Mark's Report
What an amazing week or 9 days as it turns out, there were highs and lows, great battles of strength, tears and tantrums and finally teamwork and smiles of satisfaction . . . and all that was just behind the scenes, there was some great Polocrosse too.
Ballarat 2010 may have raised the bar on several levels as far as Nationals go, when you are at the coal face it can be hard to call so I think the true judges are our interstate visitors and their supporters who came along and also a long way. My favourite Nationals as a player was always where we won, you can overlook nearly anything in those cases but lose and all of a sudden ‘the showers were cold, the fields were crap and the weather was terrible’ oh and my personnel favourite ‘the bar closed too early’.
So under those rules maybe Victorians can judge their own Nationals because lets face it we didn’t win anything , we did not even get close to winning anything. It’s so un-Victorian for this to happen but wait there’s more unless something is done about it. . . it may happen again . . . and again. I will save the rest of this for another article or a book.
I had a privileged position at the Nationals getting to see all the action from the best seat in the house ‘the central Commentary position’. Even better was to be part of a great team that worked for each other with their egos well in check in search of the best overall result. The aim was to have the spectators feel like they were at home watching the footy or the cricket with an emphasis on information and knowledge. I would like to thank the Team: Michael Galvin, Jeremy Marriott, Andrew Penley, John Houlihan and Hugh Armstrong for there efforts and co-operation and on behalf of the team I would like to thank the organizing committee and the volunteers, Mick Jarmain for backing us at the PAA and Gil Mathie for having the faith. I have to name names and hope I don’t forget anybody but I have never had so much support in this job before, basically if I asked for something it would be done or if I needed something, someone would go and get it. These following volunteers I saw a lot of and I know how hard they worked: Jeff Kyne, Steve Holdsworth, Jim Hood, Anthony Mc Manus and Peter Dowsley. Now there is another whole bunch of people who where doing a heap of other jobs and I think they all deserve a huge pat on the back. Driving home on the Monday I began to think how well the whole show went, great facilities, super weather and most important . . . atmosphere! Like the Colonels secret recipe, no one knows what’s in it but everyone loves the taste! Write in and tell us what you thought of the Nationals and what would you like to see at Warwick 2012.
Finally, I would like Congratulate the Leadership Group, I was close enough to see how things went down, Danny Quinlan was an excellent choice to point the way and responsible for some of the most innovative ideas ever seen at the Nationals and for getting the job done no matter what the cost. Mick Jarmain for great organization and an ability to work in both the war room and at the front line, Natalie Abbott the linchpin in the whole shebang, as cool as they come, totally unflusterble, Lance Owens for a superb job as curator and of course the ‘Billy Goat ‘ Steve Owens, who had the dream of Ballarat hosting the Nationals and then proceeded to bet the farm on getting it done right, no one has ever worked harder than Steve and he should be sincerely congratulated by us all.
Mark Semmens.
