TIGERS CLUB NEWS ARCHIVE

Tuesday 22nd March 2005 ARMSTRONG/GILBERT

THEY are two of the toughest players that the AFL Canberra has produced.

Get between them and the ball and you'll wish you hadn't.

But Queanbeyan Tiger hard men and seniors stalwarts Jason Gilbert and playing coach Mark Armstrong showed none of their customary on-field ferocity on Wednesday evening when their future Tigers made their 'debut' at Margaret Donoghoe Sportsground.

The yelling and cursing so often associated with the football field was exchanged with gooing and baby talk as Armstrong asked his six-week-old son Michael to say "hello" to three-week-old Bailee Gilbert.

The new additions to the Gilbert and Armstrong families continue an uncanny run of parallel milestones in the players' lives.

Since beginning their careers at the Tigers the pair have celebrated their 100th match and All-Australian selection together in 1998, their first sons within three months of each other, three premierships and narrowly missed reaching their 200th Senior game in the same match last season - a knee injury forcing Gilbert to reach his double century a fortnight later.

While the coincidence of past events have been brought to their attention, both denied any rumours of an intended synchronised birth. "Mark's coaching only goes so far," Gilbert said.

Michael David Armstrong was born to Mark and wife Kelly on February 4, weighing seven pounds ten ounces.

Meanwhile, Gilbert and wife Sylvana's new addition, Bailee Jason Gilbert, may be suited as a future Tigers ruckman, the "big unit" weighing nine pounds ten ounces at his birth on February 23.

Conceding to lacking "the neccessary feeding equipment", Tigers' opposition cannot rely on preying on a lethargic Gilbert or Armstrong, with the pair's pre-match routine unaffected by any post-natal sleep deprivation. "[Having the young ones around] changes everything and unsettles the routine a bit but I've been getting enough sleep - it's the wife that's tired," Armstrong said.

Whether he has been rejuvinated by the unplanned additional sleep or whether it is the thought of passing another milestone with his team mate, 31-year-old Gilbert has returned to Maragaret Donoghoe Sportsground in 2005 after enjoying one the shortest retirements in Tiger history. "[After retiring at the end of 2004] I made the decision that I still had something to offer," he said.

With Jordan Gilbert, 23 months, and Jack Armstrong, two, content to sip Gatorade at Wednesday's session (editors note: a Gatorade equivalent for babies), it is their first day of school that may feature as the families next corresponding event.

Already measured up for their Tigers' uniforms, Armstrong said that their sons growing friendship has helped further bond the two families. "[Our families] have tended to spend more time together over the last couple of years," he said.

"But when you're running around three days during the week plus weekends for nine months, you don't tend to spend much time at each other's houses. "But since the boys have started playing together our families have definitely seen more of each other... plus the wives love to gas bag on the phone to one another about who has the worst husbands or children."