Thursday comp: 2-2-2

On Thursday one of the accused finished in chief. There was a bit of an argument started by the judge, who accused all defence teams of coming up with this plot to call this accused to cover for everyone else. Wow, how unprofessional was that? As I looked at the judge's face, I could see the bias spread all over his face. It was as if he was accusing us of cheating, when he has absolutely no grounds for thinking that.

Around morning tea I received a message on my voice mail, it was from the prosecution! They wanted the email addresses of my referees! In the afternoon I called them back and emailed them the email addresses of DC and GS. After DC left, he gave me a call to say that he had received some questions from them asking about me! He also said that with government jobs, they don't do that unless they're thinking of hiring you.

Wow, I was so surprised. And shocked.

I stayed back after court and Twish did too. Closing in on 5pm it was just the two of us in the office. I packed up and prepared to walk out with her when she told me that they had extended hours tonight, and so I unpacked and did a bit more work. I was preparing for an offer from her for a ride back to the city, thinking I'd have to turn it down since I drove cause of bball. But she didn't make such an offer.

I did tell her about the prosecution calling, to see if she had heard anything. She called up PL and he told her he didn't receive anything as her referee. I told her they were probably doing it in order or something.

I suppose the thing now is, now that I know I've gotten to this stage, and if I don't get the job, it's hard to come to any conclusion other than that your referees fucked you up. I mean, I know DC and GS wouldn't do that, but what other conclusions could you arrive at?

Twish left first and I left soon after. I went to the shopping centre to get some pasta to eat (which wasn't as good as last time) while reading some transcripts on my laptop.

I then drove to basketball, and some of the guys were already there as they were doing duty. There was a bit of a problem with Carter's registration, with them saying he hadn't paid and him saying he did even though he had no receipt. We ended up paying for his rego out of the team's pot money. Having seen him play in the Sunday comp, I always thought he was a bit of a tough guy, but he's actually quite a softy, like Fat Pat.

Everyone turned up except Dunnycan. We played a really, really shit team. Like, when I saw them on the other side of the court I already thought they were shit. We got off to a massive head start, taking a lead as big as 18 in the first half. Mike hit a three and everything seemed to be rolling smoothly without much intervention by me.

Then the second was a different story.

I watched in disbelief as we didn't score for about the first eight minutes of the second half, and as the other team out-rebounded us, out-hustled us, and hit their flukey shots. The lead kept dwindling, and soon it was reduced to single digits.

I had Geoff off, but he kept bugging me about going back on, and I thought our lead was pretty safe given how there were only a few minutes remaining. So I took Marco off and put Geoff on. Bad move.

With the game tied and 50 seconds to go, I told them to hold it for the last shot, because the worst scenario would be a draw. They held it for about 40 seconds, Geoff lost it, the other team threw it up, Abi tried to intercept it but tripped the guy catching it, and sent him to the line.

He hit the free throw.

Game lost: 40-41.

Wow.

If you want to talk about melt down, there is no better example. How the fuck did we lose a 18 point lead???

I called the group in and basically, which was wrong in hindsight, told them about playing time. I said that in the past I had tried to be fair and we've lost, so now it's not going to be fair because we want to win. I told them not to bug me about playing time because some guys will be hot some nights, and off on others.

Geoff walked off and sat down, holding his head in his hands.

I felt bad for being so angry at them. I guess I was just angry that we had lost. I could see our main problem was a stagnant offense. I think I'll need to draw up some simple offensive plays, instead of just focusing on defense.

I'm not sure how I would've affected the game by playing, but I am pretty sure that I would've been able to HOLD the goddamn ball in crunch time.

How do I deal with a player like Geoff? How did Larry Brown deal with Iverson? He's someone who doesn't listen, is me-first, and wants to do everything his own way. Granted, he has good intentions, but sometimes intentions is not enough. It's like walking into the casino to win money for charity. You're still gambling and taking the same stupid risks as everyone else.

After the game, Fab and I stood in the car park for nearly an hour talking about work. With liquid hanging off his nostril because of the cold, he tried to encourage me into opening up my own firm. I think if I hadn't of received the news I had earlier received, I would've been all ears. But I was somehow distracted by the hope of more stable employment.