The very first Amazing Manly Race has been run and won for 2013-14.
Click here to view all the photos from the event.
With the Christmas Carols at Manly Oval on Thursday 5th December, the Waratahs decided to do something different for training….. and the Amazing race was born.
In their Isaacs Cole Team Pursuit Teams, the boys set off from Manly Bowling Club approximately 3-4 minutes apart. Despite the parking nightmare from the Carols, a good number of boys were able to park and get there on time.
First clues where ultimately aimed at getting some quality photos. The Major Sponsor photo was easily understood, and the “get a photo with a lovely lady on Manly Beach” was also taken to with relish from the boys. However the “Take a photo of the Mitchell family donation, memorialised for us all to see” was a little harder for some, but got done eventually.
This clue did, of course, relate to the war memorial on Manly Corso. 53 club members served in WWI, with our first casualty being Alan Mitchell, a first grade player and committeeman, in 1915. The War Monument in Manly Corso was erected by Alan’s father in his memory.
After completing all their photo tasks, the boys were given the clue “find the State of Origin Legend drinking coffee on the strip”. The strip of course was Manly Corso. No Coxy, the strip was not the pitch at Manly Oval, don’t know what coffee shops you thought were there.
But the best story of the event came here from Nappa, Gainsy, Joe Graham, Nick McCallum Toomey and Jake Carden. With David “Lozza (Laurie Daley)” Gardner quite obviously the intended target here, the boys thought that Matty Johns was for some reason the State of Origin legend focus. Knowing Matty well through being his footy coach, Sammy Gainsford got on the phone to Matty to ask where he was. When this didn’t work out the fellas asked Lozza for his thoughts when they ran into him at the local shop drinking coffee….. it took some prodding from Lozza to get them where they needed to be.
The clue from Lozza was to find the club coach at North Steyne. Here everyone was to meet Shawn Bradstreet and Mickey “Juice” Shepheard. Each team was to pick a player to hit a stump. Star was Mitchell Pugh from “Scared Hitless” who hit it first go. Sam Hole took approx 35 throws to produce his hit, prompting an ad-hoc training session with Winga at 4 Pines afterwards.
Once the players hit the stump, the clue was “find the alcoholic at the shell filled plague”. Here is where everything went wrong. Boys went everywhere…. some went to Shelly beach as they should have, while others went to the Wharf which is where there was a bubonic plague hit Manly in the 1800’s. To be fair this was probably a rank clue, but after a few phone calls, the boys where back on track.
Of course the alcoholic was Wrighty. A few teams decided to leave their members at Manly and get one person to go to Wrighty, but he wasn’t having any of it. So back the boys went to get their team mates. Once Wrighty’s hand was shaken, the clue was “shake hands with the biggest of them all next to the 16 footer”. Most people got the right. Special mention to Nick Williams and Taylor Beatty who went surfboard, sailboard, long board and short board hunting in search for these 16 footers.
The last clue was to buy a pint of Manly’s finest, an obvious clue to our great supporters at 4 Pines where the event ended.
At the end of the day a massive win for Beers and Beards who, joining together with Bucky, won $150 worth of 4 Pines vouchers and 500 Team Pursuit points (not for Bucky’s team).
This has turned into a great little practice run. Coaching staff are keen for the Amazing Race to become a constant event on the pre-season calendar. Winga is looking for a 2-3 hours event next pre-season followed by a lock in together at the room at the top with beer and pizza….. giddyup.
