Bitterly cold winds were followed by an unrelenting downpour on Sunday, conditions not felt by Melburnians for some time.
Burbank Oval turned from a slippery football field to a swimming pool on the back of the changing conditions.
The phone line went dead for Jets coach Torin Baker as water seeped into the system, and he was unable to communicate with his bench.
The statisticians were not spared either, with the fading light making it near impossible to see the action, so players may have to live without an extra handball or kick on the stat sheet.
The Western Jets froze in the conditions, finishing with a meagre two behinds for the game.
But it would be unfair to dust off the record books for lowest scores in the TAC Cup – the last two quarters of the match were shortened for player safety, as lips turned blue in antarctic-like weather.
The only indestructible force on the day seemed to be Calder Cannons, heading home with a 72-point win. To the Cannons, Baker could only “give credit where it’s due”.
“They executed really well, and they were just too strong and too good in the contest,” he told Star Weekly.
The Cannons stole the show. Players shot out of the blocks in the first term to boot seven goals, holding the Jets scoreless.
Baker did not hide from the fact his side was not good enough in early exchanges.
“The Cannons were really good in the first quarter and they played the conditions a lot better than us,” he said.
“They won the clearances; we gave away a couple of cheap frees in front of goals; it was just a really poor first quarter from us.
“We didn’t handle the conditions at all and that was the ball game really.”
From that point on, the game would turn into one of the more remarkable days of football these young players will experience in their careers.
Sure, the Jets only managed to trouble the scorers twice and both were behinds, but the Cannons only managed three goals in three quarters, after seven in the first, which underlines the havoc the conditions played with the flow of this game.
“It was unbelievable; it just rained so much throughout the day, it was terrible,” Baker said.
“A lot of the ground was under water by the end of the game, so it was hard for any team to score.
“We had a lot of the ball inside our forward half in the second quarter, and couldn’t score.
“It got to a stage where we shortened the last two quarters because of the health and safety of the players,” Baker said. “It was one of those freakish days of footy and I don’t think I’ve experienced one like it in my footy career.”
And if Mother Nature wasn’t kind to the Jets, Lady Luck eluded them late in the game, when they thought they had finally registered a goal, only for the umpires to rule Matthew Knezevic’s shot was touched off the boot.
As Baker put it: “It was one of those days”.
The Jets will get a week extra to thaw out with the TAC Cup having a bye this weekend. They return to the field on July 25 for a clash against Bendigo Pioneers at Epsom Huntly Reserve.
With both sides struggling on one win for the season, this match could determine who ends up with the wooden spoon this season.
Meanwhile, Western Jets midfielder Lachlan Fogarty, who had 26 possessions in a final round win over Western Australia, was named the most valuable player for Vic Metro at the under-16 national championships.
The Jets had four players representing the Big V at the carnival, including medium forward-onballer Cameron Rayner, small forward Kyle Hudson and midfielder-half back Daniel Venables, who was injured. Vic Country took out the under-16 national title in the last round with a win over South Australia.
