On a warm Friday 13^th March, the THAC First XI soccer team played Newington College in the second round of the CIS knockout tournament. After cruising through the first round, the Thomas Hassall boys faced the highly fancied Newington - last year’s runner’s up no less - on their own turf at Dulwich Hill.  Despite only having been together for several training sessions and the first round game, Thomas Hassall quickly rose to the challenge posed by a team who had being playing and training together for years. At half time, the score was 1-1. An equalizer from Adrian Neoklis cancelled out the opponents’ opening goal. Among others, a particularly inspirational first half by veteran-goal keeper Lachlan Marlow Conway had denied the home team several clear-cut chances.  As the second half dawned, it was obvious that THAC were not the easy push over that Newington would have imagined. A brace of goals to Newington midway through the second half saw THAC’s chances fade however and despite a late goal (again from Adrian Neoklis) and some tense minutes for the home team, Newington prevailed. A predictably dominant performance from our talented skipper, Adrian Viggiani and with him in the midfield, Mandlenkosi Ndlovu particularly showed the football talent our College is blessed with. The match was played in a competitive spirit and the THAC boys can take comfort from the fact that they were highly competitive against a big-school team that, it must be stressed, plays and trains together weekly. For most of our year 12 boys, this was perhaps their final game in THAC colours and they are thanked and commended for their leadership and dedication to playing football at the College A big thank you must also go to Mr Palmer and Mr and Mrs Driscoll, who made the drive all the way into the city to cheer on the boys.

Thank you John Williams and Sonny Makko for coaching and supporting the students in their football endeavours.