Flaming Galahs vs:*
Oxford Mixed 13-9
Thundering Herd 2 10-13
Bear Cavalry 2 13-6
Lemmings 13-9
Kent 13-10
South Coast Ultimate 13-7
* all scores are more or less guesses
My Thoughts
This isn't an official team write-up, just my thoughts on the team and my own performance (because you all clearly care so much).
After a short nights sleep on Friday everyone arrived pitchside an hour before the 1st game and we got a proper warm up in. We came out alright, not particularly hard but our offense was good. Theirs was not. We got a lot of cheap turns from misplaced passes and drops and managed to take a sizable lead. I think they eliminated those from most of the rest of their games and could have beaten us had they done so in our game. They had a lot of very good players who just weren't playing anywhere near the top of their game.
Next up were Herd 2 who had been climbing all season long. They were well up for the game (taking down a local 1st team, who wouldn't be?) and I felt like we expected to put down their challenge pretty easily. Next time we looked at the score they were 2 ahead and we were running out of time. Then we ran out of time. Nuff respect to Herd 2; they played well and deserved the victory - but we walked away shamefaced. This game seemed typical of our season - we have been unable to get our heads in the game at crucial moments. We weren't in it before it started (thinking perhaps, that we didn't need to be) and we couldn't switch on when we saw where the game was headed. It felt like the tournament was kind of over at this point, and that the season had been a little wasted.
We went into our last game of the day pretty pissed off with ourselves and didn't struggle too much against Cavalry 2. I was moved from D-line to O-line for this game (and the remainder of the weekend) - swapped with another handler. Felt like a demotion to me, and apparently to him too - I guess only the captain will know. The D-line got plenty of blocks and put away a few in the first half. Other than that we traded and never really felt too threatened.
Meanwhile, on a pitch not too far away, some sort of small miracle was happening. Oxford got their shit together and Herd had a nightmare. That result put us in a 3-way tie which we won, apparently by 1 point! Much jubilation and excitement. This gave us the easier cross-over in the morning, oxford the harder one and pushed poor Herd out of any chance at moving up significantly.
Sunday morning was wet and miserable and the team were pretty crap at warming up. This London club scene is pretty lightweight compared to uni training in Durham - not sure how they would have handled regionals in horizontal snow... Anyhow, we had Lemmings first up who had beaten us at tour 1. They had lost their captain/founder to the 2nds for reason unknown but were still a force to be reckoned with, particularly their girls who had sticky hands. O-line was a joy to play and we were pretty efficient with our points - most had no turnovers and were scored in 10 passes or fewer. We won the game by two or three and it felt pretty comfortable. Our D-line got plenty of blocks but just couldn't score, although it felt like they had it in them if Lemmings started coming back.
Next were Kent who had beaten us in a hard game at tour 1. They've got some standout players and a hard running short game. We came out and lost 3 on the trot. Captain put the D-line on and they scored 3 on the trot, then the O-line played a D point and scored again. The game was a great battle from thenceforth. I was loving the O-line groove, running as middle handler mostly and remembering why I prefer it to D-line handling. Unfortunately I have lost the ability to assist - I think I threw away almost every opportunity I had from 10 yards out or less. I got a chance to redeem myself and made a layout block in their endzone. I rarely lay out and less so for D so I was pretty pleased with myself. I have no idea what my form was like - probably more of an awful fall over than anything pretty. I can't really remember it anyway, that half second is black, whether from having my eyes closed or just being too excited to form memories. The more I think about it, the more annoyed I am that I couldn't hold the disc (I was trying to) for a Callahan - it's not often I'm going to get chances like that. Anyway, enough about me - we traded out most of the rest of the game and the D-line converted their block for the final point. I think Kent were pretty gutted but their speech was lovely and as gracious in defeat as it was in victory last time.
Final game was against South Coast Ultimate. We had a pretty gritty game against them at tour 2. They had a great deep game: all their guys could huck and sky and they pretty much took us apart. Half of our team were hungover and they made some dodgy calls and we made some rude words and it all got a little tetchy. This game was quite different. We shut down their deep game with flatter forces and conservative marking. They proceeded to throw away quite a lot. We took the first half something like 7-2. They were very tired, probably because they only put the disc through the men on the pitch. We used our girls to good effect, sending them deep for probable half of the O-lines scores. We were very fired up for this game which was pleasing to see - especially as I felt like shit before hand and was fully expecting to lose. In the end we cruised to an easy victory for the plate and the game was very pleasant all round.
In the end this was a great tournament. I finally felt like we played near our potential and, crucially, did it consistently. I'm not entirely sure why we couldn't bring it to previous tournaments: we'd trained hard and often, played competitive friendlies etc. Anyhow - I'm glad we managed to end the season on a high. The team has been great, lots of new friends made (only to lose some again to foreign countries) and everyone has played some standout ultimate. Mixed in London is a lovely community too and I look forward to seeing/beating everyone throughout summer league.
Tournament Predictions follow up
Going up
1) BAF from 9 to 5
Word is they chumped it against Kent (quite an upset) and then lost to Don't Let Go to stay out of the top 8. Final position - 9th
2) Galahs 1 from 18 to 14 (gotta back yourself, right?)
See main topic for full breakdown - basically we got lucky on Saturday and played great on Sunday to finish 13th and win the plate
3) Oxford Mixed from 21 to 17
In our group. Did alright on Saturday (2nd in group) then won their crossover into the top 16 and lost their penultimate game. Final position - 15th
Going Down
1) Bear Cavalry from 4 to 7
Finished 3rd
2) Curve 1 from 12 to 15
Finished 17th
3) Bear Cavalry 2 from 23 to 26
Finished 27th
So not so bad then: 2 well out and the others only by a few places.
No comments:
Post a Comment