For the skills session, the oval was a sea of bright orange cones, footballs, and teachers. My group started with the ball bouncing. We had to run 100 metres in under 30 seconds, which was no problem, but we also had to bounce the ball as many times as we could. The faster we went, the better. The more times we could bounce the ball, the better.

We ran off in pairs. I just concentrated on my own job, trying to ignore Fisk a few metres to my right. I beat him across the line, just. Bryce later told me I had bounced the ball more times than Fisk had, too. It was a good start.

Next was marking. We both seemed to go pretty well. Fisk thrashed me in the long kicking, though. He must have belted the first four of his five kicks over 50 metres. I tried to be relaxed and easy in my approach and managed some long drop-punts.

Fisk took a gamble with his last kick and went for a torpedo. He nailed it. It flew off his boot and sailed in a monstrous arc over the cones. The teacher had to jog back ten paces to mark where it landed.

Kicking on the run didn’t need power so much as accuracy. Again, we were well matched. We had to run at pretty much full pace and hit a still target, a slow-moving person, then someone running fast.

We got three shots at each level and we had to alternate the foot we kicked with, first with the right, then with the left.

Teachers marked scores on their clipboards. And like the previous sports, there were plenty of kids watching, in small groups or in class groups.

The handballing was set up in front of a board that looked like an archery target. We got ten points for handballing the football through a hole in the middle of the target. If we hit the zone around the hole we got seven points, and then with each section further from the hole we lost another two points.

We got five shots with each hand.

I started with my right hand, Fisk with his left. After five shots he had scored 44 – with his wrong hand! I had got four ‘sevens’ and a ‘ten’ for a total of 38, and that was with my good hand. He strolled back in and hit four bullseyes and a ‘seven’ which put his total up to 91.

I heard the teacher mention something about a school record as I walked up for my five shots. I had to put Fisk out of my mind. Even with five bullseyes, I couldn’t beat him.

But it might get me close to the maximum points for the handballing.

I ended up with only two ‘tens’ and three ‘sevens’.

Fisk hadn’t said a word all the time we’d been out there. Once again, he was totally focused. I knew the only way to rattle him was to do something better than him. I also knew that my best chance for that was coming up – the goal kicking.

It was a game called Sevens, because there were seven different positions or angles that we had to kick goals from. We got two shots at goal from each angle. And then we repeated the whole sequence again. Mr T had worked it out really well. At the end of all our shots, which was 28 shots all up, our score looked like a real footy score.

There were two shots at a 90 degree angle from the boundary line. There was hardly any ‘daylight’ between the goalposts. These were the toughest kicks. The next two shots were from about 70 degrees. Then two more from 45 degrees. Then the easiest shots, from directly in front of goals. There was one other interesting rule. If you hit the goal post, you scored three points, half the value of a goal.

Fisk and I didn’t even score on our first shot each, but after that we went goal for goal.

A little crowd had gathered. I was wondering whether there would be any distractions like we got during The Wall at tennis. But I don’t think I would have noticed, even if there had been. By the time we had got halfway through, Fisk was on 11.2.68, and I wasn’t far behind on 10.3.63. We’d scored with every kick but our first.

I started the second half with two goals from the ‘impossible’ 90 degrees angle. Fisk sure didn’t look pleased with that. Nor with the big crowd who were cheering and whistling as Mr T, decked out in a goal umpire’s white coat, signalled the goals.

Fisk followed up with a goal and a poster. I’d only gained three points. Again we went goal for goal through the next few sets. The crowd at our end was getting larger as word spread that there was a huge shoot-out down at the far goals.

By the time we had got to the final two kicks, there were still only a couple of points separating us. I was on the toughest side for a right footer. You couldn’t run around to improve your angle. I had only ever kicked goals from here by either kicking a reverse boomerang (very tricky), or spiralling through a fast, flat torpedo.

That’s the kick I went for. Unfortunately it sailed across the face of the goals and only just managed to score a point.

‘You’re gone now, Grady,’ Fisk hissed into my ear, bouncing a ball a few metres behind me. I held the ball longways across my body, this time going for the reverse boomerang. It came off my boot beautifully, but was taking ages to swing in.

Mr T jogged away from me to the far goalpost, all the time looking up at the footy that was slowly bending back. It was heading straight over the post, but then dipped and appeared to graze the top of the post. The sigh from the crowd told me the news. It was a three-pointer.

Still, Fisk would have to score a goal or a three-pointer to beat me.

About ten seconds later he did. He thumped a flat torpedo that curled around the near goalpost like it had a remote control. He didn’t score with his next kick, but he didn’t need to. He’d already won.

Later, Luci told me all about what the netballers had to do. She said it was the most punishing work out she’d ever experienced. The focus had been on showing your skills but making you more and more tired with heaps of short sprints and sit ups spread between catching, passing and shooting games.