowing teams from schools and universities out practicing, jet boat tours, some people parasailing, kite-surfing, water-skiing and others riding jet skis. A tourist boat filled with passengers was headed in another direction, other people were out sailing yachts and power boats.

The shore was busy too, with the streets of Main Beach, Surfers Paradise and Southport filled with tourists and locals alike, and there were hundreds of people on the shore in the Broadwater parklands, running, walking dogs and cycling. Troy looked at the Southport traffic bridge where a Helensvale-bound tram was packed with people heading off for a day at some of the theme parks, and on the Spit Troy could see others making their way to another theme park in this area.

Gary, while talking with his brother navigated his boat further out along the Spit and through the heads into the open ocean, before sailing southwards and down the scenic Gold Coast coastline where Troy could see how busy the pristine white beaches were from Main Beach all the way down past Burleigh, where a surf carnival was taking place.

The only challenge Troy faced during this time was Richie's grandfather and cousin Jack recounting how they had seen a humpback whale while on the boat late last year. Troy of course was not on the boat to see this but Richie had been, and Troy had to pretend that he had too, his unconvincing response making Bob and Jack more and more suspicious that something was very wrong with Richie today.

Now the boat was out at sea opposite Surfers Paradise, bobbing about in the deep blue ocean and Troy was now playing, or trying to play one of those games Richie had told him about with Richie's intellectual relatives.

The game the men were playing today was a cryptic clues game, where somebody would give a cryptic clue to reveal the name of a suburb of Brisbane or the Gold Coast. Troy had absolutely no idea what this was all about, and he did not understand how it worked at all.

How did the clue 'Not in the center of the anti-meridian' reveal itself to be the Brisbane suburb of Morningside? How did 'Snake with unisex name' become Aspley? There was no way Troy could ever guess that 'Communist coastal landform' would be Redcliffe, that 'Flatlands inhabited by barrel makers' could be Coopers Plains, and how the fuck was 'Dog swims in North Atlantic current' Labrador?

Troy kept quiet hoping nobody would notice that he hadn't answered one question yet, and wishing that the guys in the Mitchell family liked fishing rather than really hard word games.

"I've got one," said Gary. "The coastal area is very wide."

"How about we reserve this one for Richie?" Jack suggested, puzzled that his cousin hadn't answered a single question, when normally Richie loved this sort of game. "He hasn't answered one yet."

"Yeah, come on Richie, this is a nice easy one," said Doug.

Troy was completely clueless, his heart pounding as the other four men looked at him wondering why he did not answer.

"I'll give you a clue, you're looking right at it," said Gary.

Troy glanced at the shore, and could see the high rises of Southport, Main Beach, Surfers Paradise, Broadbeach, Mermaid Waters and Burleigh Heads, and further to the south Coolangatta and Tweed Heads. In the distance he could see the Hinterland and Mount Tambourine, but still had no clue about this.

"Um, ah, Fraser Island?" Troy suggested.

"Fraser Island?" exclaimed Bob. "If you can see Fraser Island from here, you must have very good eyesight, Richie."

"Broadbeach," said Gary, pointing at the suburb in the distance, completely perplexed by his nephew's complete cluelessness.

"Let's give you another one," said Jack. "The left hand side at 180 degrees. That one is so easy."

"Come on Richie, we just came from there," said Doug, as his son stared blankly ahead like a stunned sheep.

"Brisbane?" Troy suggested hopefully.

"No, Southport," said Jack. Troy stared at his cousin with a stunned expression not getting this at all, and Jack explained it to him. "Port is left in navigation, and south has a compass bearing of 180 degrees. So therefore, Southport."

"Oh yeah, I get it now," said Troy although he did not and his response did not convince anyone, least of all Gary Mitchell. Gary was well used to people acting stupid in court, some to get out of trouble, others to get attention and the judge regarded his nephew with a stern and disapproving expression through his glasses, convinced that his nephew was deliberately acting dumb to get attention.

Troy most definitely did not want attention from the judge, and checked the time on his phone. It was approaching two o'clock and soon Richie would be playing football in his stead. Troy looked at the tall Q1 tower and other skyscrapers on the Gold Coast shoreline, and hoped Richie would be okay against the Crocodiles.

*

Richie could also see high rises as an umpire held the ball aloft to wait for the siren to sound to start play, but these were the scary housing commission flats from where many scary people had made their way to the oval to support the even more scary Crocodiles, many others still filling the ground.

The siren sounded, the umpire blew his whistle and the Crocodiles fans roared their support of their football team, drowning out the few calls of support for the Roosters and baying for blood. The Crocodiles were not long in obliging them. From a perfect center bounce, the Crocodiles' ruckman beat Chook easily and tapped the ball to one of Crocodiles midfielders, who shot out a lightning fast hand-pass towards another Crocodile midfielder running by. Leaving the Roosters players in his week, the player sprinted forward, bounced the ball then delivered a perfect kick right onto the chest of The Tank, the huge Pacific Islander showing an amazing turn of speed for such a big man, leaving the Roosters' fullback in his wake and marking the ball easily.

Lining up his shot, The Tank kicked the ball hard and fast, right through the two center posts to bring up the first goal of the game within 30 seconds without a Roosters player having touched the football, the Crocodiles' fans roaring their approval. The ball went back to the center, and soon it became apparent that this was not a fluke.

Everything the Crocodiles did seemed to turn to gold and every time the Roosters touched the football things went to dust. Within 10 minutes the Crocodiles had jumped out to a 4.3-27 to 0.1-1 lead and seemed to have twice as many players on the ground as their opponents. One Rooster who had not touched the football so far was Richie, and he was glad of this. However he was dismayed that he had to actually follow the ball; he had hoped to stay in the Roosters' forward line where there was very little action going on.

The hairy Crocodiles defender lining up on Richie was completely puzzled. He was supposed to be defending, yet he was the one following the ball, his opponent did not seem to think of doing this and this Rooster player did not seem to understand the game, but at this level of football surely this could not be.

To Richie's horror, eventually a ball did come his way. The Roosters, under immense pressure from the hard-tackling, fast-running Crocodiles, made a foray into their forward line and the Rooster midfielder kicked the ball to Richie, who backed out of the contest not wanting to get hurt, confused but grateful Crocodile players sweeping the ball away and up to their forward line.

"Come on Troy-boy, don't be scared of the ball," Chook urged.

"Troy-boy?" exclaimed a bogan wearing a Crocodiles' tee-shirt from the fence. "More like Soy-boy!"

Nearby Crocodile fans laughed uproariously at the joke and chanted 'Soy-boy, soy-boy, soy-boy!' as Richie stayed close to the Crocodile defender, hoping they would lose interest and shut up.

The Crocodiles' complete domination continued, but Richie observed that the person getting the most exercise was not a player or an umpire, but a 50-something man in the crowd. Tall and muscular, with a bushy beard and many tattoos he wore the club colors of one of Queensland's most feared motorcycle gangs, a Crocodile scarf draped over his shoulders.

He ran up and down the fence line urging on and giving advice to his son, one of the Crocodiles' star midfielders, a lean young guy with plenty of muscles and tattoos, and whose expression suggested that he would be as happy to punch you in the face as shake your hand.

Richie wondered if the bikie knew what the word 'vicarious' meant and how it applied to the way the bikie lived his life. But there was no way Richie was going to step up to the man and enquire. If the bikie understood the question - and Richie had no reason to believe he wouldn't - then it wouldn't end well. If the bikie was mildly irritated by the insult he would kick Richie's arse so hard that when he came back down he would find himself on the lawn of Parliament House in Canberra or on top of the Sydney Opera House. And if the bikie was seriously pissed off, Richie's arse would be kicked much harder so that he would land in Adelaide's Rundle Street Mall near the pig statues, outside the Flinders Street Station in Melbourne or in a Tasmanian forest.

The Crocodiles got the score to 6.5-41 to 0.1-1 before the Roosters finally mounted a successful attack late in the first term, Thommo marking and kicking it through for 6 points. Crocodile fans were not impressed, booing, jeering and yelling insults at the Roosters and the umpires.