Chapter Twelve
Marcos – “I need to listen more”
EARLY MARCH
The sound of the crowd was loud enough that Marcos felt it in his bones as the Mustangs jogged onto the field.
It rolled across the Sydney Cricket Ground in uneven waves, cheers and boos folding over each other until they lost their shape and became pressure instead.
Sydney Storm supporters filled most of the seats, the black and blue colours rising around the oval, and the smaller pockets of Mustangs fans had to fight to be heard through it.
Every shout seemed to skate across the grass and climb higher under the white stadium lights.
Saturday night hit differently in Sydney. Cooler than home. Less welcoming. The air had a certain edge to it that made Marcos’ skin tighten as he moved, and the ground beneath his boots was too perfect.
The oval was different, too. This wasn’t one of the smaller grounds where drills were run and reserve games got played in front of staff, families, and a few bored supporters who had wandered in early.
This was the SCG. Seats rising in every direction.
Boundary signage sharp and bright. The posts standing white at either end.
Lines painted on the grass cleanly enough that Marcos thought they must have been redone that morning.
His eyes swept the crowd. Almost fifty thousand seats, and nearly all of them were full.
His heart pounded heavily in his chest, and he felt it everywhere. Down his legs, in his fingertips, in his ears. He’d known this game had been coming for months. Knew who they’d be up against and where it would be.
Round One, away, against the Sydney Storm.
The first real game in Mustangs’ maroon and gold colours. The first time all the training, all the forced drills, all the revised gym work, and all the weeks of Jacob watching him and Sebastian too closely had to become something that mattered on a scoreboard.
The Sydney Storm were already on the field, spread across the far wing, warming up and stretching in front of the louder sections of the crowd.
Marcos’ eyes tracked them as the Mustangs moved farther onto the field and came to rest inside one of the fifties.
The Storm players looked settled in a way that away teams rarely did.
Familiar turf under their boots. Familiar crowd behind them.
Familiar rooms waiting somewhere under the stands.
Marcos rolled his shoulders once.
The rest of the team was loud amongst themselves, talking and hyping each other up as they moved into the first stretch of warm-ups. Marcos joined in clapping Parker on the back and slid into a huddle group of teammates.
“We’ve got this, boys!” Marcos exclaimed, and was met with a few whoops.
“Fuck, yeah. We’ll crush them,” Andrew joined in, and the guys cheered again.
The noise helped. Not enough to settle him, but enough to give the nerves somewhere to go. Marcos bounced on the balls of his feet and shook his arms out.
A wave of noise came from the crowd again as the game inched closer to starting.
The Mustangs shifted around on the field.
Players spread out to start their own stretches and warm-ups.
Small handballing and kicking drills forming quickly.
One last opportunity to feel the ball cleanly before the first bounce.
Harry, the Mustangs’ captain, jogged toward the middle of the ground to meet the Storm’s captain and the umpire for the coin toss.
Harry Bell had been captain for three years. Late twenties, compact through the body, strong through the shoulders, with close-cropped dark hair and a voice that cut through a room without needing to rise much.
The Storm captain stood opposite him, taller and leaner, hands on hips, face open to the crowd as the boos and cheers lifted again.
The coin went up.
Harry won the call. He chose the direction of play, pointing toward the end the Mustangs would kick to first, and everything after that seemed to move too quickly.
The warm-up finished. Balls were gathered.
Players started heading toward their line coaches.
The waves of sound from the crowd came louder and more frequently as Jacob huddled the team and gave one final speech.
He ran over the plan for the first quarter, the focus on contest, the need to avoid being dragged into the Storm’s tempo, and the importance of staying clean.
Marcos listened. He took it all in.
“Reyes.” Jacob’s voice cut through Marcos’ thoughts, and he glanced up. “Trust yourself. Trust the play.”
Marcos nodded, firm and sharp, and a rumble ran around the team.
They split off from each other as the game was called to begin, each player fanning out to their positions. The Sydney Storm players met them respectfully enough, though respect at centre bounce only meant everyone waited until the siren before trying to drive someone into the ground.
The opposing ruck stood opposite Marcos, rolling his head and loosening his shoulders.
Eli Hart. Twenty-eight, experienced, strong through the hips, and the kind of ruck who liked to make the first contest ugly enough to set terms.
Marcos kept his head down, steadying his breathing.
He could feel Sebastian shifting around him to the side, though Marcos forced himself to stay focused.
He couldn’t let what had happened interfere with the game. The first kiss. Or the second. Or what happened after. Or the way Sebastian’s body looked in the locker room when Marcos finally allowed himself to look.
That was the image in his mind when the siren sounded, and the ball went up.
Hart hit him early.
Not illegally, but enough shoulder and hip to shift Marcos off the clean line of the bounce, forcing him to jump through the contact. Marcos got a hand on the ball, but not much of one. It glanced off his fingers and dropped almost straight down.
The Storm’s mids were ready.
Their centre player grabbed it low, burst through a tackle, and drove the ball toward half-forward before Marcos had landed properly.
The crowd lifted hard, blue-and-black sections rising as the ball travelled.
Randal came across in defence and spoiled the marking attempt, fist meeting ball cleanly, but the spill went straight to the ground where Sydney had numbers.
A snap came from the pocket.
Behind.
The Storm crowd groaned, then clapped in support.
Marcos jogged back toward the middle while the Mustangs set up for the kick-in. The ball didn’t reset. It went back to the goal square, and Harry took it quickly, scanning the field while Storm players pushed up to lock them in.
Harry went short to Randal, who marked near the pocket and looked immediately for the next kick.
The Mustangs tried to work it along the boundary, but the Storm were already there. A kick down the line went to a contest, hands flew, the ball spilled over the boundary, and the umpire called for a throw-in.
Marcos made his way there, heart still too high.
Boundary throw-ins had a different feel from centre bounces.
Less space, more bodies, less room for a proper run at it.
Hart took front position and leaned back into him, making Marcos fight for every inch.
The throw came in, and Marcos tried to reach over, but Hart got enough body under him to kill the ball down to Sydney’s side.
The Storm surged.
A handball out. Another. A kick around the body.
Goal.
The SCG erupted.
The sound came down on Marcos before he’d even turned fully toward the posts.
Storm players gathered near the kicker, crowd roaring behind them, and the goal umpire stepped back into place.
Now the ball reset to the centre. Marcos walked back with his jaw tight, trying to keep his breath steady as the first proper hit of the game settled into him.
Sebastian passed him on the way back to the centre square. “He’s beating you to the jump,” he said, low enough that it only belonged to them.
Marcos glanced at him.
Sebastian didn’t look back. He got into position, knees loose, eyes already on the umpire. The comment was football. Nothing else.
The first quarter became a fight for control the Mustangs couldn’t quite get.
Marcos won some taps. Lost others. Broke even in enough contests to keep his own game from falling apart, but the team around the ball wasn’t clean.
A fumbled handball inside their forward fifty cost them a chance when Darcy was free, closer to the goal.
A rushed kick from Kirk went straight to a Storm defender.
A loose defensive read on the wing let Sydney run the ball through too easily and send it back with interest.
The quarter-time siren arrived with Sydney ahead and the crowd pleased with that.
The Mustangs huddled on the field, Jacob in the centre of them, clipboard in hand.
His face was set, and his voice clipped as he ran through the plays and what was going wrong.
He focused on the wing first, where Sydney had found too much room to move after kick-ins and turnovers.
Then he moved to the forward fifty, where the Mustangs had fumbled when the ball needed to be either locked in or sent to advantage.
He reminded them not to get dragged into chasing the noise.
Marcos nodded along with it, his eye catching Sebastian’s and lingering for too long.
Sebastian stood two players away, hands on hips, mouth set, sweat already flattening the hair at his forehead. His eyes met Marcos’ for a beat, then shifted back to Jacob.
When the play reset, ready for the second quarter, Sebastian caught Marcos as they crossed the field toward the centre.
“Feign the tap then help cover the centre,” he said, voice low.
Marcos flexed his jaw once, then gave a stiff nod.
The siren sounded. The ball went up. Marcos jumped, but not as high. He raised his hand, but aimed below the ball. Hart took the bait, reached over him, and got the tap. It went down toward Sydney’s centre player exactly where Sebastian had read it would.
Marcos’ feet were on the ground first.
He spun and drove toward the ball.