Pressure. My head dropped. I felt like I had failed the team because of a stupid mistake.

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Pressure

This was going to be the biggest game of my life. It was the final game to clinch our undefeated season but it was against our archrivals, Nudgee. This game was the decider, as Nudgee was also looking to seal their season undefeated. After preparing mentally in the chapel with some strong words of wisdom from Father Gadd it was then off into the dressing rooms. We started out usual warm up. I tried to make it as if it was just another game, but in the back of my mind it wasn’t just a normal game. It was the final game that most of the team would ever play for their school and also it was the first time that any of us had the chance to go through the whole season undefeated.  

            After the warm up it was time to get mentally prepared and psyched up. We had time for the final few minutes that the team had together before stepping onto the battlefield in front of the thousands of chanting supporters who timidly sat and waited. “TOKIO!” That was the last school war cry leading up to a game that most of us would ever do. We started the long walk to the battlefield where we could see our rival opponents standing sternly linked arm in arm. As intimidating as it looked, I’m sure that we sent shivers down their spines as we walked out to confront them for the toss. Each player firmly grasped their opposite’s hand in subtle fury, trying to act like good sports but when it came to the crunch there were no mates in a rugby game. We were both playing to win, to win for ourselves, our team and finally our school.

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             After losing the toss this set us on the back foot with having to start the game off not running our favoured way that we had successfully done in all the previous games. But this was just a minor set back that we just had to deal with. My heart was pumping with adrenalin, like something was inside us just trying to burst out as the last moments went by, before the highly rated side Nudgee kicked off. The crowd was cheering accompanied by drunken old boys behind us when we ran the first ball up into Nudgee’s ...

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