Non playing coaches at uni clubs

I've been meaning to say something about this for a while, and at some point I'll have a more in-depth post on it, but I think non-playing coaches make an enormous difference to a team, especially mid-level teams. Just look at last year's final placings, and which teams had a non-playing coach.

1st - UQ
2nd - Macquarie (Nikki Shires)
3rd - UNSW (Ryan Purcell)
4th - Monash (Chris Stephens)
5th - UTas
6th - ANU (Lu Fearnside)
7th - USyd
8th - New Zealand
9th - Melbourne (Steve Wealands)
10th - UWA (Billy Alexander)
11th - QUT
12th - Flinders
13th - Ballarat
14th - Adelaide
15th - Murdoch
16th - UWS
17th - Latrobe (Lachlan McDonald)
18th - Griffith
19th - CSU
20th - UTS

So aside from the outlier (Latrobe - first AUG, mostly new players) the six teams with non-playing coaches made the top ten. Sure, with the list those teams had they probably would have finished up there anyway, but it got me thinking about how lower teams would benefit from having a non-playing coach on the sideline at AUG.

• Experience - the obvious one. Who wouldn't want a Worlds player giving advice to your beginner and intermediate players.
• Game plan - a really good captain would be able to have this covered, but an NPC would have a better perspective on how to capitalise on the skill level of your team.
• Watching the opposition - Hard to do when you're actually playing. An NPC would be able to spot flaws in an opponent's gameplay, and work out how to exploit it.

So how do you go about getting a coach? An ex-player would be the obvious route, but speaking to your sports association about funding, and your state association about who qualified coaches are in your area would be a starting point.

Nationals predictions - Part 3

Shit...Nationals starts today and I haven't done my final standings predictions. It's like uni all over again.

Just so I can potentially get bragging rights in early for Sunday, I'll give you my top 4 for each division. Full predictions to come later.

Open
1. Fakulti
2. Barefoot
3. I-Beam
4. Fyshwick United


Women
1. Team Box
2. Wildcard X-Factor
3. Sugar Magnolias
4. Raging Wahine


Feel free to prove me wrong, players, because you know I won't shut up about it if I get these right.

"Ballarat Ultimate" by request

After Nationals, I'll have run out of ideas.

So I'm throwing it open to the public - what would you like to read about?

- Interviews with players and/or admin types.
- The future of the sport in Australia.
- Tips/advice on off-field stuff.
- Uni ultimate smack talk.
- More potshots at Dan Rule.

Comments/suggestions to the usual address.

Nationals predictions - Part 2

Helloooo, ladies.

There is no way of saying that without sounding sleazy.

14 teams again this year. Wildcard looking to defend their title, Team Box looking to avenge last year's loss in the final, Ragine Wahine threatening to come over and win (again), and Sugar Mags looking rather stacked. You could just about throw a blanket over the top four teams this year. No clear favourite.

Pool K
Wildcard X-Factor (E1)
Sugar Magnolias (E2)
Primal (W1)

Wow. Sucks to be Primal. Using the old "AFDA number average" interpretation of their list, Primal seem to be bringing a relatively inexperienced squad this year. One of the games to watch on Day 1 is going to be Wildcard X versus Sugar Magnolias. It ought to be a quality game, but not as crucial as the Phase 2 matches against the Pool L teams. Wildcard seems to be a bit more handler heavy than the Mags, so if the weather is a bit sour, I'd expect Wildcard X to take the top spot

Wildcard X-Factor (2-0)
Sugar Magnolias (1-1)
Primal (0-2)


Pool L
Sporting Team Box Athletico United (S1)
Raging Wahine (Z1)
Hills Angels (E6)

Again, sucks to be Hills. Raging Wahine has a few names on their list that appearing on Tumeke's list in 2006, so these girls will be no strangers to the Australian scene. However Team Box are looking better this year than last - 5 Firebirds and 4 Terras (...that doesn't make sense) fronting up for them so it won't just be the Joy/Hussey/Liz Show. There's added depth this time around.

Team Box (2-0)
Raging Wahine (1-1)
Hills Angels (0-2)


Pool M
Southside (E3)
Factory Girls (E5)
Indies (S3)
Minx (N2)

I don't know if it's just how the seedings have panned out, or whether there is still a huge discrepancy between the East and the rest when it comes to womens' ultimate, but the outcome of this cusp pool seems quite obvious to me. Well, only in terms of top 2-bottom 2. I can't see Indies or Minx upsetting Factory Girls or Southside this year. In fact, I think all games will go to seed, with the exception of Minx beating Indies. Indies are a talented side, but they have a small squad which doesn't work unless you have two or three anchors who play 95% of points.

Southside (3-0)
Factory Girls (2-1)
Minx (1-2)
Indies (0-3)


Pool N
Honey (S2)
Wildcard Jokers (E4)
Sultry (N1)
Bush (S4)

Once again, this cusp pool doesn't seem very "cuspy". Perhaps in a parallel universe I'd tip Bush to upset Honey, but that didn't happen at Southerns, and Bush don't really have much depth this year. I also can't see Sultry rolling Honey or Jokers. Game to watch will be Honey/Jokers, but the real battle for these two will be in Phase 2 to see if they can break into the seemingly impenetrable top four. A tip? Um...Jokers.

Wildcard Jokers (3-0)
Honey (2-1)
Sultry (1-2)
Bush (0-3)


Part 3 was going to be a look at Phase 2 in the open draw, but I just realised if I get the Pool predictions wrong, then that will negate whatever I predict for Phase 2. Instead, when I do Part 3 and 4, they'll just be predicting the final placings for the open and womens' comps.

Nationals preditions - Part 1.1

Ok, so they've changed Pool E and Pool F around a bit.

Pool E
5 Taipans (E4)
8 Eastern Territories (NZ1)
9 Firestorm Troopers (N1)
11 Karma (S3)


Pool F
6 Sublime (W1)
7 Sweet Chilly (S2)
10 Barefoot (E5)
12 Wollongong (E6)


Hmm....changes my thoughts on the results a bit.


Pool E
Taipans (2-1)
Firestorm Troopers (2-1)
Karma (1-2)
Eastern Territories (1-2)

Pool F
Barefoot (3-0)
Sublime (2-1)
Sweet Chilly (1-2)
Wollongong (0-3)


Any complaints to the usual address.

Some other readings

OK, so I'm a massive ulti-nerd. In my quest to become the Bruce McAvaney of the ultimate world, I read up a lot on other ultimate blogs. I found two postings (to different sites) by Match Diesel that I thought might have been of interest to my Australian audience.

World class...teenagers? - posted last week, talks about the tryouts for the US junior teams for Worlds. The process they used seems remarkably similar to the one used here, but maybe a bit tougher. This quote in particular stood out to me -

"Many tryouts felt that the physical aspect of the tryouts was too intense and that too many participants were chosen because of their ‘coach-able’ abilities. As far as the first concern goes, it is pretty obvious that the scheme of any tryout process is to push everyone to their limits and the 20 or so that hold on the longest can and should earn their spot on the team."

You can really look at this both ways - you could criticise the selection process for not picking the best players based on pure ability, or you could praise this process for maximising the potential of the whole team, given their limited time together. Team of champions, champion team, etc.

The Upside Of Winter - posted yesterday, talks about how teams based in colder climates tend to be hungrier for action because there's less opportunity to train in the cold months. Having any time off ultimate will make a passionate player desperate to get back onto the field, so winter is like "a 5 month injury".

However when I thought about applying this to the Australian scene, I could only think of three cities where winter gets so cold outside, training simply isn't an option - Hobart, Canberra and Ballarat. Are these teams hungrier come spring time? I'd say Canberra always come out fired for Mixed Nats and AUG, Ballarat and Hobart not so much.

There's also the other argument that playing in harsher conditions hones your skills enough so that perfect conditions seem a lot easier. I don't necessarily agree with this. Yes, anyone who has learned and played in Ballarat is pretty handy at zone O and zone D, but to go from training in 8° conditions to playing in 30°+ conditions will really knock you about.


Disclaimer: Yes, I know these two articles are deliberately aimed at Tiger and Twats. It's called "knowing your audience", people.

Final standings of Ridin The Western '08

1. Vintage (ex/current Chilly/Ishtar)
   
2. Ballaware (ex-BUUF/current Deakin)
3. Team Cool (Victorian juniors)
4. Monash
5. Melbourne
6. GFUC (Geelong)
7. BUUF

Spirit - Vintage & MUF
Female MVP - Michelle Rogers (Monash)
Male MVP - Dan Rule (BUUF), Tarrant Meehan (Team Cool), Mark Isherwood (Ballaware)

Instead of a final (no one really challenged Vintage all day) there was a demo game of Vintage vs All Stars. Very entertaining game - I think the All Stars took it out.

There'll be a more detailed report later in the week on AFDA.com

Finding the off-field skills of your players

A complaint commonly heard among uni club folk is how they can't get anyone to help them out in running the club. I found myself having this problem in the early years of BUUF, but quickly learned how to encourage people to get involved (out of necessity, more than anything).


Start small
What sounds less daunting...

• "Hey, at training tonight can you grab everyone's email address off them?"
• "Hey, can you be club secretary?"

Pass off the little, mundane tasks that you otherwise could never be arsed doing - writing a letter to your sports union, making a phone call, registering a team on the AFDA website. This gets rid of that old "I don't have time to help out" excuse - you're asking them to do something that takes 5 minutes!


Find out where they work
See if where they work can get you something useful.

• At a bar/cafe/restaurant? Organise a social event.
• At a supermarket? Purchase food for tournaments on the cheap.
• At McDonalds? Borrow those big water containers for training.
• In IT support? They can answer emails and write blogs...

What course do they do?
Business or commerce? Keeping the books should be a breeze for them. Human movement/PE? They should be able to get fieldwork credit for doing things for the club. Arts/graphic design? Design posters for social events. IT? Make a website. Nursing? First aid!


Get them used to the idea of responsibility
One thing we've always done at BUUF (I can't claim responsibility for this idea, it was the work of Woodley and Sizz) is on road trips, particularly Uni Games, everyone on the team is given a responsibility. Some of the roles we dish out include...

• Morning wake ups
• Knowing the draw (fields, times, opponents)
• Accreditations (looking after everyones' for the day and taking them to Disc Central before each game)
• Lunch (shopping for and preparing - usually three or four people doing this)
• Social planner (scouting for good pubs and clubs)
• Driving (if you have cars or a bus there)
  

This takes the bulk of the workload off the captain and team manager, and gives people a greater sense of contributing to the team.


Learn to let go!
Things sometimes do happen if you're not in control of them. Seriously. They do.

Hiatus from Albert Park league

Last night, Ballafornia went down to MUCUS in the Div2 semi final 14-10. Bit unfortunate, but life goes on. This season has probably been the most fun season I've ever played and I hope that most of my team mates agree.

However after three years of Albert Park winter season, BUUF is giving the 2008 winter season a miss. The team is going their own seperate ways for many reasons - spreading their wings a bit by joining other teams, work commitments, or simply having a break from ultimate for a few months.

The most prevalent reason though is a need to "look after our own backyard" for a while. We can't sit around and wait for some star North American or European pickups, or hope that for whatever reason some of the 08 Thunder/Terra crew choose to come to B-Town Uni. We need to take the folk that are turning up each Tuesday night for a throw and run around, and turn them into players.

Ideally this process would be starting tonight, but with a Nationals campaign in the forefront of the mind of our three gun players, it's not reasonable to expect them to throw themselves into the task of generating what is essentially a new team. So maybe we will have to stick with the pickup games for now and wait until May to really get things going.

Ridin The Western '08

Coming up this Saturday LIVE from Victoria Park. You may remember Victoria Park from such ultimate tournament as Mixed Nats 2006, and Southern Uni Games 2006. Only difference now being that there was grass back then. For all the rain at Mixed Nats 06, I don't think there's been any since.

So who's coming?

Ballaware - It only took the better part of five years, but BUUF finally has enough people around for an alumni team. Closely resembles the Ballfornia lineup at Albert Park this season. Will make virtually no attempt to take the day seriously, but will probably go close to winning because of that.

GFUC - Stands for Geelong Frolf & Ultimate Club. While there has always been a small pocket of players in Geelong, the last few weeks have finally seen a regular time and place for a pickup game, and all reports say they are getting quite a turnout. Won't set the world on fire, but it'll be good for the newbies to get out as a team.

Hairy MUF & Trimmed MUF - Monash have recruited well this year and plan to send two teams. Rather than being bastards and having an A/B split so they can win the thing they are sending two even teams.

BUUF - Virtually the whole side (save for 3 or 4) will be rookies playing their first or second tournament. A good opportunity to "blood the youngsters".

Vintage - Tom Rogacki scared the crap out of everyone by assembling a team of Chilly/Ishtar veterans to come and play. However they are simply a group of friends coming up for a weekend away with some ultimate in between.

Team Cool - All the Victorian-based juniors from the Thunder/Terra training squads. Could very well win the weekend since they don't drink.

Melbourne Uni - Has also recruited quite well and will be bringing several rookies up for their first taste of a tournament.


Still waiting to hear from LaTUF and Deakin. Slackers!

Nationals predictions - Part 1

So rather than busting out some long winded Nationals preview, I'm breaking this up over a few segments. Today we'll look at the Pools phase of the Open draw.

Pool C
1 Heads of State (S1)
4 Fyshwick United (E3)
13 Fakulbee (E7)
16 Thor/The Pass (N3)

Heads Of State seem to have ruffled a few feathers by getting the number one seed, but that's the way the seeding system works. Their Regionals lineup has gained some extra depth by the promotion of several HoSY players, but I'm not sure it will be enough to overcome the red-hot Fyshwick United. The Canberra boys are salivating at the prospect of being able to roll the #1 seeds and gain a relatively easy path to the finals. Both teams have had a fantastic run-in to Nationals and should be one of the games to watch on Day 1. I'm tipping FU to get up, with the rest of the games going to seed

Fyshwick United (3-0)
Heads Of State (2-1)
Fakulbee (1-2)
The Pass (0-3)


Pool D
2 Fakulti (E1)
3 I-Beam (E2)
14 Hot Chilly (S4)
15 Firestorm Zippo (N2)

Seriously, if I was to offer odds of 3-1 on Fakulti NOT winning Nationals this year, how much would you bet? Then again, at the moment there's a pressure on them not to become the biggest chokers since Deathstar. The Dowle Show probably won't start firing until Day 3 or 4, but they should get through this pool ok. I don't see Hot Chilly rolling Firestorm Zippo, but it'll still be a decent match (I'd love to see Steve Thomas match up on Mike Neild). The key game in this pool will be I-Beam versus Firestorm Zippo - most likely for a spot in the top crossover pools. After a bit of um-ing and ah-ing, I've decided to go with I-Beam.

Fakulti (3-0)
I-Beam (2-1)
Firestorm Zippo (1-2)
Hot Chilly (0-3)


Pool E
5 Taipans (E4)
8 Sweet Chilly (S2)
9 Firestorm Troopers (N1)
12 Wollongong (E6)

The cusp pools look like throwing up a lot of against-seed results this year with some pretty even competition. There doesn't seem to be a clear winner in this pool, so I'm going to predict three teams finishing on 2 wins each, with Wollongong not likely to roll Taipans (who have 8 players with AFDA numbers lower than 100), Sweet Chilly or Firestorm Troopers. As for who will actually go through...I can't really wrap my head around working out potential tiebreakers so I'll just go with this...

Firestorm Troopers (2-1)
Sweet Chilly (2-1)
Taipans (2-1)
Wollongong (0-3)


Pool F
6 Sublime (W1)
7 Eastern Territories (NZ1)
10 Barefoot (E5)
11 Karma (S3)

If you're going to Nationals this year as a spectator and want to see some sweet ultimate right from the first game, plonk your ass down next to the two fields that have Pool F games on them. Eastern Territories remain unknown to me, but have traditionally stood tall at Nationals. Sublime and Barefoot both look just as good, if not better, as last year. I think Karma have the potential to upset teams this year - their highly structured game at Regionals was the best I have ever seen a South Australian team play. Game to watch in this pool? All of them.

Barefoot (2-1)
Sublime (2-1)
Karma (1-2)
Eastern Territories (1-2)


Coming up tomorrow*, a look at the Pools phase of the women's draw.


* - my definition of 'tomorrow' may slightly differ from yours.