I think you were a bit hard done by here. What's more dramatic than action on the sports field? The guy smiling on the left probably didn't help you though.
Not bad at all - and it stopped me from the thumbnail, so that's a good sign. A couple of things let the image down, in my opinion, when one gets to 'full size': the crop (or possibly angle of view) just leaves everything too close to the edges - the left wing, the ruck (especially the player who appears to be smiling at someone out of frame), and indeed the ball. Like the black and white though, you've avoided the mistake that a lot of people make of having too much grey.