JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP 2007

18/11/2007 A sunny day... We are about to face our 2 last games at Leuven. We have shown this year that we have a potent offense, that we can play football with heart and soul and that we can kick ass. This season we have seen adversity with our star RB # 23 having to leave the field with a dislocated knee (btw the same day his favourite player Ronnie Brown (Miami Dolfins) had his season cut short due to a knee injury), we have seen courage by Hicham # 13 doing a very good job by replacing Nike # 23 . We have seen heart with the Offense comming back into games against the Bears and the Phoenix. We have seen resiliency by a defense composed of 50 % rookies and stopping the opponents progress.

Starting these 2 last games against the Black Angels and the Lions we knew that we secured the 3rd place in the championship. We knew that we lost all hope of being champion when tying against the Phoenix. The only thing to do today was to fight for honour and pride… and for the rookies to learn. We were up for the fight and Bulls –Angels confrontation will always be emotional. The intensity and emotion was present on both teams. Both coaches prepared their team to the best of their abillity. The first half ended in a draw 26-26. We were able to contain the best possible the Angels running and passing game. For one or the other reason we cracked. No real explanation can be given. We just couldn’t get the BULLdozer running. It finally ran out of steam. The game ended with a 46-26 score for the Angels.

Seeing we beat them in the pre-season they were more hungry, more focussed and with the adavantage of having the championship in their grasp they had more to defend. Not taking away the merit of the Angels team I see an enormous potential of this Bulls junior team with an average age of 16,5 years old. It has shown that our youth programme has produced results (ie only 3 players of the current junior team played last year). GOOD JOB guys. As a very emotional coach (Oh I just love this game) i told the team after this defeat : « We have played all season at 80 % of our potential…80 % of our ability. This is good news…it means that we have 20 % margin to progress. We never had a championship team. As I have previously stated Offense wins games – Defense wins championships ! We had the Offense but not the Defense ..yet ! That’s life ! OK today we are 3rd. Nobody can take this away from us. The teams that we have beaten will want their revenge next season. Football is a 7 day a week, 52 weeks a year, 12months COMMITMENT ! Lets think during the off-season of gaining in speed, gaining in strength and gaining in character. Tomorow , Monday 19th of november we will start work on the next season »…

Elated after this game we confronted a motivated Lions team after a supprise win against the Gators. We opted as promissed to give gametime to our rookies and back-ups. Jimmy #72 our center and back-up Qb lead the somewhat very inexperienced offense to a couple of TD’s. Despite the motivation of a big Lions team we never lost controll of the game. As I have said previously…the new teams BRAVO for the sportmanship and for getting in no amount of time a good team together. Juniors are the future of your team, the future of the game and the future of Belgian American Football. It takes from each team COMMITMENT and HEART…the same values we teach our kids ….