Close finishes the order of the day at University Blues

If you’re an avid follower of the University Blues in 2022, these questions are for you:

#1 – How is your heart?
#2 – How much of your fingernails do you have left?

After the opening seven rounds of this season, the Blues sit in 5th spot on the William Buck Premier ladder with a 4-3 record.

A better than a 50% winning record, what it doesn’t show is that the average losing margin from those three losses is 6 points. The average winning margin is 15 points. They’ve won three games in a row and all of them they’ve had to come-from-behind to win against the odds.

It’s enough to make any fan of the club spend most of the game with their head in their hands, or looking to the sky praying for the tide to turn. How does it feel for the power forward of the Blues, Sam Grimley “I’m not sure how many more close games we can handle” he told VAFA’s For the Love of the Game podcast this week.

“As a 31 year old I’ve had enough of them,” he continued.

Scoring across the William Buck Premier competition is down as a collective at the same time as 2021, each game in Round 7 was decided by less than 25 points proving an even level of competitiveness within our top 10 teams.

“That evenness of the competition is definitely there this year… It’s a good position for the league to have such an even competition” Grimley said when asked about his thoughts on the start to this year for the Blues and spirited fight of the opposition.

As has been the theme when it comes to Uni Blues, the plethora of former AFL experience at their disposal places great expectation on them, it’s been the case since the beginning of 2019. For the second year in a row since the 2019 Premiership the Blues to date, haven’t set the world on fire.

Grimley discussed the slow-start to the year under new coach Guy Martyn “There’s a bit of that synergy, the new coach, new players, we had 7 changes on the weekend, it’s hard to manage.”

“But It’s definitely a scary place to be when you’ve got the list you have, obviously there’s that expectation… All clubs are very competitive, we’re yet to find an easy game” continued Grimley.

That theory will ring true again on Saturday afternoon when the Blues welcome the pre-season favourites Old Xaverians to the Uni Main, they’ve had terrific battles in the last decade, have met each other in finals and there has never been an easy game between the two.

A spot in the top 4 is on the line come 5pm on Saturday evening, if you’re a fan of the Uni Blues, prepare yourself for another heart stopper!

Extensive coverage of University Blues vs. Old Xaverians begins on RSN Carnival from 1pm with Joe Pignataro and Josh Heriot on the Saturday Warm-Up, you can listen live through the RSN app or the VAFA website.