Keith goes to Ballarat

I love telling stories. It only takes a little bit of prodding (sometimes not even that) to begin retelling a tale of previous road trips and parties. And given that I've been with BUUF from day one I have enough material for a trip to Sydney and back to maybe Gundagai. Someone suggested I start telling such stories on here. So here's attempt numero uno...

---

"What the hell? Weren't you guys leaving at, like, four?"

"Yeah, we still have some shit to do. Like pick up Erin. And I left my phone at home."

This was at 6pm. After meticulously planning everyone's car pools and staggered departure times on Friday, it took mere minutes for it all to go to shit. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have put the club's four most disorganised people in the same car.

"You know what? I'm due to leave at 7:30 and I'm going to actually beat you there!"

"Yeah? You and whose demerit points?"

Boom. Defeated.

So my lot hit the road at around 8:30, embarking on the second most boring drive this state has to offer (thank you, Midland Highway). I really wish I had some sweet road trip stories of the drive over, but the reality is that Eye-Spy at night time is limited to the fifty-odd metres directly in front of the car, and with four dudes in the car shenanigans are quite limited unless the "no homo" clause is implemented.

However, Shaunie and I did set a new world record. I threw the disc to him at 11:30pm and he didn't catch it until 12:00am. Yeah timezones! Although from there I was bracing myself for another solid 90 minutes behind the wheel, but it turns out we got there in 20. Sounds like my sex life.

After a terrible night's sleep at the "camping ground" behind the servo, which was the only accommodation provider that answered their phone, we set ourselves up for day one of competition.


Round One - BUUF Urban Justice vs Great Balls of Fire

So we had driven around 400 kilometres to play against a Melbourne team. This game actually proved to be slightly more difficult than we anticipated. They came out running hard and put some pressure on D, which forced us to throw properly rather than rely on loopy outside-in bullshit. Once we worked out that Jake Angelovich was at least thirteen metres taller than anyone on their team, the rest became easy.


Round Two - BUUF Urban Justice vs Flinders Uni

The problem with having a club is that people assume that no matter who is actually playing that day, you are bringing your best line. However with the sheer volume of players Flinders has, it turns out they can field a full team of players with absolutely none from their gold medal winning 2008 AUG squad. And good on them. We finally had some good flow happening and used all our of players effectively. However our defence was downright woeful as we employed the age old "hope-they-drop-it" D, which surprisingly didn't work. We ended up winning in a close one.


During the lunch break we conferred with our counterparts - BUUF Mercenaries Of Justice. Why the team names? Well, it turns out Steven Seagal has three movies with the word "justice" in the title. In the spirit of everyone changing their team names halfway through the day, we settled on Keith Urban. Made sense at the time and still does. Mercenaries were also 2 from 2, albeit playing shoddier teams.


Round Three - BUUF Keith Urban vs Conkeithadors

A.K.A Joel Pillar's team. This game was all about employing the Three Things BUUF Knows About Joel. First off, we went with #1 - Force Backhand. This proved very effective in forcing Joel to throw backhand hucks to fast receivers. So we went to #2 - Stop His Go-to Guy. This was Tom Roden, who learned how to play ultimate properly recently and ran riot all over us. Reluctantly we had to look at item #3, which is Joel HATES Losing. This doesn't help our game plan at all, but it is handy to know.


The party was held at the prestigious Keith Hotel, with it's slot machine (the singular is intentional. There's no plural about it) and five dollar pints. I don't remember too much of the party, other than the five reminders I set myself on my phone...
1. DJs who use laptops don't like being asked, "Are you checking Facebook?"
2. Joel is NOT gay.
3. One-armed guys have an unfair advantage at Falconball.
4. Be careful. All the locals now know who you are.
5. Don't have kids. You're going to be a terrible parent.


Suffice to say the semi final was going to be hilarious.

Semi Final: BUUF Keith Urban vs Pillow Fight

By the time I woke up, we were down 9-0. After a quick conference to determine how bothered we were with finishing off the match, we decided to fight in the second half and went down 17-8. It's not that Pillow Fight are an exceptionally good side, it's that we were exceptionally bad. We pinned our hopes on Mercenaries getting through to the final, but they choked against Team Joel and we were facing them for 3rd.


3rd Place Playoff: BUUF vs BUUF

After settling on the rules (girls can super-sub, game to 9, no time outs, fouls aren't fouls unless they're called) we set out to embarass the South Australians with our brand of intra-club match. With offences mainly consisting of Doobie travelling, and Boothy hucking to Woodley who promptly spikes it mid-field and refuses to play defence, the crowd lost interest within seconds and both teams shortly after. We're not sure who won, but it was pretty clear that the sport of ultimate lost.



Normally I love hanging around for tournament finals and playing a starring role in the losing team's downfall, but the prospect of a five hour drive followed by a pre-dawn work shift was simply too daunting. I felt pretty rude but self-preservation had to be enacted as some point because it hadn't been up until then. Pillow Fight allegedly won the tournament, and BUUF did not win spirit. And deservedly so.

The ride home saw some unnecessarily aggressive Eye-Spy, tooting at every single car (well done, Boothy) and a sweet slide at Nhill. The Western Highway is still a really boring drive.