Ballarat Ultimate

2010 Nationals Preview - Part 4

2010-04-21T16:09:00.000+10:00

As recognised in Part 2, the field for the women's draw this year is probably the most competitive in recent years with all teams lining at-or-near full strength. Pool L looks like it is going to be rather fiery, with only the top three at the end of pool play still in the running for the title, and as many as five of the seven teams capable of securing one of those three spots.

Pool L

SPORTING TEAM BOX ATHLETICO UNITED (2)
Base: Melbourne, Vic
Qualified: 1st in South
Last year: 2nd

Twice now STBAU have been runners-up to Wildcard at Nationals. This year STBAU's training focus has been on fitness and conditioning to ensure they can maintain four days worth of pressure on the NSW teams and bring back Victoria's first women's Nationals. They finished 2nd at the BC Invitational this year to a veritable Sydney all star team. Now given that STBAU were at full strength at BCI, and the talent from that Sydney team will be diluted across three teams in Adelaide, I'd expect STBAU to overcome their Wildcard hoodoo this year. However Southside are now in their way.

The gun: Liz Edye. One of the most consistent and reliable throwers going.
The workhorse: Michelle Phillips. Fast and fit, generates a lot of options on O. Will step up her D when she needs to.
The X-factor: Clare Hussey. Can send better hucks than probably half (or more) of the open players.

Prediction: 2nd

WILDCARD CLUBS (3)
Base: Sydney, NSW
Qualified: 2nd in East
Last year: 1st

This year Wildcard have adopted a rather straight-forward method of dividing their squad - those going to World Clubs, and those not. If Eastern Regionals is a good indicator (and it usually is), Clubs are definitely stronger than Spades, so there is no need to try and separate them from each other a la Colony. Rather, we can look at history. Eight players (Rosalie Ashe, Ju Birchall, Bec Carman, Tara Carraro, Sarah Crossie, Megan Gamble, Fi McDonald and Loren Viswalingam) on the Clubs list were part of the winning squad from last year. Throw in, among others, two of the U23 team (Nicky Cotton and Silin Garfield) and you have a pretty damn good core squad. I think it's between Clubs and STBAU for top spot in this pool.

The gun: Sarah Crossie. Veteran of many Nationals under the Wildcard name, and anchored the 2006 WUCC tilt.
The workhorse: Fiona McDonald. Similar style player to Michelle Phillips, but has a stronger D game than O. Will match up on key opposition players.
The X-factor: Silin Garfield. Strode on to the Australian scene like she owned the place around 12 months ago. Now wearing the green and gold in Florence later this year.

Prediction: 3rd

SAND DUNES (6)
Base: Sydney, NSW
Qualified: 3rd in East
Last year: -

2007 we had Manly (aka no No NO), 2008 we had Hills Angels and 2009 we had...well, neither. But in 2010 we have an amalgamation of an area with a strong ultimate history, and a fast developing territory. Throw in some Brisbane reps and some Wildcard alums and it's looking more like the ultimate team equivalent of Voltron. At Eastern Regionals they surprised no one and took 3rd place and look to carry that momentum into Nationals. Most of the play will be generated from the work of Nikki Shires, Fiona McCrae, Natalie Roxburgh and Yvonne Shepherd so we can expect some smart, free flowing offence. Plenty of assistance on O will come from Peta McNaughton and Anna Haynes, with the Hills contingent running D. I have them tipped to take 3rd spot in this pool, but they will be under fire from Wildcard Spades and Black Betty.

The gun: Nikki Shires. Experience in all levels ranging from Worlds to stacked Stampede teams.
The workhorse: Liesl Cornell. Two years ago was new to the sport. Now is on the U23 women's team. Should be looking to test herself here.
The X-factor: Fiona McCrae. Been involved with many Wildcard tilts, so should know how to play against them.

Prediction: 4th

BLACK BETTY (7)
Base: Brisbane, QLD
Qualified: 1st in North
Last year: -

Fun fact: The last time a Brisbane women's team was in the top 6 at Nationals was in 2005. Since then, Sultry have languished around the 8-10 bracket, not quite able to break into the pre-semis. Since last year, the Sultry name has been put out to pasture and the Queensland women's movement has been reborn as Black Betty. They made an impressive debut at BCI, finishing 3rd ahead of Honey and took care of business in Northern Regionals. But how far can they go at Nats? The cynic in me tells me that Black Betty's lack of real competition in the north means that they haven't pushed themselves as far as they can go and they could be caught off guard on Day 1. Their first game against Terra will set the tone for the tournament. Lose, and they potentially carry a 1-2 record into games against STBAU, Sand Dunes and Wildcard Spades. A win though will give them a big confidence boost on Day 2 and keep them in contention for a pre-semi berth.

The gun: Kirsten Nott. Experienced Brisbane Premier League and Australian rep who will prey upon weaker opponents.
The workhorse: Maylin Chuah. Has spent most of her career at the top level, with several Nats and Mixed Nats appearances to her name.
The X-factor: Simone Ryan. Can negate a lot of deep attacks with her height. Will keep offence honest in windy conditions.

Prediction: 10th

HONEY DS (10)
Base: Melbourne, VIC
Qualified: 4th in South
Last year: 11th

As the name suggests, this team is a handheld version of Honey. Not really. They're Honey's "Development Squad" - girls who have been hand-picked from uni and league teams to train and play together. Which, on the face of it, is a B-team. Honey are a very tight-knit club and if anything, these girls are going to enjoy themselves for the whole tournament and I wouldn't be surprised if they took away the spirit award. While only three of this year's team fronted up in Perth, they still have some experienced hands in Nicky Smith, Nicky Taylor, Amy Meehan and Liz Blink. Will struggle to be competitive against the top half of teams but should give Terra, Black Betty and Spades a bit of a run.

The gun: Nicky Smith. She's the voice you'll hear the most.
The workhorse: Alysia Roberts. Has played a fair bit at the top level and her experience should benefit this team.
The X-factor: Jenelle Morton. Fast receiver who isn't afraid of a contest. Playing her first Nationals but could easily have played two years ago.

Prediction: 13th

WILDCARD SPADES (11)
Base: Sydney, NSW
Qualified: 5th in East
Last year: -

Boasting probably the most clever team name at this Nationals, Spades have 7 of last year's champion team backing up for another tilt. Outside this starting line Spades are taking a relatively inexperienced team to Adelaide. When you look at this from a development perspective, next year Wildcard will have close to 40 players who have a Nationals campaign under their belt. It is this kind of forward planning that will see them be a powerhouse for years to come. So what about this year? Since their 5th place at Eastern Regionals, Keah Molomby and Kylie O'Brien have been added to the roster, which easily gives them another 3 or 4 points per game. How Spades start each game will do a lot for the confidence of the younger players - a quick early lead will settle them into a rhythm, but being behind after 6 or 7 points will see the workload fall on the shoulders of the senior players. A tough day 1 (vs STBAU and Sand Dunes) but they should bounce back well on Day 2.

The gun: Keah Molomby. No fear on the field and her team mates will feed off her intensity.
The workhorse: Rach Brennan. Will steady the ship on O and play smart D. Showed at AUG with UTS that she can lead a charge if the team is down.
The X-factor: Kylie O'Brien or Andrea Wang - take your pick.

Prediction: 6th

SOUTHERN TERRA (13)
Base: Australian Junior Team
Qualified: AFDA allocated
Last year: -

While I've seen them at training camps a couple of times this year, I'm yet to see Terra play under proper match conditions. Five of the 2008 silver-medal winning team (Emily Gibbs, Chloe McDonald, Sophie Murdoch, Cat Phillips and Nicky Sutton) are back for another World Juniors campaign and will be the lynch-pin of this team, particularly on O. It was their zone D that won the now famous semi final at Worlds last time around, and a fast and fit team has been selected that will implement that at crunch times again. One area that they could potentially be vulnerable in is a deep game. They don't have height for straight up aerial contests, and their inexperience at a National level could see them getting out-positioned. Expect to see them fight their one-on-ones on in cuts. Unfortunately I think there will be too many unrecoverable mistakes on offence to win games in Adelaide, but hopefully they will be able to go away, learn from those mistakes and defend their 2nd place finish in Heilbronn.

The gun: Cat Phillips. Stats, stats and more stats. Double if they're from hammers.
The workhorse: Chloe McDonald and Sophie Murdoch. The Castlemaine girls don't get intimidated and will play aggressive D.
The X-factor: Clare Hollebone. Matt Hill brought her along after seeing her at a couple of beginners clinics and she's straight into the team. Looking forward to seeing what he sees.

Prediction: 12th

Well that's it for this year's Nationals predictions, and for Ballarat Ultimate. It's been a great run here at Blogspot, but as of tomorrow I'll be at a new home on the internet and keeping up the usual brand of idle speculation, unwarranted potshots and blissful ignorance that you've come to know and love over the years.

2010 Nationals Preview - Part 3

2010-04-19T12:14:00.001+10:00

Surprise! You get two posts today. It certainly helps that I wrote this one before I had written the other two, but for reasons no longer known to me I held it off until today. In Part 3 we look at the other half of the open draw - Pools C and D. More commonly known as the pools where two teams get punished on Day 1.

Pool C

HEADS OF STATE (1)
Base: Melbourne, VIC
Qualified: 1st in South
Last year: 3rd

For the second time in their history Heads of State carry the number 1 seed into Nationals. After an impressive 3rd place last year, they are chomping at the bit to go one step further and make their first final and continue their run towards World Clubs. They take a relatively unchanged lineup into this year - imports Eric Reynolds and Michael Stout have gone home and Tarrant Meehan is taking time off. They have been replaced by Kendall Thorn (Sublime), Jarrod Cowan (Monash Uni) and Chris "Toffa" Kaliviotis (Happy Pig 2009), and prodigal son Ashley Button returning. As always, the question that hangs over HoS is their mental game - can they win the tight games and keep their cool when the pressure is on? In my opinion I don't think this is their year, as they will most likely peak for World Clubs.

The gun: Jake Angelovich. Has had a phenominal 12 months. When he flips the switch he is virtually unstoppable.
The workhorse: Rueben Berg. A level-headed and smart player who also matches the athleticism and intensity of his team mates.
The X-factor: Mark Isherwood. The barometer of the team's mental state. If he loses his shit, the rest of the squad follow shortly.

Prediction: 5th

COLONY: PLUNDER (4)
Base: Sydney, NSW
Qualified: 2nd in East
Last year: -

"Hey, so if we take Thong who finished 2nd in Perth, and Fakulti who finished 6th and combine them, they'll come, like, 8th in Prague, right?" Well, no, but Colony - the result of the Sydney Elite Men project - are definitely going to make themselves known on an international stage in July. But until then, were are left with the traditional Sydney split - two even teams. And they're pretty damn even too. It's almost as if they went with the training scrimmage selection process of "stand next to someone the same size as you. Right, you're light and you're dark." But what matters on day 1 is who will win out of Heads of State and Colony: Plunder, because that is going to dictate who has a relatively easier run to the final. On paper, I think HoS might have the initial match-up but Colony will shine on day 2 onwards.

The gun: Ant Dowle. Can play anywhere, can match up on anyone. The man has it all.
The workhorse: Pete Blakeley. Everyone around him seems to move in slow motion.
The X-factor: Jonathan Potts. Some say he's past his best, and it's his first Nats since 2006 - can he still go out and win games?

Prediction: 3rd

FAKULTI (13)
Base: Sydney, NSW
Qualified: 6th in East
Last year: 7th/9th

Despite Colony plundering (top shelf punnery right there) most of Fakulti's top tier talent, the Sydneysiders have still managed to put together a relatively formidable lineup. With a decent mix of Fak veterans and enthusiastic newbies they should be able to challenge the mid-table, but I don't see them factoring in the top half of the draw come Monday. The disc skills among the handler set should be pretty consistent, but without a dominant receiver they will need to rely on a lot of run through the midfield, which the top level teams will be able to contain. Similar story D wise - they will need to work hard rather than rely on opportunity to get turns. I'm tipping them to break seed, but not by much.

The gun: Rhys Hearne. Has been with Fakulti for longer than most and will be taking the Captain Courageous role.
The workhorse: Alex Wong. Will provide a lot of the midfield run mentioned earlier.
The X-factor: Nathan Wong. Had a stellar 2009 with Fakulti and Macquarie Uni. Was unlucky to miss the U23s team. Very flashy player that will attract opposition attention.

Prediction: 12th

AUSSIE THUNDER (16)
Base: Australian Junior Team
Qualified: AFDA allocated
Last year: -

Last weekend I had the honour of being a Thunder punching bag in a practice game in Geelong. I had a shocker - more turnovers than completions and got totally bitched by several of the lads. But that aside, Thunder didn't exactly have a top performance either. To be fair they're still in the gelling stage of their elite development and know what improvement is needed. By the end of the game, they were playing like the team I expected to face. One thing I noted was a virtual absence of endzone gumbys - the 6 footers can be counted on one hand. They more than make up for this in pace and fitness and they are more than capable of an upset. Day one of the tournament will see them shaking the nerves off against the big teams, and on paper they should account for Fakulti. Sunday onwards will be their real test before Worlds. They will make mistakes but better to do it in Adelaide than Heilbronn.

The gun: Lochie Wise. Already has a couple of Nationals under his belt and going toe-to-toe with the country's best won't intimidate him.
The workhorses: Abraham and Isaac Stone. I was never sure which one I was looking at, but they both ramp up the intensity on D but know how to reel it in when playing O.
The X-factor: Marc Delgallo. Already has massive wraps as a receiver and willing to put the body on the line to get blocks.

Prediction: 11th

Pool D

COLONY: PILLAGE (2)
Base: Sydney, NSW
Qualified: 1st in East
Last year: -

And so here is the other half of the Colony brigade. I thought I'd be a genius and measure the difference between these two sides by how many of their contingent are actually on their World Clubs team. Pillage has 11 of them and Plunder has 10, so clearly Pillage are the better team. They also have the upper hand in training matches so it makes sense that I tip them to overcome their other half at the show. However that's not the point of note here in this pool. The Colony versus Chilly game at 5:00pm on Day 1 is likely to be the preview of the final. Whoever wins this game gets a sweet run through to Tuesday, so both will be rather hungry for early bragging rights. Pillage's key strength will be their defence and their ability to capitalise on any mistakes. Learn their names so you can heckle them in the final.

The gun: Pete Gardner. There isn't much the Garden Hose can't do on an ultimate field.
The workhorse: Abra Garfield. Must have the lung capacity of a horse, given he can sprint and scream simultaneously for six consecutive hours.
The X-factor: Tom Flanagan. Hasn't been to Nats since 2007, but still belongs there. Crazy throwing ability. By which I mean "crazy throwing" ability, not crazy "throwing ability".

Prediction: 2nd

CHILLY (3)
Base: Melbourne, VIC
Qualified: 2nd in South
Last year: 1st

The club that everyone loves to hate is gunning for their 5th national title, which would surpass the record of Pembroke High School in the late 70s and early 80s. However Chilly's efforts are probably more notable given that Nationals back in those days probably had two teams in bare feet. Chilly have their usual mix of stalwarts and fresh-faced rookies. Chilly's preparation always sees them reach their peak in the final two days, so expect a close loss in the early days, and a small rotation on Day 4. Their best performance usually comes in the final, so don't write them off early if Colony get up on Day 1.

The gun: Tom Rogacki. Has the ability to grab a game by the balls and make it his bitch.
The workhorse: Troy Booth. One of the fastest players in the game, and can keep up the pace for four days.
The X-factor: Shane Vuletich. The Franchise was a key part of their win in the final last year, and is being brought over for the same role. Fires when it counts.

Prediction: 1st

UMLAUT (14)
Base: Sydney, NSW
Qualified: 7th in East
Last year: 14th

Thanks to a wildcard, Umlaut get to have a second crack at Nationals. Last year in Perth they managed to topple a few opponents on the first two days but ended up in last spot. This year I believe that the Nationals field is of a much higher quality than last year, so will Umlaut be better in 2010? This year's lineup looks remarkably different, with a bigger squad for starters and more experience than last year's team. I don't see Umlaut being able to stand up to the top teams, but may be able to upset one of the mid seeds in the second phase of the drawer. That will be their best hope of beating their seed.

The gun: Wally Crocker. Intelligent player who will control a lot of the offence.
The workhorse: Dave Hayes. Will get plenty of under cuts and keeps the disc moving.
The X-factor: Michael Connolly. The Kiwi import should attract a bit of opposition attention.

Prediction: 14th

BAD APPLES (15)
Base: Hobart, TAS
Qualified: 5th in South
Last year: -

With their backs to the wall in the game-to-go at Southern Regionals, Bad Apples managed to win themselves the first open Nationals berth for a Tasmanian team in 3 years. After a few days of speculation following the tournament of whether they would have the numbers to make it to Adelaide, they confirmed their attendance with a few players coming out of the woodwork to go to the big dance. Two players they will sorely miss from the Southerns team are Mike Dunne and Tim Stoneman, who got most of their blocks and goals. Bad Apples' chances of success don't hang purely on Mike Baker's ability, but whether he gets the support he'll need.

The gun: Mike Baker. Holder of the Australian record for most tournament MVP awards ever.
The workhorse: Felix Kennedy. Fast defensive minded player who thrives in the open game.
The X-factor: Russell Nassim and Ahilen "G" Gankadharan. Two crossovers from Chilly B who work well together in the midfield, but will probably play further downfield in Adelaide.

Prediction: 16th

2010 Nationals Preview - Part 2

2010-04-19T12:06:00.000+10:00

Just over a week away from the opening game. For those who won't be in Adelaide, I'll be covering Monday and Tuesday games on Twitter. Today we look at the first half of the women's draw. Since the division isn't fully booked out, the 13 teams will play in two pools, with the top place being rewarded with a free pass to the semi finals. Given the standard of the teams involved, I'd see the key games being Southside vs Honey (3:00pm on Sunday), STBAU vs Wildcard Clubs (same time), and even Sand Dunes vs Wildcard Clubs (9:00am Sunday) and STBAU (11:00am Saturday). But before I go predicting winners, let's look at the teams.

Pool K

SOUTHSIDE (1)
Base: Sydney, NSW
Qualified: 1st in East
Last year: -

After an absence from Nats last year, the sky blue (light blue, pale blue, baby blue? Whatever) jerseys are back in action this season and stamped their authority all over the dominant East region in March. Southside's hiatus has done nothing to slow them down and they enter the tournament as near-favourites, with cross-town rivals Wildcard and pesky Victorians Sporting Team BAU being their main rivals. So what to expect from Southside? Expect a long game, which is only effectively used by the top teams at Australian Nationals, so against the mid to lower level teams there will be aggressive D followed by run and gun O. Southside will aim to win games to 15 early and often.

The gun: Sarah Wentworth. Chosen in the interest of keeping this section short.
The workhorse: Carlie Ryan. Again, most of the squad could go here. They all work well together.
The X-factor: Lisi Moore. Prior to Regionals, Moore hadn't lined up for Southside since 2006 World Clubs in Perth. Will be interesting to see if she brings a new style to the team.

Prediction: 1st

HONEY (4)
Base: Melbourne, VIC
Qualified: 2nd in South
Last year: 4th

How long does it take to build a club from scratch into a national champion? Five years? Six? Longer? Look at it this way - in 2006 Honey took 2 teams to Nationals and finished 11th and 15th. Last year their A team finished 4th, and with WUCC looming they are looking to go one step further and make the final. Trouble is, Sporting Team BAU have been in their way of winning Southern Regionals, and Wildcard have been an obstacle at the national level. Throw Southside into the mix this year and things aren't looking good based on history. So what is different this time around? Only 5 of the 2006 team remain (Jo Creswell, Mel Gangemi, Cath Matthews, Michelle Rogers and Marcy van Blaricum) however they are missing key receiver Lauren Brown from their 2009 tilt so they may reel their long game in slightly.

The gun: Cath Matthews. Plays aggressive O and will be looking for power position a lot.
The workhorse: Jo Creswell. I figure seeing three months of "doing more hill sprints" status updates on Facebook is leading to some sort of payoff.
The X-factor: Kerry Justus. Will be the first look on deep shots in the absence of Lauren Brown. Has height and can take a high grab.

Prediction: 5th

KAOS (5)
Base: Perth, WA
Qualified: 1st in West
Last year: 5th

After arriving on the scene in stylish fashion last year, now it is time for Kaos to prove they belong in the top half of the draw. Without the home bed advantage and a much stronger field this time around, the WA girls will have a much harder time making the top 5. Unfortunately I don't think this crop can do it. That being said, 2009 was not a fluke. This time around without Charlotte De Latte, Lou Delane, Esther Barter and Simone Ryan leaves them without the experience that is needed in April. Couple that with the Firetails, Barramundis and as-yet-unnamed-u23s players that many other teams will boast and Kaos lack, I Kaos will be mid-table at best.

The gun: Danya Meakins. Has been a standout for UWA at Uni Games for the past few years. Expect her to be on the end of a few hucks.
The workhorse: Sally Ray. Fulfilling the captain role and will lead by example on the field.
The X-factor: Sarah McKerracher. Spent some time playing in the eastern states in 2008 so should know a few of the tricks others will get up to.

Prediction: 11th

SUGAR MAG-ROLL-IAS (8)
Base: Newcastle, NSW
Qualified: 4th in East
Last year: 3rd

Well last year I horribly underestimated the Newcastle ladies so this year I will paint them with a more optimistic brush. The Sugar Mags have a smaller squad (14) than most teams, but the sheer pace and fitness of their squad won't make this a relevant factor if we ignore the possibility of injuries. However the Mags have two big losses - Lisi Moore (to Southside) and World Games rep Katie Bradstock (probably to some other sport). The gains of Hope Watson and Sarah Jones will give the Kings some handy assistance on O, but the team could be exposed deep on D against the likes of Southside, Wildcard and STBAU. Should beat their seed, but top 4 might be just out of their reach.

The gun: Katie King and Leanne King. There isn't much these two haven't seen on an ultimate field.
The workhorse: Ellie Sparke and Liz Dodd. Have played side-by-side since way back when. Work incredibly well together as handlers or mids.
The X-factor: Tegan Sneddon. Instead of looking at the loss of Bradstock's pace, teams should be wary of Sneddon's.

Prediction: 7th

INDIES (9)
Base: Adelaide, SA
Qualified: 4th in South
Last year: 10th

Fun fact: The best performance by an Adelaide women's team at Nationals is 7th in 2005, however the more astute (and cynical) readers will remember that there were only 8 women's teams at that Nationals. Their performances under the Indies banner aren't that remarkable (2007 - 13th of 14, 2008 - 12th of 14, 2009 - 10th of 11) but I sense a change of fortune for the Ade-ladies in 2010. You see in the last 12-18 months there has been a concentrated effort on elite development in SA, with development camps, single gender leagues, WUCC tilts, AUG medals and the like. There were early rewards for the men last year with their 8th place finish, so can Indies expect similar payoffs this year? My tip is that with Nic Footer and Anna Rogacki on board, they will improve, but not extraordinarily.

The gun: Anna Rogacki. The elite player Indies have needed.
The workhorse: Karen Palmer and Alison Clarke. With Rogacki and Footer to anchor the offence, these two are freed up a bit and can run riot.
The X-factor: Lara Dyus. I am yet to see her play, but U23 selection warrants some attention.

Prediction: 8th

FACTORY GIRLS (12)
Base: Canberra, ACT
Qualified: 6th in East
Last year: 7th

Canberra women's teams are perennial mid-tablers. Not since the runners-up glory they enjoyed in 2003 have they finished outside the 4th-7th bracket. This year fACTory Girls carry in a squad of 14 and the number 12 seed. Having a look at the rest of the pool, I don't see this team overcoming the three teams required to have a crack at the pre-semis. Interesting (and possibly masculinity-threatening) to note is the age of this squad - the youngest is Erin Wallis at 24 years old. Many of their battles could become level-headed experience versus youthful exuberance. I think fACTory Girls could thrive in bleak weather conditions, but on perfect days they may be outgunned.

The gun: Vickie Saye. If you're going to tag anyone, you'll be tagging her.
The workhorse: Mica Hartley. Provided a lot of ANU's run through the middle at AUG last year, and I imagine she'll play a similar role here.
The X-factor: Erin Wallis. A solid anchor on O who will initiate a lot of play. Very handy on D as well.

Prediction: 9th

2010 Nationals Preview - Part 1

2010-04-15T15:55:00.001+10:00

Ok, so my new site probably ain't gonna get a big fancy launch until after Nationals, so I thought I'd dust off and load up the old Ballarat Ultimate Commodore 64 to crunch some hard data and predict what is going to happen at this year's Australian Ultimate Championships. It all kicks (or pulls) off on Saturday April 24th in glorious Adelaide. This year nearly all of the best players in the country have made themselves available for the tournament, so it is sure to be one the highest quality Nationals seen in quite some time.

First off, we look at two pools in the Open Division - E and F.

Pool E

FIRESTORM (5)
Base: Brisbane, QLD
Qualified: 1st in North
Last year: 5th

Once again, Firestorm have to battle their way out of a cusp pool in order to have a crack at a semi finals berth. And Pool E is, if you will excuse the cliche, the POOL OF DEATH. Any of the four teams are capable of going through to the power pools, so expect some very close, hard fought matches on Day 1. With a slightly smaller roster than the other teams, Firestorm's best bet is to close out their second game against Eastern Greys early while Karma battle Fyshwick and hope that they are fresher going into the showcase game. If they can avenge their loss to Karma in the pool stages last year (they were also Mike Neild-less for that game) they should be able to fire in the power pools.

The gun: John McNaughton. Best lefty forehand in the country. Firestorm's key D man.
The workhorse: Adam Beu. While Liam Gillions is off being married, Jangles will be doing a lot of the receiving work.
The X-factor: Rob Trachter. Canadian import who impressed at BCI.

Prediction: 6th

KARMA (8)
Base: Adelaide, SA
Qualified: 3rd in South
Last year: 8th

Let's have a look at the last few Nationals and where the home team has finished compared to the previous year.

2009 - Perth. Sublime finished 6th, 8th the year before
2008 - Coffs Harbour. Doesn't count, no one's home town
2007 - Melbourne. Chilly won. Same as the year before
2006 - Sydney. One of the Fakultis came 2nd again, but the other went from 11th to 5th.

So as you can clearly see, science is on the side of the home team. There is no such thing as a home ground advantage in ultimate, but there is such thing as a home bed advantage (you play better if you sleep in your own bed the night before) so one would expect Karma to improve. With Huy Vu back on board, Karma should shake up some of the tournament favourites in the power pools. In any other year I'd see this lineup make the pre-semis however with the strength of this year's field they may have to settle with their seed.

The gun: Joel Pillar. Everyone knows him. I shouldn't need to explain.
The workhorse: Alec Deslandes. Can play O or D as required and gives Pillar an option other than Brett Middleton. Will rack up the D stats as well.
The X-factor: Tom Tullet. Already a club whore at age 19 (this is his 4th), Cupcake will work well with Vu, sending Pillar downfield.

Prediction: 8th

FYSHWICK UNITED (9)
Base: Canberra, ACT
Qualified: 4th in East
Last year: 2nd

After two runners-up placings two years in a row, Fyshwick will be hungrier than ever to bring the shield back to the nation's capital. On paper, FU can do no wrong. We know they have the list to win Nationals, but on the day they can't seem to be able to find the formula. But given their placing at Easterns with a relatively full strength team, has their chance for a title passed? If the Mighty Ducks movies have taught us anything, it is that you should never count out an underdog. But can you really give a team that boasts the likes of Jonno Holmes, Matt Dowle and Warwick Shepherd an "underdog" tag? Fyshwick should safely negotiate their way out of this pool and their tournament will begin on Day 2.

The gun: Jonno Holmes. The man is a freak. Expect to see him marked by the opposition's number one defender.
The workhorse: Max Wheeler. With the tall timber attracting a lot of attention, Wheeler will do a lot of damage on O.
The X-factor: Andrew Jackson. Made everyone stand up and pay attention in the final last year. Can he replicate that performance?

Prediction: 4th

EASTERN GREYS (12)
Base: WUCC Masters Team
Qualified: 5th in East
Last year: -

Usually there is a token team that fulfill the "wily veterans" quota of an ultimate tournament, but rarely do they actually boast themselves to be a masters team. With the WUCC tilt in full swing, the Greys will be looking to take some of the younger teams down a peg or two in what I assume will be some sort of ploy to steal their energy stocks. A telling factor in Greys games will be the weather - expect these guys to thrive in shit conditions, and given the fields' proximity to the beach an afternoon wind is almost a given. And if you'll allow me to consider a stereotype, expect a lot of shouty foul discussions as well.

The gun: Nathan Chan. Southside stalwart back when they existed, and a veteran (lol) of the Greys' last WUCC tilt.
The workhorse: Geoff Doty. Has never claimed he still has it, but he'll still try and do everything.
The X-factor: Piers Truter. Has embraced his masters-ness, but still played AUG last year. Go figure. I really hope a Thunder vs Greys match happens.

Prediction: 10th

Pool F

SUBLIME (6)
Base: Perth, WA
Qualified: 1st in West
Last year: 6th

It has been ten years since a Western Australian team finished higher than 6th at Nationals. The 5th/6th playoff seems to have been a bit of a hoodoo for Sublime, having lost that game four times (2004, 2005, 2007 & 2009). Will 2010 finally be the year they break through to the top 5? How do I put this gently? Erm...no. A home state Nationals last year afforded Sublime the best team they could field. This year they have lost Jason Carr, Paul Denyer, Tom Tulett, Kendall Thorn and Lochie Wise to other teams, plus Tim Delane, Max Daube, George Wong and Hamish Pope aren't coming for reasons unknown. Expect Sublime to slide down a bit, but not by much.

The gun: John Damiani. The "get the disc to JD" offensive structure has worked for quite some time.
The workhorse: Glen Fowles. Another player who had a great 2009, with Beach Worlds and U23s now on his resume.
The X-factor: Andrew Craig. Naans sightings at major tournaments have been few and far between lately. Let's see if the big man can still fly.

Prediction: 9th

I-BEAM (7)
Base: Newcastle, NSW
Qualified: 3rd in East
Last year: 4th

Every year Newcastle seem to stay shy of online trash talk and speculation in the run to Nationals, and yet they always seem to figure among the top few. Very few changes have been made to the team that came 4th last year - most notable is the loss of Gav Moore. I-Beam have always been a team that operate as a collective rather than a bunch of dudes who studied a playbook. Just looking at their warm-ups in Perth in 2009 - mini scrimmages all the time - showed that there is not much left for them to learn about ultimate. They just need to take advantage of any vulnerabilities they find in opposing teams and perform on the day. Despite rolling FU at Easterns, I don't see them being a better team than FU in Adelaide.

The gun: Tim Lavis. Equally adept as a handler and a receiver. Will be filling in gaps everywhere.
The workhorse: Chris Hill. Since 2007 has steadily progressed from a rookie with assloads of raw talent, to an elite ultimate player.
The X-factor: Jon Tatham. If Tats is in form, I-Beam is in form.

Prediction: 7th

ULTIMATE EVOLUTION (10)
Base: Adelaide, SA
Qualified: 4th in South
Last year: -

Thanks to the 5th qualification spot in the South, which they didn't even need, Evolution have broken through the Chilly-HoS-Karma-Chilly glass ceiling to line up for their first Nationals since 2006. However don't expect this team to be full of Nats virgins - most of them have seen action with Karma at some point in their careers. For the last few years Evolution has been viewed as easybeats at Regionals but so far their season has been their best. They notched up a win over Karma at Golden City Classic and nearly took down HoS as well. Evolution prefer a long game, with Denis Shine and David Sanderson aiming for tall receivers Kristian Pash, Morgan Llewellyn and Adam Dowley in the endzone. Expect some D antics from Sean Lace as well.

The gun: Denis Shine. I was tempted to say their "team game" is their best, but this isn't under 10s footy. Shine controls a lot of the offence.
The workhorse: David Sanderson. Will be the primary under cut most of the time, looking to hit receivers early.
The X-factor: Sean Lace. Wildly inconsistent, but if he gets a few D blocks early in a game, he will be a nuisance for opponents.

Prediction: 13th

GENGHIS (11)
Base: South East QLD/Northern NSW
Qualified: 2nd in North
Last year: -

Hmmm, I don't remember seeing this team registered for Northern Regionals. Non-qualifying bitterness aside, the Slamtown/Barbarians hybrid is basically a who's who of Queensland and Byron Bay ultimate who doesn't play for Firestorm. Despite the success of the Brisbane Premier League, Queensland seem to lack the depth at elite level that New South Wales and Victoria boast, so a 2nd North team that isn't Firestorm historically hasn't done well at Nats. In fact we have to go back to 2006 for the last time we saw two North teams in the top 10 (Dojo Mojo and Moreton Bay Buggers). Also having a small squad doesn't help - they're likely to run out of legs by the end of Day 3.

The gun: Andrew Badman. Also has the best surname in ultimate.
The workhorse: Jordan Stone. Otherwise referred to as "Hey let's make the kid do all the running."
The X-factor: Jason de Rooy. Because I know he'll read this.

Prediction: 15th

Pool K (women's) coming up tomorrow...

Where Is He Now?

2010-02-23T18:31:00.002+11:00

As the fat bloke from Staind once said, it's been a while. Couple of reasons for this - the first being that my employer has decided I'm much to valuable to ever not be at work, and the second being a new project in the pipeline that will spell the end of Ballarat Ultimate in it's current form.

So yeah, this could be considered a hiatus from thinly-veiled heckling and idle speculation, but there is something new on the way. Hopefully before Nationals.

Until then, I'll try and find 20 spare minutes to write up the Ballarat Ultimate Awards. After that, stay tuned.

Tickets selling fast

2009-12-30T09:18:00.003+11:00

It was bound to happen as our sport grew, but teams are going to miss out on qualifying for the Australian Ultimate Championships this season. One or two might have missed out in 2008, and no one who could afford the trip missed out in 2009, but in 2010 I feel we're finally going to have teams in both divisions whose season will be over in mid-March.

The AFDA punched the numbers into the trusty old Amiga500 at their headquarters and released their regional allocations for this season during the week.

Open
North - 1
South - 5
East - 4
West - 2
NZ - 1

Women
North - 1
South - 4
East - 4
West - 2
NZ - 2

In addition to these allocations, both divisions will have the national junior teams competing by way of the AFDA allocated spot, plus there are two wildcards up for grabs based on how many players (not teams) take part at Regionals.

So, in my ever so humble opinion, I think the following teams are relatively safe...

Open
North - Firestorm
South - Chilly, Heads of State, Karma, Sweet Chilly
East - Sydney Elite, Fyshwick United, I-Beam
West - Sublime
NZ - Auckland Open?

Women
North - Black Betty
South - Sporting Team BAU, Honey, Bush, Indies
East - Sydney Womens, Sugar Mags, Factory Girls
West - Primal, Kaos
NZ - Raging Wahine

This all depends on a few things. Firstly, that the NZ choose to come. NZ teams are often found at Nationals in years ending with an even digit as part of their Worlds preparation. Auckland Open are attending the BC Invitational this year, so seeing them make a second trip over the Tasman seems unlikely. Nationals is a very happy hunting ground for Raging Wahine so it's really a matter of personal choice as to whether they come across. I don't think a 2nd NZ women's team is likely to come.

Also in consideration is the Perth teams. I think Sublime, Primal and Kaos will make the trip, but the 2nd West spot in Open is up in the air. A second Sublime team is not out of the question, and they will have to beat out Fear and Happy Pig for that spot, remembering that if a Regionals doesn't happen then they lose the second spot.

Now the cleverer folk among you will notice I have not quite filled all the spots in my "definitely should be there" list. And that's because the final spot in some of those regions is up for grabs between a few teams.

Open South - The last few years have seen the regular four teams from the South - Chilly, Sweet Chilly, Karma and Heads of State. However this year there is a 5th spot allocated because of last year's performance by the South teams. Sweet Chilly's last day win over Happy Pig in 2009 gave the South this spot. I think the usual four teams will be safe, but the 5th spot is going to be a pretty fierce battle between Heads of State B, Tassie Tiggers and Evolution. Karma B and a rumoured 3rd Chilly team may have a case but will probably fall short. GFUC will have most of their players taken by the Thunder team. Given the importance of the game now, I hope the organisers of Southern Regionals make the game-to-go the "final".

Women's East - There's all kinds of rumours coming out of this region. The Sydney Womens team listed for WUCC qualification is pretty much Wildcard plus friends so that team is a given. Sugar Magnolias and fACTory Girls should also be there. But the 4th team? If rumours are to be believed, there could be Wildcard, Southside and Manly teams all going for this spot. Plus there's Hills Angels to be considered. This is very much a "wait and see" spot.

Open East - Sydney Elite should be safe. Fyshwick United should be safe. I-Beam should be safe. In fact, these three teams should be in the top few at Nationals, let alone Regionals. But what of the 4th spot? Fakulti, although somewhat depleted, will be on the scene, but will they be one team or two? With most of their top players on the SE list, a X/X split would be very risky and may result in the first Fak-less Nationals since the clubs inception. Umlaut, Hills and some sort of Manly concoction will be snapping at Fakulti's heels for this spot.

What will certainly make things even more interesting are the wildcard spots. With only 1 allocation in each division, North are in prime position to take a wildcard in both divisions if they have more than 50-odd players at Regionals. East are also likely for a spot, given they have around the same number of Open players as the South, but one less allocated spot. The women will also pick up another spot, since they have always had the largest regionals.

So my early predictions say that in Open, North will get a wildcard and Slamtown will make their Nationals debut, and East will get the second with Hills also debuting. In the Women's, East will get one, but who actually goes is another story. I'll go out on a limb and say Hills Angels (a Southside/Manly conglomerate taking the original 4th spot. Hey, it could happen). South may catch a lucky break for the second wildcard, giving Honey Bee another chance.

Coming soon - 2009 Ballarat Ultimate Awards

2009-12-17T13:33:00.002+11:00

So in the next few days I'll be weighing up nominations against non-existent criteria and determining the winners of the Ballarat Ultimate Awards, where the winners get the prestige of being mentioned on this blog. Categories carrying over from last year are...

Game Of The Year (2008 winner - Australia vs Colombia, WUGC Junior Women's Semi Final)
WTF Award (2008 winner - Barefoot at 2008 Nationals)
Tournament Of The Year (2008 winner - Australian Uni Games)
Heckle Of The Year (2008 winner - Frank Simmons)

And this year I'm ripping of some more AFDA Awards and adding to the list...

Catch Of The Year
Breakout Star Of The Year
Party Of The Year
Team Name Of The Year

Now accepting nominations/suggestions via the comments...

2009 Ballarat Ultimate National Draft - Men's Division

2009-11-26T19:08:00.004+11:00

As I watched the AFL National Draft online to see who my beloved Bombers have picked up, I felt it appropriate to complete the men's side of the Ballarat Ultimate National Draft. The big observation to make amongst this is similar to the women's side, the social circles and inevitable recruiting that happens among the Sydney based clubs. Fakulti take up a lot of the uni club products (hence the name I suppose), while Hills attract the locals and league recruits. However this year the World Clubs team with a well-thought out working title of "Sydney" have taken up everyone who is any good, leaving Fakulti, Hills and Umlaut to fend for themselves. We're still likely to see some form of these clubs at Easterns this year, but whether all of them will make Nationals is another thing. So let's get underway with pick #1.

Pick #1 - Umlaut

And straight away I'm stuck. Umlaut at Nationals were mostly old hands at the sport who had the cash for Perth flights taking advantage of the lack of Barefoot/Thong/Feral/whatever and Manly sides who had graced the lineup in recent years. However with the birth of the WUCC-bound Sydney team, Umlaut may struggle to qualify this year, with Hills and a second Fakulti team likely to be their main competition for the 5th East spot. With Fakulti likely to be plundering the ever-growing UTS club for fresh blood, Umlaut need to make moves elsewhere. The Clay brothers can scour the Wollongong district, but I think Umlaut need to take a serious look at UNSW before Fak do. Hence the first "pick" who is the top prospect at UNSW.
Pick #1 - David Lim (UNSW)

Pick #2 - Chilly

So last year there were some questions over why Chilly gets two picks, one high and one low. Here at Ballarat Ultimate we like to encourage elite development, and reward clubs who have two teams at any tournament, let alone Nationals. Like Heads of State, Chilly have been sniffing around the GFUC club for a while in order to attract some young talent, however the Thunder rule of this draft has eliminated most of their prospects. Both Victorian clubs will be eyeing off Pete Nixon to see if they can draw him away from GFUC for a season, to the point where he could probably strike up a deal to play with GFUC at Regionals before going to Adelaide with another club. However there are two other players in the Victorian scene that Chilly should make some serious moves towards. I flipped a coin for this pick, with the other one going at pcik #12.
Pick #2 - Shaun Johnson (Deakin Uni)

Pick #3 - Sublime

And now we have our second club with two picks. Sublime put in a good show on home turf this year, and will be looking to do the same or improve in 2010. A number of Sublime players spent the spring spreading their wings and playing with other teams throughout Australia and Asia, and will come back to pre-season with hunger for success. And given the number of Perth players that tasted Nationals action in 2009, the competition to make the team will be fierce. Realistically, Sublime could send two teams to Adelaide again if the regional allocation formula swings their way. Looking at the crop of UWA players at Gold Coast this year, there were two who stood out and should comfortably adapt to the open game. One player was highly touted by some former UWA players, but Pick #3 stood out at the tournament and even attracted the attention of U23s personnel. He should supplement Sublime's current handler stocks quite well, and his height sees him as a deep threat on O.
Pick #3 - Rob Prast (UWA)

Pick #4 - Fakulti

Long known as a "learning club", Fakulti face the challenge this year of their leaders looking ahead to WUCC and will leave the club in the capable hands of...I dunno. Someone. Once you take away the likes of Pete Gardner, Ken Shepherd, Ant Dowle, Tex Blakeley, Matt Faulker and pretty much anyone else you can think of, the Fakulti looks remarkably like a chick-less SUUFA. So this year we can expect them to take on board a plethora of new talent, and as well as the usual recruiting grounds of SUUFA and Macquarie, UTS is likely to be the source of said talent. Pick #4 is not necessarily the best all-round player, but SUUFA have plenty of throwers but need someone to clean up their swill in the endzone.
Pick #4 - Ashley Symons (UTS)

Pick #5 - Karma

Karma are still struggling to shake the "No Pillar No Karma" tag that has plagued them since day one. They fought their way into the top half of the draw in 2009 but one Joel got injured they struggled to make an impression on the title contenders. So what do they need? First off, they need a plan B in crisis mode. The Joel-To-Sweet-As connection is one of the best in the country, but if that gets shut down when they're under the pump, they're left with a lack of options. Karma definitely have youth in their team, so anyone they'd pick would want to have some experience under their belt. Pick #5 was in contention for Thunder a few years back and recently returned to ultimate at AUG with Flinders, so it makes sense to get him on board.
Pick #5 - Ben Thomas (Flinders)

Pick #6 - Fakulti

Once again, we look to the university scene in Sydney for Fakulti's second pick. It is interesting to note that in previous years, the bulk of junior talent has come out of Sydney, however this year there are pockets of Thunder/Terra potential in Geelong, Brisbane and the Central Coast. Is this a blight on the youth development in Sydney? No. It simply means, just it has in the university scene in the last few years, that everyone else is catching up. As mentioned before, universities have been one of Fakulti's biggest breeding grounds, and Pick #6 comes from one of the most promising clubs of the last two years.
Pick #6 - Martin "Linus" Forrest (UTS)

Pick #7 - Sublime

Sublime's biggest problem is a lack of quality opposition to play against on a regular basis. Most WA players are lucky to see east coast opponents once or twice a year unless they're prepared to shell out for flights. The biggest losers in this are the intermediate players who are stepping up their game. They're the ones who are missing out on regularly testing themselves against quality opponents. Meanwhile in NSW and Victoria there are two (or more) club teams who scrimmage and in Queensland there's the Brisbane Premier League. While there are elite players in Perth there isn't quite enough to be able to sustain as high level play as there is in the east. So these intermediates join up with Sublime as their "next step". Pick #7 is well and truly ready for that.
Pick #7 - Peter Adan

Pick #8 - Firestorm

Firestorm are a funny bunch. Every year on paper it looks like they're finally going to make semis and challenge for the title. And every year they're left languishing around the 5-8 bracket. What is it they're missing? I have no idea. They seem to have all the ingredients in place, but it doesn't quite come together on the day. But enough of that - who is Firestorm going to add to their ingredients list this year? Up in Queensland they breed them tall, thin and fast in the mould of Mike Neild. And why wouldn't you? Who the hell would want to face a line of seven Mike Neilds? Now my lack of knowledge of the Brisbane scene is blatantly going to shine through here, so I may as well admit I looked at UQ's gold medal winning squad and just picked a name. Sorry Tyson Buhagiar and Ryan Garrahy.
Pick #8 - James Jackson

Pick #9 - I-Beam

I-Beam are an even funnier bunch than Firestorm. Their list isn't littered with Dingos and Barramundis the way Fakulti's is, but they are a very good team nonetheless. In 2009 they fell short at the final hurdle and ended up 4th, but there's no telling what will happen this season. Newcastle Uni's team at AUG boasted many I-Beam names, who will no doubt drag Pick #9 along to have a bid for a green and...silver, I suppose, jersey. Height is a valuable currency in ultimate and this guy is one rich motherfucker. He will be a good asset on offence as he settles in to the open game, and will also be a great defender once he adjusts to the whole "floating bit of plastic" thing as opposed to leather and pigskin.
Pick #9 - James Green

Pick #10 - Heads Of State

One look at my Facebook feed after their initial training camp for the season shows that Heads Of State is more than just a club - it's a way of life, or almost a religion. These guys eat, breathe and shit ultimate, and any addition to their team will need to adopt the same attitude if they are to strut it on the main stage in April. HoS are looking to boost their B-team this season and will take on the extra numbers required to have a solid crack at Regionals. Pick #10 will be a great addition to this team, and possibly the A-team in 2011. He played a supporting role in the The Jake Angelovich Endzone Show at AUG, and has the aggression and competitive nature that will see him suited to the HoS religion.
Pick #10 - Sam Cooney (Ballarat Uni)

Pick #11 - Fyshwick United

Ok so I'm doing more than 10 picks this year. Look at this as the first round of the draft where everyone gets a pick. FU went agonisingly close to a national title this year. Well, there were 6 points difference in the final, but they had done everything right up until then - defeating everyone, including Chilly, throughout the season and the tournament. But not quite where it counted. And so the 2010 season presents an interesting dilemma - a lot of Fyshwick players are Kaboom-focussed since they qualified for World Club Championships. Are they going to focus on Worlds prep or Nationals campaign until April and then WUCC for a couple of months? There's no reason they couldn't do both. Either way, they'll be snapping up Pick #11 for the future to ensure no one else gets him.
Pick #11 - Byron Vickers (ANU)

Pick #12 - Chilly

It's a bit anti-climactic having the final pick of the draft for the best team in the country being the club's second pick overall. Anyhow, Chilly are definitely on the hunt to boost their depth in 2010 with the impending but seemingly constantly postponed retirement of some big names - Tom Rogacki, Steve Campbell, Shane Vuletich to name a few. Rumoured plans for Chilly this year include a third team - something they did back in 2006 - for some of the "old boys", which would do well to fuel the rumours of a Chilly team in the Masters' division at WUCC. Either way, Chilly have a second target that was mentioned earlier in the article.
Pick #12 - Jason Gibson (Deakin Uni)

So there you have it. Let's revisit this in 12 months and see how wrong I was. Thoughts and comments to the usual address.

2009 Ballatat Ultimate National Draft - Women's Division

2009-11-14T14:22:00.002+11:00

Realistically, there are a number of social factors to consider when trying to determine which clubs will pick which players, particularly in cities with two clubs. Specifically, the formation of social cliques and their links to various recruiting avenues. The most prevalent example I can think of is in Melbourne, where Sporting Team BAU (I think the name change is offical now) have a virtual monopoly over the junior talent in Victoria, while Honey have the uni clubs under their wing. While it's not entirely unlikely that these teams will pick a player from outside those groups, it's something I have done my best to consider in this draft. That being said, let's get underway with Women's Pick #1

Pick #1 - Honey

The dymanic of women's ultimate in Victoria is a strange one. While there are enough girls playing in the mixed season, very few actively seek passage into a women's club. It is usually a result of active recruiting that players join the clubs. So at the moment I feel there are a number of females around the traps who could step very comfortably into Honey's line-up. Looking at the uni clubs, there are three girls who would take to the women's game like a duck to water. While also considering Honey Bee's need for some handler strength and their second pick, Grace Lethlean (Melbourne Uni) was unlucky to miss out in this little exercise, but could very easily find a place in Honey.

Pick #1 - Jo Goold (Deakin Uni)

Pick #2 - Indies

Unlike the aforementioned two-club cities, Adelaide has just the one women's team so there is a natural progression of sorts from social or uni ultimate to the single gender game. The strong Flinders Uni club is the place to look for the next Indies star, given their history of producing Indies/Karma players in recent years. With a backyard Nationals in 2010, Indies will have a strong squad and can look to simply add depth. I can see Kelly Mackenzie and Emma Victory joining the team as well as this draft pick.

Pick #2 - Lesley Moore (Flinders Uni)

Pick #3 - Sultry

The Brisvegas girls had a disappointing 2009, with many players opting not to go west for the show in April. However 2010 looks more promising already, with the gathering of a team for a WUCC tilt which looks to be in conjunction with Kaos. Whether this affects the Nationals campaign of both teams remains to be seen since they have some very tough competition to qualify outright for WUCC and may instead be relying on a wildcard. UQ has always been a big recruiting base for Sultry, however the development of the QUT and Griffith clubs in recent years are starting to produce some very good players. One in particular was very impressive at AUG and Sultry should be getting their recruitment gary on real soon. Cristina Biasin is also worth considering as well.

Pick #3 - Terri Morgan (Gold Coast)

Pick 4 - Factory Girls

Canberra faced a problem a couple of years ago in regards to their elite development. Because most people there work for the government, the entire city knocks off work at 5pm (no exceptions), leaving themselves plenty of recreation time. The ACTUA folk have translated this into around 400-500 regular league players. However very few players decide they want to have a crack at the rest of the nation. That being said, they do have a great development pathway from youth to elite, with the first few graduates starting to come through now. Pick 4 follows the path of Charlotte Petersen - from the ACT youth team, to AUG, to Factory Girls - and more should be expected to follow that path in the future.

Pick #4 - Annette Zou (ANU)

Pick 5 - Primal

As talked about earlier, Perth are the latest city to enjoy a two-club structure. Being a fan of ultimate-related gossip, I am quite attuned to the rift that exists between Primal and Kaos. However I'm not going to speculate why it goes on or what resolution may be at hand. What I do know is that Primal has a very different approach to recruiting not only from Kaos but from every other club in the country. Thanks to Anna Haynes' little-publicised work, Primal get a lot of money from the government for community development grants to help their recruiting efforts. And by "a lot" I really mean a-fucking-lot. Trouble at my end is that I have no first-hand knowledge of who they're targeting as far as adding to their club roster goes, so rather than pretend to know what I'm on about, Pick 5 gets held over for now.

Pick #5 - Pass

Pick 6 - Kaos

The recruitment avenue for Kaos is largely friends of who is currently playing for them now. Which means if you play for UWA or Murdoch, then Kaos is the club team for you. Unfortunately Murdoch didn't pony up for cross-country flights this year so UWA and their goddamn awful fluro yellow uniforms were the only westerners I got to see play this season. When not having bullshit rules arguments or showcasing the Twig & Peley Throwaway Show, UWA were a great team to watch. There is no doubt that their newer female players came out of AUG much more skilled and will be dragged along to Kaos training by Lou Delane, Danya Meakins and Simone Ryan. However I have to pick one.

Pick #6 - Ciara Fariss (UWA)

Pick 7 - Honey

And now we're back in Victoria. A while ago I attended a womens ultimate planning meeting, mostly for the chicks, but as a representative for regional Victoria. Going back two years you could count the number of girls from outside Melbourne playing women's ultimate on one hand, and they were all for the one team. Honey made inroads out of Melbourne in 2009 by getting Pam Carrigg and Monique Connell on their list, and they should be looking to cast their net further in the way Heads Of State did with great success. Unfortunately the Geelong girls will be tied up with Terra tryouts, so Pick 7 comes from the home of Ballarat Ultimate.

Pick #7 - Sara Talbot (Uni of Ballarat)

Pick 8 - Sugar Mags

So as is the common theme here, Newcastle is a one-team city, so joining the Sugar Mags is the natural progression after playing a uni season with the Power Dragons. There's no reason Wildcard or Southside couldn't have a crack at recruiting from here but when you've played a uni season with four players from the one club, you're kinda going to be biased towards that club. Newcastle Uni took three first year players to AUG and all of them were adequate players on Monday, and solid players by the Friday, so you can expect this pick, plus Jacklynn Taylor and Liz Vaughan to join Ellie, Tegan, Amy and Liz at the first training for the season, whenever that happens to be.

Pick #8 - Courtney Thompson (Newcastle Uni)

Pick 9 - Sporting Team BAU

The 'Box are an interesting lot, with probably the most in-jokes out of any team that has ever existed. Though I could be wrong, they don't seem to have any kind of open slather try out and it seems that to be you get invited to learn how to play Box-Lid-Goose. But now that we're at the top end of women's teams, we need to consider what they are looking for. Unless Miranda Roth or someone of similar ilk were to decide to move to Melbourne, STBAU are only going to be recruiting for depth. Having gone oh-so-close to the title twice now, in 2010 they will be - if you'll excuse the turn of phrase - out of justice. Whether they actually do recruit anyone is up in the air from a journalistic point of view, but Pick 9 is someone that will come heavily recommended by current STBAU players.

Pick #9 - Erin Adamcewicz (Uni of Ballarat)

Pick 10 - Wildcard

With a couple of National titles now under their belt, and a depth of talent that everyone should be jealous of, Wildcard are in the enviable position of players coming to them, rather than them going out to get recruits. My Sydney-based spy reckons that Cat Noble is set to pledge allegance to the red shirt this year, however I have deliberately left out Terra contenders from this article, so we need to look elsewhere. Rather than picking someone for instant gain or to fill a void, Wildcard ought to look for intermediate players who they can mould into an elite player over time. Which makes Pick 10 quite easy - go with the winner of the peer-voted Martin Laird Award.

Pick #10 - Kaija Salier (UTS)

So there's your first round draft picks for this season. As per usual thoughts, comments and the inevitable disagreements can be posted below.

Off Season

2009-11-09T14:48:00.002+11:00

Things have been pretty quiet around here at Ballarat Ultimate since the return from the Gold Coast. Given that I'm 5 weeks deep into a self-imposed two month off-season, I'm finding it quite difficult to write about something I'm not actually doing. However it has got me thinking - ultimate needs an off-season.

The physical benefits off my off season have been incredible. My left knee actually looks healthy and not all swollen and bruised. My back hasn't been in better shape for two years and I'm not spending every Monday lathering on the aloe vera. The exception is the glorious "leg warmer" tan lines that I've now accepted are a permanent addition to the landscape despite my best efforts to get some colour on the rest of my legs. But it's not so much the physical benefits as the motivation to get out there on the field, and also to lay some administrative smackdown. Which brings me to the key reason for the need for an off-season.

To give our administrators a break.

Although I'm sure northern states will see this differently, us Victorians still pretend ultimate is a year-round sport, and organise tournaments and leagues accordingly. Anyone who has filled some sort of volunteer role will gladly talk your ear off about "burnout" if you ask nicely. They might not want to admit it but every volunteer has at some point, ever so briefly, just wanted to pack it all in and take some time off. But they don't. Some volunteers work through it, and some just, sort of...fade out. A nation-wide off-season would be perfect to give these folk a well deserved rest in order to keep their enthusiasm and motivation for their roles up around a healthy level.

So there's my idea. And of course my ideas don't go without a proposed solution.

A while ago there was a proposal to shift Nationals to October to leave the summer free for newbie hunting and development. While considered by many to be a not-too-bad idea, it was considered too dramatic a change. Besides, we want to keep our premier season of ultimate in the summer months. So my suggestion is to shift Nationals forward to January, and the "mixed" season to February to May. Keeping "uni" season where it is because of AUG, and we create a two month window in June and July for our off-season. So this would leave the calendar something like this...

June - off season
July - off season, regional UGs
August - Uni IVs
September - AUG, club pre-season begins
October - club tournaments
November - club tournaments
December - club Regionals
January - club Nationals
February - mixed tournaments
March - mixed tournaments
April - mixed state championships
May - Mixed Nationals

Stick Nationals on the Australia Day weekend to minimise time-off-work disruption. Doesn't matter too much with Mixed Nats since that's never on a public holiday anyway. We're not competing with rugby or soccer for fields for Nationals. Worlds tournaments happen in the off-season. Early uni development ties in with mixed season. Off-season is in the height of shitty weather season so no one wants to play that much anyway.

It all seems so easy. Anyone care to support or shoot down this idea?

2009 Ballarat Ultimate National Draft

2009-10-15T23:02:00.002+11:00

So earlier this year, I knocked up a frisbee draft in about eight minutes loosely based on the AFL draft. This year I'm putting a bit more thought into it.

For those who weren't paying attention to the last one, the picks are based on the order of where teams finished at Nationals, with the lowest team getting pick #1, second last getting #2, and so on and so forth. I'm only including teams that aren't pick-upy or likely to be at Nationals in 2010. Now in the actual AFL draft, teams can pick players from wherever the hell they want, but for the purposes of realism (lol) I'm restricting teams to players from their own state.

This year there's something else that I'll be taking into consideration - since the Thunder and Terra teams will be competing at Nats in their own right, the candidates for those teams won't be in this draft.

Rather than waste blog material in just one post, I'll start out with the draft order and open it up to some speculation...who is the next big thing you've seen around the traps?

Women
1. Honey
2. Indies
3. Sultry
4. Factory Girls
5. Primal
6. Kaos
7. Honey
8. Sugar Mags
9. Team Box
10. Wildcard

Open
1. Umlaut
2. Chilly
3. Sublime
4. Fakulti
5. Karma
6. Fakulti
7. Sublime
8. Firestorm
9. I-Beam
10. Heads of State
11. Fyshwick United
12. Chilly

Post-AUG Ruminations

2009-10-14T16:06:00.003+11:00

OK, so now that AUG has been run and won and things have had time to settle down. Rather than provide a journalistic-type review, I thought I'd lay some rambling thoughts down on the keyboard. That, and my memory isn't really crash hot and I don't really remember many details of games.

Two Divisions

Aside from the glaringly obvious need for AU/USA and NZ to be in Divison 1, I felt the two divisions worked well and did exactly what I believed it would do - provide more competitive games for all teams across the entire week. It may have simply been our approach to each game, but BUUF didn't have a single easy game all week, and I'm sure that was the case for most teams. If the number of teams competing at AUG stays above the 20 mark, I feel that the two division structure should stay, but smaller registration numbers than that should be placed in one division. The challenge we have now is how to decide who goes in what division - do we adopt some sort of formal process or the old "look at the rosters and guess" method?

The two divisions is also a long term decision. This year there was a 12 team Div1 and 11 team Div2. Next time we're back in Surfers I want to see a 16 team Div1 and 20 team Div2! Impossible? Not really, given that since 2005 there have been 32 different universities competing at AUG. Plus the 5 other unis that have been to a regional Uni Games in that time. Plus the 2 that have sports unions that want to get an ultimate team together. Even further down the track, we want to see Open, Womens and Mixed divisions at AUG. Imagine that.

Quality Versus Quantity

Already I've heard some feedback from players - "we wanted to play more games!" But I also observed something on the final day that I haven't seen in previous years - a near-absence of injured players. Sure, there were some doozies of injuries, like there are at pretty much every ultimate tournament ever, but being able to go home with all limbs in tact is an aim that every player has. It also meant that all the games on Friday were high standard games of ultimate, not just fourteen people with limps throwing a frisbee around.

Making the newbies feel welcome

At AUG there were a few teams full of ultimate virgins who thought a week of frisbee sounded like a top idea. However I did overhear comments from other Div 2 players (with some experience with tournaments) about how these teams were "wasting our time." These comments annoyed me somewhat because no matter what, we are always going to attract these sort of teams because ultimate still has a 'novelty' aspect to new players.

That being said, most people made efforts to meet the new teams and make them feel part of the incestual lovefest that is the ultimate community. There were people offering advice, shitloads of gary, and even Robsquad got together for the ACPE vs UNE game to dish out some modified encouragement. If these efforts can translate into just one of these teams forming a club and attending other tournaments, it is well worth having these teams at AUG. If you need further convincing, just talk to anyone who saw the Wollongong vs QUT game on Wednesday arvo (Tiger, Tanty and anyone else from Macquarie, I'm looking at you).

Support staff and off field management

Outside the national teams and maybe a couple of club teams, there are very few non-playing personnel with teams. This year, BUUF had three non-playing "staff" - a trainer, a team manager and a "secretary" (stats and other odd jobs). With these three on the sidelines, plus everyone else fulfilling their assigned duties, we were by far the best prepared team there. We had our own shade tent, water barrel, sunscreen, first aid kit and food available at all times, and it ensured the players could always remain focussed on the game at hand.

However the non-players role wasn't exactly our invention and wasn't exclusive to us. Only 2 out of the 12 didn't have a non-player in a formal role on the sidelines, whether they were a coach or a team manager. Two years ago, this number was a lot smaller but it was speculated that that would change, and will continue to do so.

The challenge ahead

This year there was even more of a reliance on Nationals players to drive the teams than there was last year. This is troubling because next year uni ultimate faces one of it's toughest challenges - growth of the competition in the face of the three mid-year Worlds tournaments (Clubs, U23 and Juniors) and AUG in Perth. However if uni teams put pencil to paper and start planning the 12 months ahead, there's no reason (outside cost of flights) they can't get a team together and have a run at a medal in what is likely to be a weaker and therefore winnable competition.

2009 AUG Preview - Part 4

2009-09-24T12:23:00.001+10:00

It has been a wonderful journey, but like all good trilogies with an shitty additional fourth chapter “reboot”, you kind of wish it had come to an end earlier. After feigning knowledge about anything north of the Murray, you’d figure a look at the South teams would be a bit more accurate given that I’ve, like, seen the teams play. That is what I would like you to think anyway.

Way back in the early days of Southern Uni Games, Melbourne Uni (aka Moho) were the leaders. A SUG without them being in the final was unfathomable. Fast forward to SUG 2009, where they were playing off for bronze. Here it has definitely been a case of everyone else catching up, because honestly, Melbourne are not a bad team. With a name change (MUtation) and new attitude…actually scrap that last bit, I’m just in a mood for cliché. A notable exclusion is Tarrant Meehan, who probably discovered that being drunk is awesome. Chris “Warpaint” Freise and Michelle Phillips are the stars of this team, ably assisted by Jude Mitchell and Ben Phillips. Injury scares to Chilly B stars Tim Horden and Ben Robotham in the last couple of weeks might have an impact on the team’s depth, but otherwise they should poll well during the week. Probably not a medal contender on paper, but then again they weren’t last year, either.

Cross-town rivals Monash are on a path to avenge their shitty Thursday/Friday performance in 2008. Many of last year’s team are back on board, including HoS trio Andy Moroney, Seb Barr and Cletus Johnson – who is recovering from a bullshit rumour and should be fully fit come Monday. The disc skills on this squad are exceptional, with Ash Thornton, Chris Folkes and Josh Cukierman throwing the disc to the likes of Mich Rogers, Lucy Ross and Sam Ludowyk. The wildcard on this team is Steve “Toey” Thomas. He played a part in Chilly’s 4th national title this year, and with a deadly combination of speed and height, there will be very few opponents who can match him going deep. Only concern is a niggling shoulder injury that has kept him out of action for the last couple of months. Monash also have someone else that factored in Chilly’s national titles – Steve Campbell. It will be his first stint as a non-playing coach, so it will be interesting to see what difference he can make. Expect to see Monash at the medal presentations, and not just heckling either. They have also adopted a club first - uniforms that don't look goddamn awful.

Defending champions Flinders Fury seem to be a bit of an unknown right now. Sure, they have Joel Pillar. And Brett Middleton in place of Alec Deslandes. And Sarah Pillar in place of Erin Wallis. And if we were going to run the old Mr. Ultimate pageant again Scott Middleton would probably win. But can they repeat last year’s gold medal? I feel they are going to have a heavy reliance on their boys to move the disc. Last year Ali Clarke and Erin Wallis did a lot of it, whereas this year Sarah Pillar is likely to be backed up by Sam Odgen and possibly even Chris Osborn. Doesn’t matter either way – most shots at goal are going to be “Joel To Sweet As”. And given that will work a lot of the time, why wouldn't you do it? Anything less than semis would probably be unacceptable to Joel, but now that Fury have already done it once, are they going to be that hungry for it again?

And now for the last time to be previewed - BUUF. I could be sneaky and not reveal anything, or I could talk a whole lot of hyperbole bullshit. But I'm going to try and take an objective look at things. And honestly, I think we should get to the pre-semis at least. It has been mentioned elsewhere that we lack the depth needed to win gold, and in part I agree. We definitely have a "strong 9" and a "weak 9" (when comparing both groups to each other, not to other teams), but how well it all fits together on the day will be interesting. The leadership of Dan Rule is going to be a massive influence, especially for maintaining mental strength and focus that was sorely missing in 2008. This year the team has shifted from a structured offense and defense to an aggressive, organic style of play that should catch a lot of teams by surprise.

Stay tuned for Part 5 - the "Special Features" disc, with players to watch, key matches and predictions.

2009 AUG Preview - Part 3

2009-09-24T10:18:00.001+10:00

Once the almighty powerhouse of Australian ultimate, the East region has either fallen by the wayside in recent years, or (the more popular theory) the rest of the country has caught up and pretty much overtaken them. Part 3 of our look at this year’s AUG focuses on the four teams coming out of the Sydney and Newcastle area.

First off, the UTSexperience. As has almost become tradition, the talk coming out of the Harbour City is that UTS are the big improvers of the season and look to be ruffling some feathers at the big dance. However…I just don’t see it happening. Yes, they have added Rach Grindlay to their roster. Yes, they have plenty of tall receiving power in Henry Thomas (will probably handle, though), Hugh McCormack, Evan Sieff and probably even throw Linus Forrest in there. Yes, they have plenty of AUG experience across their squad, most of whom are having their second or third crack at it. Yes, they still wear teal. But I still remain uninspired.

Further…up the road, I suppose…we have the fallen giant in Macquarie, who are two years deep into the post-Dowle era. Their squad has plenty of talent across the board, but outside Megan Gamble there doesn’t seem to be a true superstar who will win them games. Sure, the likes of Tiger Webb, Nathan Wong, Yoann Greau and Rory Connell are very talented players, but I really think this club misses having a Dowle to count upon in crunch times. It will be interesting to see if Gamble adopts a “give the disc to me and I’ll sort it out” approach, given that she will take all but a handful of opponents to town. I think pre-semis might be the limit for these guys in 2009.

And now to everyone’s favourite silver medalists – Sydney. After rumours of sweeping changes being made at the club following last year’s disappointment, SUUFA have spent 12 months preparing, recruiting, training, getting psychological evaluations, sprinting, throwing, designing new uniforms and selecting what looks to be…well, pretty much the same team as last year. Notable exclusion again is Calan Spielman, this time through disease rather than policy. Subbing out the female handling power of Tara Carraro and Izzy MacAuley for the speed of Fi McDonald and Loren Viswalingam means they will probably shift to a more aggressive offence, but that means they’re relying on Brett Latham to not throw it away. Hmm. Better leave it to Mike Tarn and Sarah Crossie

Finally, the resurgence of Newcastle from no-show in 2007 to powerhouse in 2009 is almost complete. Led by the younger of Those Bloody Lavis Boys, the Novacastrians (seriously, look it up) will be playing most of their males upfield, with Liz Dodd and Ellie Sparke moving the disc. 2008 could almost have been seen as a training run for this year, as the squad is quite similar and the on-field cohesion should be a lot stronger. If EUG is any indication like it once was a while back, then Newcastle should be considered favourites for the event alongside UQ.

2009 AUG Preview - Part 2

2009-09-20T23:33:00.001+10:00

Two posts in one day? What the hell?

So now we take a look at Division 1. 12 teams in two terribly seeded pools who will battle it out for glory. This is simply too big to keep contained within one single post. Plus I get more hits if you come back every day. And it also makes it seem more substantial than Mozza and Tiger's previews. Internet journalism at it's finest, ladies and gentlemen. On with it...

Part 2 - The States That Don't Matter

Looking westward, we only have the one team coming from two hours behind. UWA are out to defend their 6th place finish from last year. Kendall "Twig" Thorn will be playing the part of Captain Corageous in the absence of James Eley who has finally opted to get a knee reco on what is left of his ACL. Speaking of substitutes, Peter Eley will be fulfilling the "looking like a girl" quota of Glen Fowles. And speaking of girls, UWA's strength this year lies in their females, who this year discovered the joys of women's ultimate and actually having the disc thrown to them. I feel that UWA will wind in their long game and play a more run-and-gun offence, with Twig playing back rather than deep.

Moving north now, we come to locals Griffith Uni. After two years languishing around the bottom of the table, 2009 has seen the sport establish a strong foothold in the Gold Coast and the squad should have a lot more depth than before. Joining stalwarts Mike and Terri Morgan this year are Tatiana Maya and Tom "Cupcake" Tulett who will give them the handling experience they missed sorely last year when Stefan Rappazzo went back to the Land Of The Moose. Whether they have a structured set-up, or just let Cupcake run loose and keep out of his way, will remain to be seen.

And now to look at the team that science has proved cannot survive in temperatures below 22 degrees Celsius - UQ Lovers. Like 2007, they enter the tournament as an early favourite led by John McNaughton. It will be fairly predictable of them to, in crunch times, get the disc to John or Al Don who will jack it at Will Churchill or Julian Sacre. However Megan Barnes and Blair Sheard will provide good reason for them to stop looking off their girls. Provided everyone stays fit they should be playing off for some bling on Friday.

And by now you should know the other state that doesn't matter. ANU have already improved on last year's finish simply by being in division one, but the question is can they go any further. The three players to watch on this team are Mica Hartley, Andrew Sutton and Andrew "AJ" Jackson. Hartley and Sutton are playing the roles of the grizzly old veterans and will direct midfield and handlers respectively. But AJ is likely to attract a lot of attention following his standout performance in the final of Nationals. His defence ability has been proven, but can his O stand up to increased pressure? Unfortunately I don't see ANU making an impact beyond the initial pools.

Tune in tomorrow for a look at the East and the South.

2009 AUG Preview - Part 1

2009-09-20T22:18:00.001+10:00

So we're a week out from the pinnacle of the uni ultimate season - Australian University Games. This year, the 12th time it's happened, is the biggest turnout ever, with 23 teams vying for the title. Well, actually it's 12 teams vying for one and 11 for another. In just a few days, the trash talk and training will no longer matter. So how does everyone look?

As per usual, I'm not going to blow my load in one post. Instead this will be a Indiana-Jones-style four episode epic. Hopefully without the fourth part being shitty.

Part 1 - A Look At Division 2

Each year we get the "random" teams. The ones who we're not sure who they are or where they come from. This year we have Australian Catholic Uni, Australian College of Phys Ed, and Uni of New England. Teams like this are usually written off pretty early, but are capable of causing upsets. It ought to be an interesting fight between these teams on Days 2 and 3.

Further up the chain sit newcomers Victoria Uni, UWS and Wollongong. While mostly composed of new players, each will have some experience under their belt. UWS has Ben Mortimer at the helm, who lined up alongside Tim Gee in 2007. Wollongong have components of last year's infamous savage team, so they will know what to expect this time around. Vic Uni are the better looking of these kids, with Tiff Mann (ex-Monash, Honey) and Chris Khoo being the key players. If they put together a good zone on D they should be able to roll most of their opponents.

The next notch up is the bronze medal fight between QUT, Uni of NSW and Charles Sturt Uni. QUT are a bit far removed from the glory days of Mike Neild, Beth Rougier and some kids called Wetnose and Jangles, but they have a enthusiastic and energetic team that learned a lot at the 2008 event. With the addition of Firestorm's Reece Stewart, they should factor in the top few.

In a similar boat are Uni of New South Wales. After 2007's bronze medal, they failed to have numbers in 2008 and are bringing a relatively fresh team. The two to watch out for are Bec Jiang and Evan Darmanin. What they lack for in height they make up for in pace and disc skills. Despite being a "new" team, they have played together a lot this year and should be a cohesive unit.

CSU were the surprise story at EUG, taking out the bronze medal. There is no doubt that Mark Evans played a huge part in their surge, but whether him and Michael Craigie can carry a half Bathurst, half Wagga Wagga team to another medal is a new challenge. What will work against them is the boys' tendancy to get a bit hot-headed when under pressure. They will miss the level-headed presence of Annaleigh Moore in those moments. I feel they might just miss out on a medal.

And that leaves who I think will be the finalists - Vic Uni Wellington and Adelaide Uni/Uni of SA. I don't think they will necessarily have an easy run there, but they collectively have a lot more experience. The bastard child of AU and USA has brought back Alex B-J, Tom Roden, Kaz Palmer and Sam Caon from last year's bronze medal team, and pick up ex-AU and now-USA Will Christopherson who will play a central role alongside BJ.

Vic Uni Wellington will be better known to all as the NZ team. Or the Kiwis. Or the All-Blacks, or sheep-shaggers or any other cliched name. The similarities in this year's team and 2007's is remarkable in that there aren't any. Only one player from the 8th-placed 2007 team is returning. The player to look out for here is Michael Connolly, who represented New Zealand at some tournament in Canada last year.

So now I suppose the thing to do would be to predict the finishing order.

1. Vic Uni Wellington
2. Adelaide/UniSA
3. Uni of NSW
4. QUT
5. Charles Sturt Uni
6. Victoria Uni
7. Uni of Western Sydney
8. Wollongong
9. Uni of New England
10. ACPE
11. ACU

Regional Rivalries

2009-09-17T13:49:00.002+10:00

So over on the Gold Coast Ultimate blog I read about the recently established Gold Coast versus Byron Bay rivalry. Looks like we can add them to the list of the existing regional rivalries (all two of them)

NSW Central West
Dubbo, Bathurst and Katoomba play a three-way tournament every year for the glorious "Western Eagle" trophy. This has been going for a few years now, with Dubbo (I think) being the current holders.

Western Victoria
BUUF and GFUC's rivalry is also starting to hit it's stride, with the record currently standing at 2-1 in Geelong's favour. They smashed BUUF in a practice match in Ballarat a few months ago, and the record was 1-1 at the recent Victorian Championships in Melbourne.

There's still plenty of scope for other rivalries to open up...
- Gippsland took on a Western Victoria team at the VFDA Showcase game last year. Hopefully this can become a regular game.
- Have Newcastle and Wollongong had a history?
- Keith and Murray Bridge had a close, intense game at the Keith Callipo Classic.
- The establishment of a team at CSU Wagga Wagga may lead to a bigger "Western Eagle" comp, or even a CSU Cup?

For those wondering, the AUG preview is coming very soon...

Some thoughts not substantial enough for their own post

2009-08-31T12:49:00.000+10:00

Hitting the gym
After a groin injury at SUG that I, in retrospect, was stupid enough to play through kept me out of action for a month, I've been smashing out some gym sessions in the last week and a bit to try and get my body working properly. Now while KFC may work for Matt Dowle, it has become rather apparent it hasn't worked for me in the past and isn't likely to in the future. The biggest barrier between me and gym work has been motivation, but after slugging out the first week I noticed some improvements this morning. I can push out 80kg on the leg weights, bowl over 10km on the bike in 20min without killing myself and did a sub-4min 1km on the rowing machine - something I haven't done since I was in school. I'm feeling good in that I'm rarely out of breath and can recover quickly, but the muscles themselves are rather fatigued at the end of the day.

Motivation
Going back to the motivation, I've found that training and preparation for this year's AUG is more "fun" than "chore" as it has been in previous years. This definitely is a product of the buzz around our team. While our "Out For Justice" motto gets mocked a bit, it really has generated the most excitement BUUF has seen in ever. It's not just at training and in games - things like emails, texts, Facebook chats, IMs at work, chats at uni - everything generates more excitement. And this generates motivation to train harder and get everything right for Gold Coast.

Playing with 6 players
No team in the recent history of ultimate ever trains for situations where they only have 6 players. We were unfortunate enough on the weekend at the Victorian Mixed Championships to be stuck with 6 on the field for Saturday (4:2) because we were pretty lazy in organising the team. This forced us to experiment a lot. And because you never prepare for this, your abilty to adapt and your familiarity with your teammates is incredibly important. Early on, our offence had little structure outside string plays, and our defence was the same, varying between man, zone and poaching from pass to pass. It worked a lot, because by the same token a lot of teams don't prepare to play AGAINST 6 players. MUCUS were the only team that really used their advantage effectively, with their spare girl poaching the lane on D, and one girl going long and one cutting under on O, leaving the third girl on her own in the middle of the field. We came out of Saturday with a 2-2 record.

So why are we having two divisions at AUG this year?

2009-08-31T11:49:00.001+10:00

Well, a couple of reasons really. Firstly, I'll tell you about the reason there are divisions at AUG.

Back in 2006, Australian University Sport had one of their lowest attendances at Australian University Games ever. Ultimate was the largest sport, with 17 teams competing. Many blamed this on the introduction of Voluntary Student Unionism by the Howard government, leading to many campus organisation slashing their sports budgets, increasing the cost for students to attend the event. So AUS decided if their event was to survive, they needed to make some drastic changes. They relaxed the eligibility criteria, removed the qualification element and move the event to the Gold Coast. And boy did that work. Attendance went from 2,000 and something in Adelaide to over 4,500. However AUS wanted to ensure the integrity of AUG and keep the standard of sport high, without alientating the "party teams" that exist in every sport. So they created divisions to seperate the elite teams from the party teams.

That didn't sit well with us ultimate folk, who love to play heaps of games against everyone, and also play hard and party harder. 20 teams were registered for the 2007 event and AUS propsed an 8 team Division 1 and 12 team Division 2, with 2006 results determining who goes where. Interesting to note that going this way would have seen eventual bronze medallists UNSW and 4th place Monash not included in Division 1. So we protested the change, and at the 11th hour we were granted our wish and had a 20 team single division. 2008 saw 19 teams, and again we resisted the change. 2009 saw 23 teams enter, and the resistance was going to be much harder to justify.

Before I go on, I'd like to explain a term I've coined for some teams. I refer to them as WTFAT teams - "Who The Fuck Are They?" Every year there seems to be a token team appearing out of nowhere full of ultimate virgins who see the sport on the AUG registration list and think, "Hey that looks like fun!" 2004 it was BUUF and CSU. 2005 was ACU Brisbane. 2007 was UWS and 2008 was Edith Cowan University and Wollongong. This year however there are 3, with another 3 teams on the radar who weren't expected to go. Hence the 23 teams as opposed to the 17 I was expecting. Back to the main story.

In 2008 the draw and seedings were done in a rather ad-hoc manner. I asked some interstate folk what they thought of the on-paper lineups and did the seedings accordingly. Apart from 8th seed Flinders kicking #1 seed Macquarie in the teeth in the pool round and inheriting their easy run to the final, they worked out okay. But I wanted there to be a policy in place rather than making it up every year. Nationals had a seeding policy, and so did Mixed Nats, so it made sense that AUG did. I couldn't simply adapt an AFDA policy because there was no qualification element, and didn't account for graduations and international students drastically changing teams.

Then it dawned on me much, much later than it should have - AUS have these policies already, so why not just use them?

There was never going to be an easy way to slowly integrate the change, so a "put the foot down" approach had to do. I wish that I could have made that decision months ago, but the 23 team list forced my hand. It's going to mean that UQ will be drastically underseeded this year, but look what happened last year when we did the seedings ourselves. After a fair bit of consideration, I took the Bill O'Reilly approach.

But there was a small other change we would need to make - a divisional split.

We were the only sport to date that hadn't made the change. And personally I thought it was overdue, since last year there was a massive disparity between the top 9 and bottom 10. So I went to AUS and agreed to have the split this year. Once again, I wish I had been able to do it much earlier, but again the 23 team list made that decision for me.

And then the negotiations began. They wanted 8 teams in Division 1 and 15 in Division 2 (as per policy of course). I retorted with 16 teams in Div 1 and 7 in Div 2. I basically got laughed at, because their policy states 10 teams is their max, with considerations given to sports with more than 30 teams registered. Hmm. I countered with their line in the policy stating they want to "maintain the integrity of the [Division 1] competition" and a Nationals-style draw was the way to go.

Then I was asked a very interesting question - "How many teams coming do you think are serious medal contenders?"

I looked through the AFDA registration page and squads, and also went on personal knowledge. I came back with a number that I'm not going to reveal, but it was less than 16. AUS then agreed to a 10 team competition, with any other potential Division 1 entrants to be judged on their merits on a case-by-case basis, as per policy of course. Going by this, I successfully applied on behalf of two teams to have them added to Division 1. So we're left with a 12 team Division 1 and an 11 team Division 2.

There are a lot of reasons I wanted to go with two divisions, but the absolute, numero uno, key reason is retention.

I've long believed that this sport has a massive problem with retention of new players. Just have a look at the AFDA rego system - we're up to 15,000 registered players, but as I write this only 4,108 are active (have played an AFDA-affliated tournament or league in the last 12 months). Granted there are international players, plus probably a few joke regos and probably some spammers, but that's still a pretty glaring statistic, given we don't have the juniors-to-seniors drop off that most other sports have. University clubs have always been a great breeding ground for rookies, but also for new clubs.

And that takes me back to the WTFAT teams. Look at things from their perspective - a group of nine or ten mates come to AUG to play this sport they did in PE once. Other than that, they have absolutely no prior knowledge of what goes on. They then find out they have 11 80-minute long games, giving them little to no free time to go to the beach or hang out with their uni mates. They spend four days getting taken to school and might pick up a lucky win in the playoffs. While the week is fun, they are completely burned out by the end of it and might not want to return.

These are the teams Division 2 is designed for - they might get a 15-0 spanking on Monday or Tuesday, but by mid-week they're playing against their own standard, where the competition is much less intense than it is up around the medal bracket. They will be playing 2 games a day (maybe 3 games on one day with a break in between) which gives them time to do other stuff on the Gold Coast. And I fully believe they will have a hell of a lot of fun. And their desire to come back next year is greater.

This is where it's my job to pounce. Get their contact details and encourage them to go to some hat tournaments over the summer, and some tournaments in April-May. Recruit some more folk and hit up AUG in 2010. Again, they're in Division 2 but they have a bit of experience and know what to expect. They fall just short of a medal. So they start to get more involved and learn some more skills and tactics to have a run at a Div 2 medal in 2011. And there you have a new club established.

Most of the current crop of AUG attendees are thinking of their current campaign and how it affects them. And I don't doubt for a minute that they wouldn't. However it is my role to think long-term and I think a divisional split (when we have large numbers of teams) is the best way forward for us.

Unfortunately there are two teams who have missed out on Division 1 for other reasons when in terms of competition quality they really should be there. While one of those teams gets very little sympathy from me, I feel really bad for the other one. I've exchanged some words with their captain, and while they're not pleased, they understand what's happened. I still think there will be some good competition for the Division 2 medals among the top 5 or 6 teams.

So hopefully that's given a bit of insight as to what has gone on over the last 10 days or so. If you have any questions about any of this, leave a comment or shoot me an email.

Games to kill time at tournaments

2009-08-14T14:57:00.003+10:00

Generally speaking, I don't enjoy "spirit games". Usually I like sharing a bit of love in the circle, congratulating the other team and seeing how many cliches I can bust out in 30 seconds (PB is 26). But I love playing other frisbee games during lunch breaks, half times and bye rounds. Most are quite silly and pointless, but that's the whole idea. You've probably seen or heard of most of them, but some you might not have and want to try.

Half time challenges
(Games to play during time-outs and half times of games to entertain the crowd)

Zen Ultimate
One person is blindfolded and one stands about 10 metres away and throws to the blindfolded person. You can either get a third person to be a 'guide' but it is far more entertaining to have the crowd be the guide.

William Tell
One person stands still with a bottle on their head, and another stands about 20 metres away and attempts to knock the bottle off. A less ballsy version is to sit the bottle on your hand out in front of you. A more ballsy version is to stand with your back to the thrower.

Spin Catch
Two player game. First player throws a self-caught throw, spinning around once while the disc is up. Second player then does it. First player then goes again, this time spinning twice. Second player replies. Continue adding more spins until someone fails. My PB on this one is five spins.

World's Worst Ultimate Player
Two players throw the disc to each other, emulating what they believe would be the World's Worst Ultimate Player. Actions such as blatant rule breaking, gratuitous layouts and no-spin throws are highly encouraged in an attempt to out-do the other player.

Poor Man's Freestyle
While freestyle disc has some pretty sweet tricks and throws, Poor Man's Freestyle has some incredibly lame tricks and throws. Be creative.

Multi-Disc Bonus
Two players stand about five metres apart and throw one disc back and forth once. Then they throw two discs at once. Then three. And so on. PB is fourteen discs.

Two player games
(Or more players. Can kill either two minutes or two hours, depending on commitment level)

Take It On The Chest (credit to Tim Gee)
One player sends up a high self-caught throw. Rather than catch the disc, players get themselves into a spot where the disc hits them on the chest. Requires balls of steel as only a tiny margin of error is allowed before you take it in the face or below the belt.

Horse
Pretty much the same as the basketball variety, but no scoring involved. Basically pick a target or an objective (eg: throw goes out past the goalpost then back) and the first one to nail it gets bragging rights.

Balls
Two players sit on the ground about ten metres apart, with their legs apart. You then attempt to roll the disc at the other person. First to flinch or stop the disc with their legs or hands loses. Common sense applies - no blades (discs musn't be in the air over halfway).

Hat Wrestling (full credit to the SA folk)
A hat is placed on the ground. Two players then try and force the other person touch it.

Ass Mack
Similar to a Mack Line, but instead the middle people try to mack it with their back/butt.

Multi Player Games
(I'm not going to explain the usuals - stubby guts, schtick, etc)

FACED!
Stand in a tight circle. Hands go on hips. One player throws up a floaty pass into the middle. Players then take one hand off their hip to catch it. If you take your hand off your hip and someone else catches the disc, you are out. If only one player takes their hand off, or the disc hits the ground, no one is out. No 'trapping' (catching the disc against your body). The name of the game comes from the 'punishment' for never attempting a catch (disc gets lobbed at their face, forcing them to attempt a catch).

Circle Guts
This game is especially vicious and vindictive. Everyone stands in a large circle, with two in the middle. Two discs are in the game and the outside people throw the disc at the inside to hit them. If someone in the middle catches the disc with one hand, the thrower is then in the middle. You can be as vicious as you want, but remember that payback is a bitch.

Fantasy Fantasy
Everyone knows about Fantasy, but Fantasy Fantasy involves picking a heckler and getting +1 if they make a funny call, and -1 if they make a shit call. Extra points and bonuses can be fought for.

Anyone play any other games?

Keith goes to Ballarat

2009-08-01T10:44:00.002+10:00

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.

World Games...um, the other days

2009-08-01T10:19:00.002+10:00

So yeah, turns out I canned my World Games coverage once everyone figured out I was getting my info from Piers Truter's Twitter feed and just went there themselves. So instead, I'll supply you all with some handy links to other people's writings...

Scobel Wiggins Photography - great action shots from all games.

UPA coverage - on-the-spot reports, plus video clips.

Some short Youtube videos I found (here and here) posted by a spectator. Doesn't show much action but gives you a pretty good idea of the atmosphere.

A few Canadians discuss their team's lower-than-expected performance.

A news report from a Taiwanese news agency. See if you can spot the bit where I started laughing like an immature knob.

And finally, Rueben's highlight video of the Crocs in action, complete with hard rock soundtrack.

2009 World Games - Day 1

2009-07-20T06:08:00.004+10:00

For those of you in the ultimate community who don't ever check their emails (and subsequently, probably not this blog), the 2009 World Games are currently going down in Kaohsiung in Chinese Taipei. The Australia Crocs are taking on USA, Canada, Japan, Great Britain and Chinese Taipei over 3 intense days in the main stadium in Kaohsiung.

Day 1 has been run and won, with all games going as expected...

Canada 13 d. Great Britain 10
Japan 13 d. Chinese Taipei 7
USA 13 d. Australia 11
Japan 13 d. Great Britain 10
Australia 13 d. Chinese Taipei 9
USA 13 d. Canada 6

Perhaps the two surprises to come out of Day 1 was the margin in the USA/Canada game, and the performance of Chinese Taipei against Japan and Australia. Chinese Taipei were expected to be the minnows of this competition, qualifying based on the fact they were the host nation. However their mixed team competed at Worlds last year and their preparation has been intense, plus there is also the factor of the home crowd, which reportedly was more than 8,000. If you think the sideline is the 8th player on the field, then surely a crowd of that size would be the 9th, 10th and 11th.

At Worlds last year, Chinese Taipei got 4 points (game to 17) against Japan, 5 from Canada and 10 from Great Britain, so for them to get 7 against Japan this time around and 9 from Australia shows considerable improvement in the last 12 months. Wei-chiao Chang was the star at Worlds, with 26 assists for the tournament, and seems to be dominating the O again with 5 assists so far this time around. Lin-yi Lee is also replicating his performance from Worlds with 9 goals so far - the highest for the tournament - after 14 goals in 2008. Ying Li Huang is their top female target, with 3 goals and 1 assist so far (11 goals in 2008).

The USA/Canada game was expected to be a close, tough match up and perhaps a preview of the gold medal match. Both had relatively tough games in the morning - Canada overcoming GB after two breaks following long points, and the USA defeating Australia after a late break. Canada stayed with the US early on, but after about 20 minutes of gameplay the US broke away and went on a 10 to 3 run to close out the game inside an hour. The US defence was on fire, generating turns and then quick goals. Bart Watson and Dylan Tunnell were nailing their hucks, with Gabe Saunkeah and Chelsea Putnam on the end of them. Canada were trying to run a similar aggressive offence but weren't connecting on their long shots and fumbled close range throws under pressure from the US defence.

In the Japan-Great Britain game, Japan looked set to run away with a big win when they were up 12-5 about one hour in. Great Britain then dug their heels in and switched to their pommy (lol) zone. This proved to be successful and, after a couple of points with multiple turns, went on a 5 goal run to bring it back to 12-10. Key goal scorer (23 goals in 2008) Jane Holmes was on the end of two of them. Japan finally broke through the zone to take the win 13-10.

Today's games are (all times in AEST)...

10:30am - Australia vs Great Britain
12:00pm - United States vs Chinese Taipei
1:30pm - Canada vs Japan
6:10pm - United States vs Great Britain
7:40pm - Canada vs Chinese Taipei
9:10pm - Japan vs Australia

Both of today's games are must-wins for the Crocs if they want to make the gold medal game. Height is going to be the obvious advantage over Japan, with the Dowles, Mike Neild and Lauren Brown looking to be the deep targets. The danger man on the Japanese side is Masahiro Matsuno, who has 5 goals and 5 assists so far (23 goals and 20 assists in 2008). Sachiko Sameshima is the female target, with 4 goals for the tournament. For the Great Britain game we need to avoid all Ashes analogies since that didn't work on Day 6 at Worlds last year. The handling strength of Jonno Holmes and Liz Edye will be the key to taking apart the pommy zone.

Follow the games (well, text updates anyway) here, with commentary from the one and only Piers Truter via his Twitter feed. Also of interest is Jonathan Potts' Twitter feed as he schmoozes with IWGA and IOC officials.

Edit: The website I was looking at got the fixture wrong. Fixed it up now.

Fantasy Ultimate (not the sideline heckling game)

2009-07-17T07:51:00.003+10:00

A couple of different factors have inspired this. My stellar performance in Supercoach and DreamTeam last week, my previous post picking teams from each state, and the one I did a while ago "drafting" players to club teams.

Oh, and the fact that The Huddle are doing this exact same thing but on a much larger scale.

I'm looking for a few people to take part in this. I'll create a draft order and we take turns picking players for a hypothetical team that is aiming to win Mixed Nationals this year.

Any Australian players (ie: no 6-month exchange students) can be chosen, and once our "squads" are decided I'll consult some experts around the place on who the best team would be.

Sign up in the comments thread if you want to take part.

Successful moments in procrastination Volume 6-ish

2009-07-04T14:21:00.004+10:00

So let's say we had a tournament with state-based teams. Ignoring all club allegiances - play for the state you live in. Who would be the starting seven on each team?

Queensland
Mike Neild
Buzz Burwell
Al Don
John McNaughton
Mat Ryan
Piers Truter
Tom Tulett

Western Australia
John Damiani
Paul Denyer
James Eley
Kendall Thorn
Tim Delane
George Wong
Andrew Delane

South Australia
Joel Pillar
Brett Middleton
Rian Dutch
Kristian Pash
Tom Roden
Robbie Andrew
Alec Deslandes

Tasmania
Mike Baker
Jemery Day
Michael Dunne
Ash Buttons
Felix Kennedy
John Kristensen
Huddy Fuller

ACT
Jonno Holmes
Warwick Shepherd
Leon Smith
Max Wheeler
Peter Hemphill
Asher Gentle
Matt Dowle

New South Wales
Gav Moore
Ant Dowle
Tim Lavis
Pete Blakeley
Ken Shepherd
Pete Gardner
Jonathan Potts

Victoria
Tom Rogacki
Dan Rule
John Liddicoat
Owen Shepherd
Lee Baker
Steve Wealands
Seb Barr

Thoughts?

EDIT - ok, so I spelled some names wrong. And got the state of residence wrong for some folk. Updated to reflect that.

Why volunteer?

2009-07-01T07:24:00.004+10:00

So let's start off by blowing my own trumpet a bit. I got involved with ultimate in 2004 and started playing regularly in 2005. In that time, I served as BUUF's main man (never actually had the term "President" - it's a mildly interesting story of corruption. Ask me some time), VFDA General Representative, AFDA Director of Marketing and currently AFDA National Universities Coordinator. I have run around a dozen tournaments, plus Albert Park League for one season. I have been a driving force in getting several teams to several tournaments - most notably Eureka Goldigaz to World Clubs 2006. I have assisted countless other teams and volunteers in sorting their shit out and providing ideas. I also write some shitty blog on the internet somewhere.

I do all this because I want to. There's nothing out there that forces me to.

I get asked occasionally (mostly by my parents who want me to expend these efforts into a career so I can support them in their retirement) why I do it all for relatively little financial reward. I've never been able to adequately explain why - it usually amounts to "well no one else would". But then I read an article on Cracked.com (usually masquerades as a humour website) that summed it all up for me quite nicely

Source

You want to break out of that black tar pit of self-hatred? Brush the black hair out of your eyes, step away from the computer and buy a nice gift for someone you loathe. Send a card to your worst enemy. Make dinner for your mom and dad. Or just do something simple, with an tangible result. Go clean the leaves out of the gutter. Grow a damn plant.

It ain't rocket science; you are a social animal and thus you are born with little happiness hormones that are released into your bloodstream when you see a physical benefit to your actions. Think about all those teenagers in their dark rooms, glued to their PC's, turning every life problem into ridiculous melodrama. Why do they make those cuts on their arms? It's because making the pain-and subsequent healing-tangible releases endorphins they don't get otherwise. It's pain, but at least it's real.

That form of stress relief via mild discomfort used to be part of our daily lives, via our routine of hunting gazelles and gathering berries and climbing rocks and fighting bears. No more. This is why office jobs make so many of us miserable; we don't get any physical, tangible result from our work. But do construction out in the hot sun for two months, and for the rest of your life you can drive past a certain house and say, "Holy shit, I built that." Maybe that's why mass shootings are more common in offices than construction sites.

It's the kind of physical, dirt-under-your-nails satisfaction that you can only get by turning off the computer, going outdoors and re-connecting with the real world. That feeling, that "I built that" or "I grew that" or "I fed that guy" or "I made these pants" feeling, can't be matched by anything the internet has to offer.

It's very hard to adequately describe the feeling I have when I see teams enjoying themselves at a tournament I'm running, or team mates getting home from a tournament exhaustedly declaring they've had "the BEST weekend ever!" But think the above exerpt sums it up - the satisfaction of knowing that I made it happen.

Try it sometime. You might like it.

Planting some ideas in some heads

2009-06-17T09:57:00.003+10:00

So the price war on the LA to Sydney flight routes is heating up, with Delta joining the party. Direct quote from the article...

"US analyst Rick Seaney, from Fare Compare, said fares to Australia could drop to $320 each way before tax."

So let's say that happens in January/February, which tends to be a slow period for travel in the US because November/December are flat out. And that's our summer, as well as club season.

So let's get a tournament going on the east coast somewhere (I'm looking at you, Sydney and Gold Coast) where we invite some college and club teams from the US west coast. Advertise it as "Australia vs USA" around the area and in the media. Push it as Australia's premier non-Nationals tournament.

Alternatively, some southern-based clubs might look at a US tour in January/February since Nationals is in their home region this year.

Hmm.

Mobile technology in ultimate

2009-06-17T07:59:00.003+10:00

My housemate has an iPhone and he won't bloody shutup about it. I can usually shut him up by sending him an MMS from the pub with the text "hey check out this hot chick i'm talking to that has a fetish for short guys." But there's no denying that the iPhone is a handy little contraption (I am pretty jealous of the iDaft app), as is my Nokia N95 - cracked screen and all - now that I've bothered learning how to fully use the mobile side of Twitter. Couple all this with the link I read about a UPA Rules iPhone app (link is now dead so won't bother posting it) and it got me thinking about how we can use mobile devices for ultimate.

Stats tracking
At the juniors vs allstars game at last year's EUGs I spent some time on the sideline with Timill who had a PDA with a stats application. This little bad boy kept track of everything - passes, completions, points played, whatever you can think of. Only troubles were keeping up with the play (it's a two person job - one calling, one entering) and the poor light making the thing difficult to read. I don't imagine it being too difficult to make an iPhone application to keep track of simple stats (goals, assists, blocks, turnovers).

SMS scoretracking
2008 Worlds had a great system where the volunteers on the sidelines SMS each score and the website would update with a timestamp, the thrower and the receiver. All well and good, but requires a lot of people to make it happen effectively so not much good for local weekend tourneys. Andrew Olennick's system in Australia is a great little setup, where the captains SMS the scores of the game to a number, and the website updates. It also sends out each team's draw every morning and whenever pools get redone. We tried to use it at AUG last year but it was very last minute and some people struggled to get the hang of it. The interface could be a little more user friendly but I suppose if we set it up earlier it would have been much more effective.

Mobile videos
I have messed about with some video conversion software and managed to find a way to download Youtube videos and store them as video clips on my mobile. I had a couple of highlight clips for when I'd be talking to people about ultimate, and instead of yapping on about hucks, force, picks and skies, I'd simply show them a video. My favourite one is the trailer for Ultivillage's Disc 4: Year Of The Monkey. I struggled to find a really good video for women's and for mixed, so if anyone out there knows of some great clips from these divisions I'll certainly add them to my collection.

Twittering
I love Twitter. Actually scrap that. I like Twitter as a friend. It's a fun little tool that I have found no real use for apart from following sites that link to funny stuff on the internet. For those who are not sure what Twitter is, it's basically Facebook with only the status updates. I twittered updates from Nationals this year and 'covered' the finals on the last day. This got followed by a few folk on the eastern seaboard so it got me thinking about how we could further use it.

My thinking right now is to round a few folk up from various unis and teach them how to set up a Twitter account with mobile support. Essentially that means they SMS a certain number and it posts an update to Twitter. If you add a 'hashtag' it makes it easier to search for a certain term. So if everyone who is posting an update from Southern Uni Games or Eastern Uni Games adds the term #unigamesulty to their post, people from home can just run a search for #unigamesulty and shebangabang - everyone's posts will come up in a sort of newsfeed.

The posts can be anything, really - score updates, great plays, funny stories, party rumours - as long as they are contained to 140 characters (just shy of a normal SMS) and it will provide some great coverage for the folks at home. If we replicate this for Australian Uni Games as well, it would be fantastic for not only people at home, but people there as well. The more Twitter-savvy can set up a permanent search term on their phone so they get the tagged posts as they happen to keep up with results in other pools. And while I'm getting nerdily excited about it, there's even a capability of adding photos to the said newsfeed via Twitpic.

Anyone have any other uses for mobile technology?

Ballarat Ultimate's identity crisis

2009-06-16T08:42:00.002+10:00

So not since about a year ago has this blog been about anything remotely Ballarat related. A name change is being considered, yet I have absolutely no idea what I should call it. I have had some brief thoughts on guidelines for a new name...

- I'm not putting my name in it in case I invite future contributions.
- Something "Australian"
- Something to reflect that this is a news/opinion blog (despite the occasional 'personal reflection' post)

Suggestions via the comments.

Early 2009 uni season preview

2009-06-15T06:44:00.003+10:00

Ok, so if I'm asked to sum up my predicted fortunes of each uni this year in 25 words or less...

West
UWA - Home-town Nationals gave their second string players a lot of valuable experience at the top level. Will be dangerous.

Murdoch - Relied too much on Ash Nair in 2008. Need two or three more to step up and be key players.

North
UQ - Women's development has come a long way in Queensland since 2007. Can the effect flow on to the Lovers? I remain skeptical.

QUT - Have developed a 'farm' system to rival UQ's. Reece Stewart is a huge gain. Expect improvement.

Griffith - Tom Tulett will be a massive boost for the club, both in skill and confidence. Early favourites for Div2 gold (if it goes ahead).

East
Sydney - Lost some core handlers. Should see it as an opportunity to bring in some B-teamers. Not as big a threat as last year.

UTS - Lot of hype on Ultitalk. Not sure why. Rach Grindlay is a great pickup, but they're not going to make the last eight.

ANU - Lack of prep killed them last year. A return to EUG will see improvement in time for AUG. Mid-table finish in October.

Newcastle - Have the lineup on paper to get bling. Will only happen if they're hungry enough for it.

UNSW - Revitalised by new blood. Might take time to find their legs on the big stage. Will miss quarters but 2010 should be different.

Macquarie - No longer the powerhouse they once were, but should still figure in the top eight. Depends on who they can convince to come.

CSU - New energy this year should see them back at the show. Potential to be Div2 medallists.

South
Flinders - Alec Deslandes and Erin Wallis are big losses. Joel Pillar needed for medal finish, otherwise will have to settle for top eight.

Adelaide - Lost Rian Dutch, Rich Klein and Steve Harfield, but still have the squad to challenge for a medal. Their girls are a significant strength.

Melbourne - Can get by without Chris Freise and John Liddicoat, but if they decide to come they'll be medal contenders, or top ten without.

Monash - Lost Owen Shepherd. Very strong farm system. Medal contenders, but lack the strong, cohesive leadership that Booboo and O-Shep provided in the past.

Latrobe - Lost Lachie McDonald, Jenica Villamor and possibly Jen Payne. Will struggle to match last year's 9th place.

Ballarat - Gained Dan Rule, Macca and Timill. Second string stronger than ever. May also get some mid-year starters. Will be the big improvers of '09.

Deakin - Virtually the same lineup as last year, with a couple of additions. Probably won't replicate last year's 10th place.

RMIT - Still on the recruitment drive. Need more numbers to make Gold Coast a reality.

Early days yet, so I'll review following the Eastern and Southern Uni Games in early July.

For some bonus material, here's a few players to keep an eye on this year...

Reece Stewart (QUT) - Has had a pretty successful year so far. A trip to Nationals with Firestorm, and a win at Eastern Youth Championships. Will be captaining QUT in his first AUG outing.

Nathan Wong and Rory Connell (Macquarie) - Started out as rookies last year and have quickly evolved into target players. Both were outstanding for Fakulti at Nationals, and will be leading Mac into battle at AUG.

Pete Nixon (Melbourne) and Shane Ausselbrook (Deakin) - The first Geelong players to enter the uni scene. Both are ridiculously good for "rookies".

Fiona McDonald (Sydney) - Didn't make the cut for SUUFA last year, but with a National title to her name she can book her flights to Coolongatta right now.

Indignation and outrage can be expressed here. Have a nice day.

New addition to the right - Ultimate Frisbee in the UK

2009-06-14T08:25:00.000+10:00

There never seems to be much online news coming out of the UK. A bloke called Dave is hoping to change that. I've added his blog to the illustrious list to your immediate right. Have a read.

The UK Tour is an amazing concept and sounds incredibly difficult to pull off. 17 women's teams and 50 open teams! All in one weekend. Well, a few different weekends. The Tour is made up of 3 events over the 3 summer months, that then culminates in UK Nationals.

I'd love to see this in Australia, but with the UK being a much, much smaller country and subsequently lower travel costs it is easier to run over there. Maybe implement something like this on state-based scale? I remember something being done in NSW a couple of summers ago (Summer Series Of Fun or something like that). Maybe I'll have a look at a Victorian one this year.

Handblocks!

2009-06-06T07:35:00.002+10:00

So after however many years of never, ever getting a handblock, all of a sudden I'm finding I'm getting them with alarming regularity. Once every two games or so, more if I'm playing pickup. And for the life of me, I could never figure out why. I don't recall making any conscious changes to my marking, I never got told "do it this way" and I didn't watch any videos/read any blogs. It just kinda...well, happened.

But I got to thinking about it and what I do now as opposed to what I did, say, two years ago. Two years ago on the mark, I'd simply look to contain. Keep the force and trust the upfield kids to do the rest. Over time I've made small adjustments and it seems as if all the pieces have now fallen into place.

1) Usually I start the stall count about two metres back to stop any "flow" passes. I stand up tall in front of the thrower (or slightly to the break side) and put my arms wide. This is to, quite literally, get in their way so they can't see past me. Also useful for taking away the early huck option.

2) By stall 3 I've come in right to their hip and have my arms out wide. I stand square on their hip, crouched and on my toes. I'm still a bit lazy at this point, but by 4 or 5 I'm very close and aggressive on the mark. Being big helps at this point because of an intimidation factor - as the count gets higher and the thrower becomes more anxious, I'm becoming more hectic.

3) I'm never looking at the thrower's face or the disc itself. Until about stall 6 my focus is slightly upfield to see if there are any cuts coming in. I also look at the thrower's arm - a lot of people don't have their wrist cocked on fakes, only on actual throws.

4) A really bad habit I used to have (and sometimes still do) is swiping at the disc on the throw rather than simply sliding my hand out in front of the disc. This irritates the shit out of me if I see the throw coming, but miss the swipe or get a fingertip on top of the disc without altering the flight too much.

5) When I get to stall 6 or 7, the thrower is usually looking for their dump. I go back to standing straight to block their vision again, and if I can see the dump cut in my peripheral vision, I'll shuffle around to follow them. If the dump is in close, I sometimes reach out on the thrower's opposite side and swipe my hand in front of the disc to distract the thrower.

6) By 8, I shuffle back out to about a metre or two directly in front of the thrower and return to the stand-tall-arms-out position to once again discourage the huck. About now I'll bite heavily on any fake because it's almost certainly going to be a throw.

7) I make a really conscious effort not to fast count at 9 and 10 and undo all my work. Instead I just keep the tempo of my count and if they don't have the throw off by the 't' in 'ten', I call stall after I finished the count rather than going "nine...teSTALL".

I'm always looking to get rid of bad habits and often make small adjustments to things I do and use "learn by doing"/"trial and error" to reinforce new changes. This is something that works for me, but I couldn't guarantee that for anyone else. In tune with that, I'm trying to eliminate a lot of tactical bad habits (eg: where to cut) by playing with new teams this year. I'm back playing Albert Park with OK Campers in Division 2, and after the unfortunate withdrawl of BUUF from this season of G-League, I'm looking to hook up with a new team there.

Successful moments in procrastination Vol 5 - The AFDA Draft

2009-05-28T19:28:00.003+10:00

So suppose we have an AFL style draft each year of the best unsigned talent. Let's have a few rules...

- Playing Nationals with a team constitutes "signing" with a them.
- Only those who have never played Nationals are eligible to be drafted.
- Australian ulti-citizens (learned to play in Australia) only.
- Teams who played Nationals last season are eligible to be in the draft.
- Lowest finishing team gets pick #1, second lowest gets #2, so on and so forth.

This is what the 2009 season draft might have looked like...

WOMEN
Pick #1 (Indies) - Louisa Battista (Adelaide U18s)
Pick #2 (Primal) - Amber Hong (Perth Social League)
Pick #3 (Sulty) - Colette Grgic (Uni of Queensland)
Pick #4 (Sugar Mags) - Jennifer Hoar (Newcastle U18s)
Pick #5 (Honey) - Steph Malcher (Deakin Uni)
Pick #6 (Bush) - Emily Johnson (Uni of Tasmania)
Pick #7 (Team Box) - *Pass*
Pick #8 (Factory Girls) - Jill Sutton (Canberra League)
Pick #9 (Wildcard) - Loren Viswalingam (Sydney U18s)
Pick #10 (Wildcard) - Fiona McDonald (Sydney Uni)

MEN
Pick #1 (Fakulti) - Mike Tarn (Sydney Uni)
Pick #2 (Chilly) - Matt Wood (Melbourne Social League)
Pick #3 (Firestorm) - Reece Stewart (Brisbane U18s)
Pick #4 (Karma) - Ben Foley (Flinders Uni)
Pick #5 (Sublime) - Max Daube (Perth Social League)
Pick #6 (Chilly) - Byron Wicks (Melbourne Social League)
Pick #7 (HoS) - Andrew Lorimer (Traralgon)
Pick #8 (I-Beam) - Rhys Clenton (Newcastle U18s)
Pick #9 (Fyshwick) - Andrew Jackson (Canberra League)
Pick #10 (Fakulti) - Michael Thomas (UTS)

...and the order of picks for next year's draft....

WOMEN
1. Honey
2. Indies
3. Bush
4. Sultry
5. Factory Girls
6. Primal
7. Honey
8. Sugar Mags
9. Team Box
10. Wildcard

MEN
1. Umlaut
2. Chilly
3. Sublime
4. Fakulti
5. Karma
6. Fakulti
7. Sublime
8. Firestorm
9. I-Beam
10. HoS

So who want to speculate who will be in 2010's top 10?

-EDIT- A couple of glaring omissions have been pointed out to me, so I've fixed them up. I forgot that Mike Tarn hadn't played Nats before, and that Andrew Lorimer made the A's for HoS but didn't make the trek to Perth. Sorry to Phil and Rory!

A new model for Youth Nats?

2009-05-27T10:10:00.003+10:00

A while ago there was some discussion with some key folk via the email over the model of Youth Nationals and how it could work in the future. There's no doubting that youth growth is the way we should be pushing forward, and getting school clinics and training camps is a winner, but Youth Nats is fast becoming the neglected stepchild that NUFL once was.

The trouble with Youth Nats is that it relies on the competing teams forming in the same way that club teams do - player driven. While there certainly are some motivated kids out there recruiting and leading youth teams, there are a hell of a lot more youth players who want to get out and have a run, but have no structured team to compete with. Throw this in with the fact that playing Youth Nats requires flying interstate and eating up school days. The whole "parental permission" thing comes in to play here, which is something club teams (rarely) have to put up with.

This year's solution is to split the event up into two events - Eastern (QLD, NSW, ACT) in Newcastle and Southern (VIC & SA) in Ballarat. Theoretically this is eliminating the travel aspect and high costs, but each event is attracting 4-6 teams each. Considering the 2007 event (2008 was single gender) attracted 9 teams, I'd hardly call this a huge increase. It's time we added a bit of prestige to this event if we are to view it as a major event on the calendar.

The model I proposed to the email group a while back is similar to what Simon Wood came up with - I just expanded on it a bit.

Step 1 - Locally based teams are formed by kids/teachers/coaches
These teams are based on schools or friendship groups or even league teams. Geelong alone would already have four ready-made teams. Ideally we would have an adult, or even former youth player, driving the team. Given the number of current AFDA members that are coaches and school teachers, we need to have an incentive for them to form a team - free AFDA fees for six months? Discount off Nationals? I dunno, we'll come up with that later.

Step 2 - State Youth Championships
No brainer - we already have the massive Gala Day in NSW, the State School Championships in SA, the alternative sports days in Melbourne and State Youth Games in regional Victoria. We just brand these events as State Championships to give them a bit of prestige. This would also prevent the formation of stacked teams, eg: all the gun players in SA banding together to win Youth Nats, rather than getting more friends to play and more teams. Sure, there will still be stacked teams, but I really think this model will avoid that for reasons I'll explain soon.

Step 3 - State FDA's select a representative team
This can be done however they want, but there would generally three methods of forming a team - straight-up tryouts/selection, training camp followed by selection, and a "merit team" selection. It all depends on how many players stick their hands up for selection. Now, the important part of this is that the rep team is given a name and is kept as a continuous "club" because this gives the players some emotional attachment to the team, much the same way there is that attachment to Thunder and Terra. This attachment would also ensure former players came back to support the team.

The management of the team would have to fit within state FDA's youth coordinator role, because it is impossible to have continuation of leadership over 2-3 years. Uni teams only manage it because they are tied to a tertiary institution - youth teams would only manage if they were tied to an ongoing organisation, such as an FDA.

There are other advantages to having rep teams - new coaches and selectors can dip their toes into the role rather than going straight to a national team job, state FDA's have a clear funding avenue (ie: receiving government grants) and - in my mind, the biggest one - added authenticity for parents/schools to grant permission. This matches the model used by... pretty much every other sport there is. I know that when I was 15 my parents would be more supportive of my flying to Sydney with a state representative team rather than with "a group of friends".

Back to the stacked teams issue - while the Lochie Wise's and the Cat Phillip's of the world will be walk-on starters to rep teams, on-the-cusp players would be better served playing with a relatively inexperienced team than a stacked team because they would stand out more to selectors. It could also be part of the selection criteria - captaining a team full of new players could add more weight than playing on a team full of Thunder/Terra candidates (if two players are equally adept in skill).

Step 4 - Rep teams compete at Youth Nationals
The natural progression, really. Each state sends their rep team to compete. However we can't just have the eight teams straight up since NSW and Victoria dominate in terms of sheer numbers. So we split NSW and Vic into Metro and Country. Plus the states with smaller youth populations can be merged into other regions if they fail to get a full team. WA with SA, NT with Queensland, ACT with NSW Country and Tassie with Vic Country. From here, you could also tie the tournament in with Thunder/Terra squad selections, or at least invitations to the National Youth Training Camp.

The Calendar
Ultimate is a great after school sport for Term 1 - the weather is still fine, footy/soccer/rugby aren't stealing all the field space and senior students don't have exams to contend with. We could set a deadline of, say, May 1st for state FDA's to submit their team. This leaves the Easter holidays for the State Championships or training camps. Run the Nationals over the Queen's Birthday weekend in June (national holiday, except for WA but they won't even recognise daylight savings so that's their problem) and Robert's your father's brother.

Pathways
In my time on the board and as an admin, I heard this word thrown around a lot when discussing development. In my ever-so-humble opinion, I don't think this system could be any clearer in terms of a development pathway for a youth player from n00b to 1337.

Learn-to-play clinic at school
Form/join a school/local team
Play State Championships/go to state training camp
Play for state rep team
Go to National Youth Training Camp
Make Thunder/Terra squad
Play for Thunder/Terra

Thoughts/comments to the usual address.

Reflections on Nationals

2009-05-10T17:27:00.002+10:00

So it's been a few weeks, I've let the body heal and am slowly working my way into mixed season, where I'm continuing to look off BUUF training because, dammit, I'm a Nationals player now. There's been a bit of talk around the place - are Chilly the best ever? Was the trip to Perth worth it? Should drunken shenanigans flow over into on-field repercussions? I thought about doing a journalistic review of the tournament, but after milling over a few various ideas I've chosen to just have a bit of a ramble on various matters.

Personal performance
Out there in the ultimate blogosphere there's numerous personalities giving their thoughts about on-field performance, and I try to avoid making this blog another one of them, especially since I'm not really a beacon of talent. But this tournament meant a damn lot to me. Every sport I've ever played has given me aspirations of stardom. Particularly basketball and soccer, where in my younger years I was told I could be a bloody good player, if only I bothered to put in a bit of extra effort. Back then, sport was something I did because I enjoyed running around with my mates. My horror run of knee injuries in my late teens and early 20s made me value on-field/court time even more and to finally apply myself to a sport and reach the highest level domestic competition I feel...I dunno...vindicated? Nah, not really. Just proud of myself that I applied myself and made it. Even so, I reckon I could do better.

Scratch that...I know I could have played better.

In the two weeks leading up to Nats, I developed a crook back and laid right off the fitness training. And it's amazing how much fitness you can lose in two weeks. I'm not blaming that (and the cold) for a poor performance, but it had a severe impact on my confidence on day one. It wasn't until day two that I hit my stride and started to hit tricky throws that I could do at training a thousand times, but just wouldn't back myself to do on day one.

I didn't play many points. I tended to come on more frequently once games were as good as decided. I always kept in mind the best advice ever given to me - "Don't turn it over, then you won't have to play defence." Conservative throws, basic cuts, smart decisions - all the way. I'll definitely be back in 2010, and with 12 months to work on my fitness, I should be a better player.

The tournament - yay or nay?
I really wish I could switch my brain off at events, particularly social events, and not critique what's going on. But I couldn't help thinking about various matters and what I would do if I was running the show.

Player packs - no disc! This annoyed me because I collect discs and missed out on buying one. While a cleat bag and hat are good souvenirs, I wanted a disc, dammit!
Lunches - Not enough. Every team got the same amount of food, whether they were a team of 22 guys or 14 girls. There's no such thing as too much food at a tournament. And when are other TDs going to get on board the Subway bandwagon?
Dinners - Missed out on night one, so didn't bother with night two or day four. There's probably a better way of distributing food to 400 hungry people at once short of dropping it from a helicopter or crane, but I haven't thought of it.
Party - I'm not gonna start. There were all sorts of OH&S and liability risks coming out the yinyang.

It's so much easier to condemn than it is to compliment. The TOC did a great job with everything other than my personal gripes. You can't please everyone all the time.

My predictions
As I've said before - can pick a winner

The hits
* Picking both winners and runners-up. To be fair I thought they were both quite obvious.
* Honey crack the top 4. I thought this would be their best chance with their strongest squad. Still a while off winning.
* Karma in the top 8. It was their time, and they can only improve from here.

The misses
* HoS in 3rd. I had them at 6th. They surpassed everyone's expectations except their own.
* Both Fakultis up high. Perhaps their time has passed?
* Primal up/Bush down. I'll admit it - I was just plain wrong.

The "intermediate" class
There were the obvious stars at Nationals - Tom Rogacki, Johnno Holmes, Ant Dowle, Chris Warris, Claire Hussey, Megan Gamble, Cath Matthews and anyone else who has worn the green and gold. But beyond that, there didn't seem to be any breakout stars - just the usual suspects. Some teams even demonstrated a lack of depth outside their top stars. A Pete Gardner-less Fakulti X fell to 9th, a Mike Neild-less Firestorm went winless on day one, a Joel Pillar-less Karma failed to register a win on the last two days.

There is a lot of talented players being produced by the clubs, but an international player is still so valuable to teams. Look at two of the star players in the open final - Mark Junker (Chilly) and Andrew Jackson (Fyshwick). Both imported talents. Even go a bit further down the list and take note of Michael Stout (HoS), Søren Ravn (Fakulti X) and Tom DePree (Sweet Chilly). These players aren't the big names in their home countries but can come and be stand out players down here.

We still seem to be missing that link between the elite and the rest. Is this because the commitment of the elite means they train more? Or they have the benefit of training camps and games against the best in the world? In either case, the top shelf of development personnel are placing their bets on development camps being the answer. But is this going to attract the raw talent - the ones that could very well go on to 2010 Dingos/Firetails/Mundis? There is a breed of ultimate player who just wants to play ultimate, or even only with their mates.

The level of intra-club development going on in Australia is getting more intense. Eight open clubs and four women's clubs have taken two teams (A/B or X/X) to Regionals and Nationals. And clubs are stretching their recruitment nets further. Rather than waiting for players to come to them, clubs are actively going out and finding players. This is a good sign because I firmly believe there are a lot of talented players out there in leagues and unis who don't know they are good players. Until we can really tap into that group of players we are still going to struggle to have that link between the "elite" and the "rest".

Where to next year?
Nationals comes to ~~Ballarat~~ the South region next year, which means a return of more players and teams, which means there are going to be some good competitive teams at Regionals who will miss out on a ticket to the show. Throw in the whole World Clubs business and some clubs are going to be less concerned about development and more about winning so they can book flights to Prague. Fyshwick and Team Box are going to be hungier than ever after losing two finals, Chilly may or may not go all in for a fifth title, Fakulti may look at returning to A/B and Wildcard will probably continue to dominate the women's division. Overall I believe there won't be any new rising power (Thong not withstanding), but we may see the emergence of some new faces at the lower end of the scale as the efforts of junior development over the last couple of years start to shine through.

I'll probably still be floating around, too.

The Ballad of Florida & Oregon

2009-04-29T15:54:00.004+10:00

I'd intended to sit down and do a post on my reflections of Nationals today as I nurse a cold, but I jumped on to RSD to find out some news on the UPA College series that has been playing out over the last couple of weeks. I thought there'd be the usual news - my 2007 Mixed Nats teammate's club made Regionals but no futher, Wisconsin smashed all comers and hopefully some Cinderella story coming out of the midwest or somewhere.

But instead I found a veritable shitstorm of posts - two of the top three contenders for the title were out of the running for very different reasons.

Florida have made semis in the last three years, with a title win in 2006 and finalists in 2008 against Wisconsin. They were considered to be the number one team in the nation. They cruised through their pool on day one of Atlantic Coast Regionals, but lost their crossover game. They regathered and breezed past UNCW, then got beaten 14-9 by eventual winners Virginia. This put them in the back door bracket where they were facing NC State in the game-to-go, NC State being known to Australians as the college that Brett Matzuka attends. Here's a write up of that game.

But the bigger controversy is Oregon. They were playing their B-team at Regionals and decided that they couldn't really be bothered with a proper game, so they reported the score as 13-9 and instead played one point of "shirts only vs pants only". Seems harmless enough, but a complaint was filed to their college's sports committee and all of a sudden they found themselves withdrawn from the UPA series by their Club Sports executive committee.

Then it gets weird. They appealed to the committee and the media got involved. Because of prior incidents involving underage drinking and speeding fines, the decision was upheld and the captain of the team was quoted in the Seattle Times...

"Speeding, drinking, nudity — they're not bad things, they're things a big portion of the community doesn't think are wrong."

“We need to recognize the difference between the ultimate culture and the club sports culture.”

The second quote is pulled from a more extensive article from the Oregon Daily Emerald, the college's newspaper. What the captain of that team fails to recognise, is that the media is far quicker to jump all over negative misdemeanours than they are over the positive actions a team or club performs. Sports stars and teams behaving inappropriately is one of their favourite topics - just look at North Melbourne's rooster video, or Greg Bird being found guilty of pulling a 'Chris Brown'.

Hopefully we don't have to face this kind of situation any time soon, but the best course of action would be to not talk to the media without any kind of preperation. It is so easy to be taken out of context, especially when your personal opinion is assumed to be the party line and you end up speaking of behalf of all ultimate players whether you intend to or not.

The other point is that one of the dumbest things we do as a world wide community is try and advertise ourself as a serious competitive sport in some avenues, yet try and obtain different treatment when it suits us. We are either a serious sport or a recreational activity - we can't have it both ways.

Can I be bothered explaning?

2009-04-22T12:25:00.003+10:00

"So what's on for the day?"

"Oh, I'm flying out to Perth tonight."

"Really? Sounds alright. What's that for?"

Speaking to close friends/family: "I'm playing national championships for ultimate frisbee."

Speaking to work colleagues and other acquaintances: "I'm playing national championships for ultimate frisbee. Playing with a Melbourne team. We've been training for a few months now. Pretty pumped for it."

Speaking to people who I have only met recently: ""I'm playing national championships for ultimate frisbee. It's like a cross between gridiron and netball played with a frisbee on a field about 100 metres long and 35 wide. Yeah, I can throw about 50 metres accurately, a bit further if I'm not going for a target. Playing with a Melbourne team called Sweet Chilly. There's some pretty good players on the team and we've been training for a few months now. I'm really excited for it because it's the first time I've played Nationals."

Speaking to the checkout chick who is just making small talk: "...oh, just a holiday."

2009 Nationals Preview Part 5: Predictions

2009-04-21T18:19:00.004+10:00

So after going through each draw and picking the winners game by game, here's the first round and final standings I'm predicting in each division.

WOMEN

Pool K
1. Wildcard (4-0)
2. ST BAU (3-1)
3. Honey (2-2)
4. Honey Bee (1-3)
5. Indies (0-4)

Pool L
1. Factory Girls (5-0)
2. Sugar Mags (4-1)
3. Bush (3-2)
4. Sultry (2-3)
5. Kaos (1-4)
6. Primal (0-5)

Final Standings
1. Wildcard
2. Sporting Team Box Athletico United
3. Factory Girls
4. Honey
5. Sugar Mags
6. Bush
7. Sultry
8. Kaos
9. Primal
10. Indies
11. Honey Bee

OPEN

Pool C
1. Chilly (2-0)
2. Fyshwick (1-1)
3. Happy Pig (0-2)

Pool D
1. I-Beam (2-0)
2. Fakulti Y (1-1)
3. Fear (0-2)

Pool E
1. Heads Of State (2-1)
2. Karma (2-1)
3. Firestorm (2-1)
4. Sublime O (0-3)

Pool F
1. Fakulti X (3-0)
2. Sublime A (2-1)
3. Sweet Chilly (1-2)
4. Umlaut (0-3)

Final Standings
1. Chilly
2. Fyshwick United
3. I-Beam
4. Fakulti X
5. Fakulti Y
6. Heads Of State
7. Sublime A
8. Karma
9. Firestorm
10. Sweet Chilly
11. Sublime O
12. Umlaut
13. Fear
14. Happy Pig

All the Victorians to team up and destroy every other state at the party.

I'll be posting semi-regular updates to my Twitter page whenever I can.

See you on Thursday (or whenever).

2009 Nationals Preview Part 4b: The South (men)

2009-04-21T09:04:00.002+10:00

On the home stretch now...

KARMA
Home town: Adelaide
Captain: Joel Pillar
Qualified: 3rd from South
Last year: 10th

If there's anyone who talks a big game, it's Joel Pillar. He has a long history of making stupid bets that rarely pay off (next time you see him, ask about the Uni Games bet he made with Piers Truter a couple of years ago). However after he predicted Flinders' success at AUG last year, I'm inclined to believe him when he says that this year's Karma squad is the best team to have ever come out of the GMT +9:30 timezone. After seeing them at Regionals, I'm prepared to back Joel's claim - this is the best team Karma have fielded. If they can avoid relying on Joel all the time to dig them out of trouble they should be able to make the top eight.

Key player: Alec Deslandes
Joel was a bit obvious. Alec has been a dominant receiver in the uni game for quite some time and is confident enough to back himself in any aerial contest.

Keep an eye on: Will Christopherson
Going back a couple of years, Adelaide Uni was Will and Kaz. Will is back after spending a couple of years in the wilderness and hasn't missed a beat.

SWEET CHILLY
Home town: Melbourne
Captain: James Reynolds
Qualified: 4th from South
Last year: 14th

See now I'm not sure whether I should continue with the third person or switch to first person perspective here. The strength of the Chilly program cannot be denied - they have come away with three titles this decade and have taken two teams each year, sticking with the A/B format that many other teams have avoided (Fakulti, Fyshwick 07, Firestorm 08). Last year's "development" year wasn't regarded as the success they thought it would be and have reverted to their traditional setup this year. The B's this year are domestic and foreign import heavy, with only half of the team being Melbourne natives. They had some gelling issues at Regionals, but some solid preparation should help alleviate that.

Key player: Alex Ong
Brings valuable A team experience to the B's. Quick on his feet and a smart player.

Keep an eye on: ???
I'm not going to go revealing all of our secrets now, am I? I'll give you a clue...it's not me.

HEADS OF STATE
Home town: Melbourne
Captain: Dan Rule
Qualified: 2nd from South
Last year: 5th

Heads Of State have definitely cemented their position as one of the stronger clubs on the Australian scene, but in the past have always seemed to stumble at the last hurdle. They have a highly structured and disciplined style of training and playing, and are known for being loud and energetic on the sideline. The time Dan Rule and Matt Hill spent in Seattle learning from some of the best in the business has obviously been beneficial to the club - they have adopted a lot of innovative practices and plays that mid and lower level teams will find hard to stop. They have the talent, skills and fitness to go all the way, so what's stopping them? Their ability to keep calm in the face of adversity, that's what. If they can keep themselves composed in close games, and especially in the aftermath if they lose those close games, they will go a long way. Another year just outside the top four, I think.

Key player: Owen Shepherd
It's one thing to play hard D, but it's another thing entirely to generate blocks and turnovers. That's what O-Shep specialises in.

Keep an eye on: Michael "The $25,000 Dollar Man" Stout
A tall, athletic seppo with plenty of top level experience. God, I hate using the "tall, athletic" cliche but what else is there?

CHILLY
Home town: Melbourne
Captain: Lee Baker
Qualified: 1st in South
Last year: 6th

At lot of people are saying, "He's back." Referring of course to Tom Rogacki. But I'm more inclined to say, "They're back," including Steve Campbell and Shane Vuletich in that proclomation. Their build-up has been regarded as low key following their disappointing finish at BC Invite, but most haven't realised that they won GCC without many key players, and they strolled through Regionals with Gack only playing one game (the semi final was a warm up only, apparently) and Shane not there at all. Chilly are a very fit and skillful team - no development selections have been made, with everyone having to earn their spot. Might be the bias talking, but I'm tipping them to win title number four.

Key player: John Liddicoat
Likely to be matching up on the opposition's biggest threat, leaving everyone else to run rampant.

Keep an eye on: Dan Resnick
Outstanding player coming out of Tufts University in the States.

So there's a bit of a closer look at the 25 teams competing this weekend. Coming up next, full predictions.

2009 Nationals Preview Part 4a: The South (women)

2009-04-21T06:34:00.003+10:00

And now we're on to the largest region in terms of participation - South. Nine teams across both divisions will be representing three states (four if we want to get technical about where players are from) and they're all gearing up for what looks to be a best ever performance from the region in both women and open.

I know the draw is out, but I have previewed every other team so far without seeing it, so for consistency's sake I haven't considered it when previewing South teams.

Right now, we'll have a look at the women...

BUSH
Home town: Hobart
Captain: Ash Martens
Qualified: 3rd from South
Last year: 7th

While this team advertises itself as Bush, it seems to be a mix of Bush, Southside and Suffer Jets. This leaves them with a substantially different list to last year - no Shavawn Donoghue, no Crystal Cheung and no Tania King. However the inclusion of Carlie Ryan and Lucy Keady from Southside will go a long way to alleviating those losses. All eyes, however, will remain on Ash Martens. Interpret that what ever way you wish to. Pottsy correctly predicted back in 2006 that Ash would walk on to the Firetails team, and given how dominant a player she was in the uni scene back then, it is safe to assume she plays a similar sort of game in the women's variety. Earlier I had them slated to make semis, but now I'm not so sure.

Key player: Ash Martens
For reasons outlined above.

Keep an eye on: Shannon Trenwith
Made her Nationals debut last year and a second season of women's will have seen her improve. Also, in general, keep an eye on the Tassie girls at the party.

INDIES
Home town: Adelaide
Captain: Alison Clarke
Qualified: 4th from South
Last year: 12th

While we're on the subject of vastly different rosters, the South Australian women's crew only have four players returning from last year. The four returners - Ali Clarke, Meghan Connell, Bron Dutch and Alex Rogers - and Sarah Pillar will be taking the burden of the workload. The rest of the squad aren't strangers to the sport, having come from uni clubs at Flinders and Adelaide and also from National Youth Training Camp. Ali Clarke will be a good leader for the young squad, but I don't think they'll be able to make the top eight.

Key player: Ali Clarke
Will be playing most points. Especially O points, which this team will probably face a lot of.

Keep an eye on: Bron Dutch
Probably the best D player on the team. Is capable of keeping a high workrate up for the duration of the tournament.

HONEY
Home town: Melbourne
Captain: Cath Matthews
Qualified: 2nd from South
Last year: 8th

Despite having a talented squad, Honey have never been able to do any better than 8th at Nationals. However 2009 looks to be their best season yet. Instead of getting smashed regularly by Team Box, they have been edging closer and closer to them. Their preparation for this year has been full on, with large turnouts at trainings, plus numerous lead-up tournaments (GCC, Kaiamana, BC Invite and Into The Wild) giving them vital big game experience. The three Australian reps - Cath Matthews, Mel Gangemi and Lauren Brown - will need to fire if Honey are to do well, but the depth of the rest of the list is a lot stronger than previous years. Definite chance at semis.

Key player: Lauren "Mama" Brown
Has the height and pace that can rarely be matched.

Keep an eye on: Kerry Justus and Bec Wallbridge
Another two tall receivers. Honey will look to play deep to these two a lot.

HONEY BEE
Home town: Melbourne
Captain: Tiff Mann
Qualified: 5th from South
Last year: -

Honey Bee are being revived after a three year absence from the show, with precisely zero players from 2006 still with the squad. They have recruited well to make a second team, drawing on Melbourne, Monash, Ballarat and Deakin unis to give a new crop of ladies their transition from state to national level. However their big problem is lack of experience - 3 out of 15 have played at Nationals previously. They will struggle to take down teams on day one but the weekend games should be more of a contest for them. If the Honey club is able to retain most of these girls into next season (and with South hosting Nats they should be able to), they will develop into a much better team and we could see Honey becoming the next two-team powerhouse in the vein of Wildcard, Fakulti and Chilly.

Key player: Jude Mitchell
Fast handler who is transitioning from role player to major player. Has learned a lot playing with Honey and Melbourne Uni.

Keep an eye on: Lauren Castillo
I couldn't praise the Deakin Uni team enough last year for the rapid development of their girls. Lauren is a very confident player who should settle into the women's game comfortably.

SPORTING TEAM BOX ATHLETICO UNITED
Home town: Melbourne
Captain: Joy Lee
Qualified: 1st from South
Last year: 6th

Fun fact: ST BAU have not lost a game in 2009. The closest they came was a 13-11 win over Honey in the pools at Regionals, and a 9-6 win over Wildcard X in the final of Into The Wild. The credentials of the squad are ridiculous - 10 current or former Australian representatives, countless Nationals tournaments played by all players, and an even more ridiculous number of in-jokes that are funny to approximately 17 people. No one out there is willing to back the final not being Box v 'Card, so there's not a lot of analysis to be done here. Only question to really ask is "Will the merger of Wildcard X and Y make a difference of 4 points?" Just between you and me, I think it does.

Key player: "One Mistake" Liz Edye
You don't get selected for the World Games team by being shit. One of the best female handlers (the best?) in the country.

Keep an eye on: Cat Phillips
After around about eleventy billion assists at Worlds, Cat is going to be a target of opposition teams. Can keep a cool head and will be able to deal with the extra defensive pressure.

The South men's preview to follow soon. Can't really say "tomorrow" because I have a plane to catch then.

2009 Nationals Preview Part 3b: The East (men)

2009-04-20T18:03:00.003+10:00

Running a little behind time. Fought through two practice matches yesterday and spent today setting up my new laptop and interweb connection. In this update, we take a look at the region that has dominated the open scene in recent years - the East

UMLAUT
Home town: Sydney
Captain: Wally Crocker
Qualified: 5th from East (6th at Regionals)
Last year: -

Another club making their Nationals debut. Late in 2008 there was plenty of speculation over whether there would be a new club rise from the ashes of Barefoot to take up the fifth East slot. Instead...well, nothing happened, and Umlaut stepped into the void to take on the rest of the nation. The list contains a number of names not known beyond the state level, but they shouldn't be discounted by other mid-level teams. Day one might be an uphill battle depending on their group, but from Friday onwards they'll be competitive.

Key player: Wally Crocker
Their most experienced player. Fit enough to last the tournament playing most points.

Keep an eye on: Joshua Garfield
Quick defender who would be a great support player on most teams, but will need to be a key player for Umlaut

I-BEAM
Home town: Newcastle
Captain: Chris Warris
Qualified: 2nd from East
Last year: 3rd

After a disappointing semi final loss last year, I-Beam will be looking to go one better. The length of the trip has done nothing to discourage them, with no notable exclusions from the 2008 list. One name that will bolster the lineup is Gav Moore, fresh from a Dingos campaign. The height of Tats, Dave Jarrott and the Lavis boys will make life difficult for other defensive units, and the selectors have gone for speed among their secondary players. John Greenfield and Hobbit Warris will be strong leaders and should take the team to semis again, however I don't think they can go all the way.

Key player: Jonathan Tatham
Rarely referred to by his whole name, Tats will be a focal point for attack.

Keep an eye on: Rhys Clenton
Young player with a lot of raw talent. Will probably be running on defence all weekend and will be hungry for blocks to prove he belongs in the big league.

FAKULTI Y
Home town: Sydney
Captain: Ken Shepherd
Qualified: 3rd from East
Last year: 1st

After finally winning Nationals on their sixth attempt, Fakulti have reverted back to their X/X split that has caused some debate over the benefits versus drawbacks. This year, Fakulti are having to deal with the loss of Matt Dowle and Warwick Shepherd, plus ongoing injuries to top stars. This preview really should be looking at the differences between the two squads. If I were forced to pick who had the stronger list on paper, I'd say Fakulti X did based on experience. However Fakulti Y, aka Fak Kenny, have a lot more speed and fitness than their counterparts, and under the tutelage of Ken Shepherd and Matt Faulkner, they should waltz into the top 8 without any major concerns. However I think Y may not quite get to semis.

Key player: Ant Dowle
Without his brother sharing the limelight, a lot of opposition focus will be on him.

Keep an eye on: Mike Tarn
Key handler for Sydney Uni for a couple of years. Interesting to see if he plays back or if they send him upfield. Left handed with a strong forehand.

FAKULTI X
Home town: Sydney
Captain: Pete Gardner
Qualified: 4th from East
Last year: 16th

For the purpose of consistency, I have to say that the second Fakulti team came 16th last year, but this team will certainly do better than that. The top shelf on this team (Pete, Tex and James Yorston) will be a match for the top players on other teams, and they have a list with a lot of depth to back them up. The three Thunder reps (Beast, Calan and Max) will bring the intensity and energy, while some of the older hands such as Pete Liddicoat and Neil Roxburgh will balance out the hotheadedness that plagues some younger groups of players. Probably half a notch below the other Fak side. The two of them will probably face off for 5th and 6th.

Key player: Pete "Tex" Blakeley
The experience of a Barramundis campaign puts him at the top of his game. One of the fastest players in the Australian game.

Keep an eye on: Calan Spielman
Tall, athletic and fit. Should be able to negate a lot of long throwing options other teams have.

FYSHWICK UNITED
Home town: Canberra
Captain: Tom Watson
Qualified: 1st from East
Last year: 2nd

In 2008 the Canberra crew finally sorted their shit out and got a talented team together for a tilt at the crown. And they came second. With that fresh in their minds, they'll be a hell of a lot more focussed on winning and go in to the tournament as favourites or close to. With the addition of Matt Dowle and Waz Shepherd to an already stacked roster, the list looks very ominous on paper. While my buddy Twats is listed as captain, I'd suspect Jonno Holmes would be a driver on field. While they dominated at Regionals, a lacklustre performance at the BC Invite should have flagged some warning signs that they have some improvements to make. Anything less than semis would be underachieving.

Key player: Jonno Holmes
It's Jonno. Do I really need to go into this?

Keep an eye on: Max Wheeler
With the attention Dowle and Holmes will get, the handling skills of Max might very well slip under the radar of over cautious teams.

Next part of the preview will focus on the South region. Full predictions will be posted in the final part.

2009 Nationals Preview Part 3a: The East (women)

2009-04-18T10:43:00.004+10:00

The East region has traditionally been rather dominant in our little old sport. However hints continue to drop that the reign is on the way out and there's room for a new superpower region. Look at AUG last year, where East only had one semi finalist for the first time ever. And look at the Nationals field - in terms of numbers of players going across both divisions, East is taking less than South (136 and 153 respectively). But it is still expected that East teams will be strong contenders in both divisions.

WILDCARD
Home town: Sydney
Captain: Rachel Grindlay
Qualified: 1st from East
Last year: 2nd

After losing their mantle last year to Ragine Wahine, Wildcard are gunning for their second national title and they are considered favourites to do just that. Their list reveals a lot of depth - some teams may be able to contain one or two of their top players, but the bottom end of Wildcard's squad is better than the bottom end of pretty much every other team. Probably the key thing missing is height. Other than the Carraros there's not a solid match up on the likes of Lauren Brown and Ash Martens, but this is only a very minor weakness, especially if they can effectively shut down the known huckers. Expect Wildcard to be cleated up on Sunday.

Key player: Megan Gamble
How Megan had the stamina (and money!) to star at Worlds, AUG and Mixed Nats in the space of a couple of months is beyond me.

Keep an eye on: Loren Viswalingam
Another World Juniors rep making her Nationals debut. Was one of Terra's best defenders in Vancouver.

FACTORY GIRLS
Home town: Canberra
Captain: Jess Preston
Qualified: 2nd from East (4th at Regionals)
Last year: 5th

Factory Girls have been hit by the cost of west coast travel, with only 5 of last year's squad turning out. Notable exceptions for 2009 include Lorna Barr, Laina Hall and Lucy Stevenson. However they have picked up some valuable experience in Vickie Saye (from Sugar Mags) and Erin Wallis (from Indies). The Canberra women haven't seen semi finals action since the last Perth Nationals in 2005, so with a smaller field of teams they'll be hoping to replicate that performance. But with so many players having their first trip to the show, I don't think they'll be able to crack the top four.

Key player: Helen Osmond
Big game experience is going to be essential in Perth, and Helen is no stranger to the elite scene.

Keep an eye on: Erin Wallis
Sure, everyone knows who Erin is, but how well will she be able to adapt to a new club?

SUGAR MAGS
Home town: Newcastle
Captain: Leanne King
Qualified: 3rd from East (6th at Regionals)
Last year: 9th

Newcastle's dominance of the mixed scene in 2006 and 2007 has carried over into a strong men's team in 2009, but the women haven't quite hit that pinnacle yet. The story of Australian ultimate, I suppose. Last year Sugar Mags took 20 to Coffs, and this year they're down to 14. Most teams are in that boat, but when you've lost the likes of Nic Footer, Felicity Jarrott and Jane Altschwager (to that pesky ball sport she plays), it may reveal some gaps. Still, Tegan Sneddon and Katie Bradstock give them the edge in pace, and the two Kings will be consistent as always. Definite top eight, probably not semis.

Key player: Katie Bradstock
Fresh from selection for the World Games team, she'll be on the end of a lot of deep throws.

Keep an eye on: Liz Dodd
Unlucky to miss Green & Gold at AUG. Good handling support for the Kings.

East Open follows tomorrow...

2009 Nationals Preview Part 2: The North

2009-04-17T10:25:00.002+10:00

Short one today...

SULTRY
Home town: Brisbane
Captain: Tamara Davis
Qualified: From North
Last year: 10th

This year marks 10 years since anyone outside New South Wales and New Zealand won Nationals. That team was from Queensland, but sadly I don't think the 2009 incarnation of a Queensland women's team is able to replicate that feat. Sultry's best Nationals performance was 6th last time Nationals was in the west, and they have been perennial mid-table finishers since. However they are taking a strong team to what is a weaker field than the last couple of years. While they should certainly be in the quarter finals, I think that will be the end of the line for them.

Key player: Maylin Chuah
Has the pace and the smarts to effectively match up on key opposition players.

Keep an eye on : Tatiana Maya
Handler who plays an aggressive, attacking style, looking to gain ground on every cut and throw.

FIRESTORM
Home town: Brisbane
Captain: John McNaughton
Qualified: From North
Last year: 9th

Firestorm has always been a bit of a mystery to me. They certainly have the talent to factor amongst the top end of placings, but have never done better than 8th. In fact, the last Queensland team to be in the semis was Moreton Bay Buggers back in 2003. Last year they went the X/X split route for development and hopefully that move can pay off for them this year. There are no notable exclusions from the team, and provided Mike Neild and Johnny Mac can fire, there's no reason they couldn't potentially make semis. However I don't think they will this year. Sorry boys.

Key player: Mike Neild
The Space Needle somehow made it through the Dingos campaign without a major injury, so provided he can stay fit he'll be a dominant target for Buzz and Johnny.

Keep an eye on: Liam Gillions
"Who the fuck is that?" I hear you say. He's better known as Wetnose. Very handy defender, and will no doubt be wearing some stupid outfit (if anything at all) at the party.

Tomorrow we'll look at the East region.

2009 Nationals Preview Part 1: The West

2009-04-13T07:45:00.003+10:00

Wow, it's been a while since an update. Going back to uni and training for Nationals will do that, I suppose. So while my extensive Southern Regionals review is going to have to be canned (sorry Wetnose) due to me not being able to remember any details from it, I thought I'd launch into my Nationals previews now. It will probably take me a week and half to finish them anyway.

Last year I broke the preview down neatly into pools, but since I don't have a draw yet and we don't have a nice even 16 teams in each division, I thought I'd go by region. So today, we take a look at the West region teams.

PRIMAL
Home town: Perth
Captain: Claire Rogers
Qualified: 2nd from West
Last year: 11th

The problem with Australia being such a massive country and all the ultimate (and population for that matter) being confined to the east coast is that it is rare to see WA teams in action. Twice a year if we're lucky - Nationals and AUG. So my thoughts on WA teams are largely confined to who I actually see play. I saw Primal in action a couple of years ago in Melbourne and they most definitely had their shit together then. However there are a lot of names different on the 2009 list from the 2007 list, and they were defeated by Kaos 15-3 in the qualifiers. Despite this, the home bed advantage could work in their favour. Expect a mid-table finish.

Key player: Debbie Staples
Probably the only player I remember from the 07 side. Solid playmaker on O.

Keep an eye on: Susan Campbell
Very fit and fast. Can mark strong players and can burn most opponents deep.

KAOS
Home town: Perth
Captain: Sally Ray
Qualified: 1st from West
Last year: -

Nationals being in Perth will always produce new teams of players who suddenly don't have to shell out $400+ for eastbound flights. And so Kaos is the 2009 product of this phenomenon. Kaos have snapped up all the younger players in the Perth area, with 5 coming from the 2008 UWA AUG list. Ballarat faced UWA early in the week but were overwhelmed by the pace and fitness of all the girls on the team, so if they can carry this over to the club game they should run a lot of O teams ragged. A big win at Regionals will give them plenty of confidence on Day 1. Their list contains a few breakaways from 2008 Primal so if a local derby happens it ought to be a fierce match up. Or maybe quite friendly, who knows.

Key player: Sarah McKerracher
One of the drivers behind the formation of the new team.

Keep an eye on: The UWA girls (Sarah Brereton, Lou Delane, Steph Hancock, Danya Meakins and Sarah-Jayne Robinson)
Expect to see any combination of these girls running the wall in a pommy zone.

HAPPY PIG
Home town: Perth
Captain: Andrew Hutcheon
Qualified: 3rd from West
Last year: -

Last year I vaguely remember announcing the death of the "pickup team" at Nationals. If someone were to argue that these guys were filling that void, I'd shout back that they played Regionals and therefore weren't pickup at all going by the policy. Nevertheless, this team would not have formed if Nationals was on the east coast, but you can't fault the lads for taking the chance to play when it's in their backyard. Nationals experience on this list is very thin, with only one player having been to the show in the last two years. They're likely to spend Thursday and Friday getting their ass kicked and their real test will be if they're still holding their heads up and grinding out every point by the playoff stage.

Key player: Andrew Hutcheon
Will attract the opponent's best defender. Shut down Hutchy and you're set.

Keep an eye on: Marc Copes
08 Martin Laird Award nominee making the transition from uni to club.

FEAR
Home town: Perth
Captain: Gareth McDonald
Qualified: 4th from West
Last year: -

"Beware the wily veteran handler in an upwind point" was the advice ringing in my ear when I matched up on Buzz Burwell at Halibut last year. Unfortunately as well as having any throw he wanted, he was a lot quicker than me over a muddy ground and scored pretty much every point. But I digress. FEAR has a few players who are certified veterans of the sport (such as Steve Baker, Brian Vanallen and Colin Wagstaff) and will be able to outsmart a lot of players half their age. They may be at a home ground advantage if the Fremantle Doctor (while we're here: what a stupid for a weather occurence) decides to come and check out the afternoon action, but fitness may be lacking to keep up with the top teams.

Key players: The veterans
The three vets I mentioned before will be controlling most of the offense.

Keep an eye on: Felix Kennedy
Starred for UTas and Zing at 2006 AUG/Mixed Nats but has kept a low profile since then.

SUBLIME OBNOXIOUS
Home town: Perth
Captain: Christian Krogdahl
Qualified: 2nd from West
Last year: -

One of three clubs fielding two teams this year, Sublime are out to show the east coast just how much depth they have. What will hurt them is a lack of elite experience. They have a couple of players who have run with the best, but a handful of players does not a team make. The home bed advantage will definitely be at play for these boys, but can only hope for one or two upsets over the stronger teams. They will finish in an even numbered spot because I'll be surprised if they even show up on Sunday, let alone beat anyone.

Key player: Paul Staples
Has been a Sublime regular for the last couple of years, and will be leading the B team into battle.

Keep an eye on: Dan McNaughton
Plays a fierce D and will throw himself around the field like Mark Schwarzer.

SUBLIME ANTI-SOCIAL
Home town: Perth
Captain: John Daimiani
Qualified: 1st from West
Last year: 8th

This year's hype is surrounding Sublime. Their win at the BC Invitational blew the wind up a few east coast teams, but it could be argued that their pickups made a significant difference. Irregardless, the now often-mentioned-in-this-post home bed advantage could either help or hurt Sublime, depending on their attitude towards mid-tournament drunken buffoonery. History has shown this is laconic at best, but a serious shot at the title could change their minds. Right now, I have them slated to make semis.

Key player: John Daimiani
I have heard on the grapevine that Sublime's Offensive Playbook is just a photo of JD on the turps.

Keep an eye on: Cupcake Tulett
Yeah, everyone knows who Cupcake is, but he is a similar type of player to JD. Be interesting to see where he fits in to Sublime's game.

Next update will be a short one - focusing on the North teams.

100th post - dedicated to Dan Rule

2009-03-21T07:29:00.002+11:00

I had several ideas on what to do for the 100th post of Ballarat Ultimate, but I was astounded that I have never in the previous 99 posts mentioned the lengthy list of things I have learned about Dan Rule in the five or so years I have known him. I usually keep track of them over at Facebook but I thought I would share the ever-growing list with you now.

Dan once dumped himself via text message.

Dan once completed Super Mario 3 with one hand tied behind his back and the other hand tied behind his back.

Dan tried testing the old adage "A watched pot never boils" and proved it to be incorrect.

Dan doesn't use deoderant. Instead, each morning he staples a fresh rose on each armpit before going out.

Dan can't tell the difference between yellow and up.

Dan claims to have invented time. He has no idea how long it took him to do it.

Dan can play the guitar with his feet, but only the song "Dust in the Wind" by Kansas.

Dan went to the Paralympics once, and asked a guy with no arms for his autograph.

Dan doesn't have a favourite colour, but if he did it would probably be fourteen.

When Dan was 10 he shaved his cat and glued the hair to his groin for pubes. Unfortunately he is allergic to cat hair.

Dan once played Jumanji and won in four minutes.

Dan went back in time to tell Galileo he was an idiot.

Dan told Shane Warne to use SMS to keep his fingers agile.

If an infinite number of Dan Rules sat typing at an infinite number of typewriters for an infinite length of time, all they would come up with is the script to "Men In Black II"

Dan uses soapy water as a chaser when drinking shots. He used to use bleach but he decided that he was white enough on the inside. Dan hates blacks.

Dan has never been to a library in his life. He thinks books are the reason he's left handed.

Dan has picked every single Melbourne Cup winner since 1983, except for Might And Power in 1997 because he "didn't think it would be that obvious".

Terrorists are yet to strike in Australia because Dan wrote them a polite, but firm, letter asking them not to.

Dan has written several drafts of his autobiography, but refuses to have it published because of the number of inaccuracies.

Dan removed his own appendix when he was 12 using a steak knife and a Dustbuster.

Dan wants to become a pirate because Johnny Depp makes him feel funny in his special place.

Dan owns a flux capacitor, but he has no idea how to use because he lost the manual years ago.

Dan once forgot what honey tastes like.

Dan doesn't believe in South America.

Dan learnt how to speak Dolphin so he could ask them riddles to prove they're not really smart. Unfortunately they seduced him and now Dan is the father to 3 dolphin calfs.

Dan is considered a God amongst the lemming community. Their sacrifices are in His name.

Dan can jump 32 metres high but refuses to since he doesn't know what a metre is.

Dan entered the 1992 Olympics as his own nation, but lost every single event.

Dan dreams of one day becoming one of those fancy hats posh women wear at the races.

Dan doesn't like this line because it's completely inaccurate.

Dan can't drive a car but he does have a driver's license, which he uses to chop mints up and snort them because he can't afford coke.

Dan's favourite pick up line is "wanna lick my eyebrows?" It's never failed.

Dan gets confused by the title of the hit TV show '24', as he can only count up to 7.

Dan once lost a sex contest to Kieran who was asleep at the time.

Dan is so is afraid of turning gay that he only walks in straight lines. If he wants to go somewhere the rest of the world has to rotate to accommodate him.

If Dan was a Mr. Man he'd be Little Miss Naughty.

Dan once busted an entire school of trout for cheating as he knew something fishy was afloat.

Dan was an extra in Cars. He was the red one.

Dan is an accomplished skiier and would be a multiple time world champion if he wasn't scared of snow.

Dan can do a thousand pushups in thirty seconds, as long as no-one is watching.

Every time Dan gets a new Melways he looks in the Legend for pictures of himself.

Dan thinks that fascists are so named because they dislike funny faces.

While most of our bodies are made of water, most of Dan's body is made of love.

Dan once bathed in the blood of a thousand virgins but just ended up red rather than clean. Now he uses soap and warm water.

Dan is a telepathic entity that recreates the desire of whoever looks directly at him. No two people have seen the same Dan Rule.

Dan thinks Dr. Pepper is a real doctor, and has sued him for malpractice.

Dan thinks he is lactose intolerant because he doesn't take shit from dairy products.

Dan must eat his own body weight in pasta every day in order to survive.

Although he did it, Dan never received credit for designing the BA Falcon.

Dan has never missed an episode of Deal Or No Deal.

Dan's Australian accent is fake.

Dan actually laughs all the way to the bank.

Dan believes that the First Fleet arriving in Sydney was staged.

Dan has no natural predators, nor does he have any friends.

Dan feels uncomfortable eating bananas in public.

Dan had the same driving instructor as Olympic swimmer Matt Welsh.

Dan reckons all the seagulls are up to something.

Dan Rule consists of 90% water and 10% Dan.

Dan estimates that his lefty backhand has gotten him laid over four times.

Dan runs an online petition to have double lines painted across Bass Strait because he thinks it's too dangerous for ships to be overtaking each other.

In 2003, Dan sued himself for libel.

And won.

Dan doesn't like going to Subway because he feels overwhelmed by the number of decisions that need to be made.

Dan only knows two things about women, and both of them are wrong.

The first rule of fight club is Dan Rule.

Dan fathered the entire 2010 Thunder squad, and is disappointed with all of them.

Dan avoids playing mixed because his mark is so tight he risks getting girls pregnant.

Dan came up with the name for Fyshwick United. They all hated it and wanted to go back to being called ACTion Men.

There is no 'i' in 'team'. However Dan has two 'i's. Fuck you, team.

If you rearrange the letters in Dan's name, he'll get upset and ask you to put them back.

Dan can't find Wally in the last page of the book. If you ask him about it he'll yell "IT'S BULLSHIT. THEY'RE ALL WEARING SHOES."

Dan's car runs on the hopes and dreams of his opponents. It goes fast. Really fast.

Dan can set the sun on fire by channeling the power of ants through a magnifying glass.

Hi Dan!

I should have taken up Tom Brennan on that bet...

2009-03-17T23:21:00.002+11:00

Subtitled: 2009 Regionals Results

So what if I got the Wildcards the wrong way around, but I was closer than he was.

Listed below are the final placings for Regionals around the country held last weekend, with my predicted placings in brackets.

Northern Regionals

1. Firestorm O (2)
2. Firestorm D (1)
3. Brisbane Barbarians (5)
4. Thor (4)
5. Slamtown Flatball Club (3)

1. Buff Breaka Bond Misfits (1)
2. Sultry Blue (2)
3. Sultry Red (3)
4. QUTies Women (4)

Western Regionals

1. Sublime A (1)
2. Sublime O (2)
3. Happy Pig (4)
4. Fear (3)

1. Kaos (2)
2. Primal (1)
3. Suffer Jets (3)

Eastern Regionals

1. Fyshwick United (1)
2. I-Beam (3)
3. Fakulti* (2)
4. Fakulti* (4)
5. Brick (5)
6. Umlaut (6)
7. Hills (7)
8. Westies (8)
9. Slapdash (9)

1. Wildcard X (3)
2. Northern Beeeaatches (2)
3. Wildcard Y (1)
4. Factory Girls (5)
5. Southside (4)
6. Sugar Magnolias (6)
7. Hills Angels (7)

Southern Regionals

1. Chilly (1)
2. Heads Of State (2)
3. Karma (3)
4. Chilly B (4)
5. Evolution (7)
6. HoS White (5)
7. Karma B (6)
8. Tassie Tiggers (9)
9. GFUC/Roflcopter (8)

1. Sporting Team Box Athletico United (1)
2. Honey (2)
3. Bush (3)
4. Indies (4)
5. Honey Gs (5)

* As of writing, the two Fakultis are yet to have played their placing game.

Proper write up of my experience of Southern Regionals to come later this week.

"Hey, where did they come from?" - The 2009 WFDF Rules

2009-03-13T19:55:00.003+11:00

I don't think there's been a formal announcement from the AFDA yet, but WFDF have released the 2009 version of the rules of ultimate. Officially speaking they come into effect tomorrow (March 14, 2009), but they won't get adopted in Australia until someone (governing body, league director, tournament director) says so. I imagine it won't be until after Nationals at the earliest.

Personally I think an "annual update" of the rules isn't really necessary. There's still people getting around that don't quite have the 2008 rules down pat. But then again there's people playing that don't have any version of the rules down pat, so that kinda makes it a moot point. Regularly changing rules are the biggest arguement there is for a mandatory rules quiz for players. Personally speaking I think there should be a rules quiz as part of registration for Nationals.

But I digress.

The 2008 rules only saw some minor changes. The only one I can remember right now is removing the 'middle' call after a pull lands out of bounds. But this time around there are what I think are some massively significant changes.

1. Marking infractions don’t stop play. After a second infraction, the marker resets the count to 0 and continues.

2. Play doesn’t stop for a travel where the thrower hasn’t thrown the disc, the stall halts and the thrower goes back to the correct pivot point as indicated by the defence.

3. Calling a time-out when you don’t have any left is not a turnover. Add 2 to the stall count instead.

4. Players may ask non-players for their perspective on a call.

5. There is a new infraction called “Contact” for when the marker touches the thrower or the disc but not in the act of throwing – this should not be treated as a foul as it is not affecting possession, but treated as a marking violation.

6. If a call during or after the throwing motion did not affect possession, then it should be ignored. For example, if a thrower is fouled in the act of throwing, but the disc flies perfectly to the receiver who then drops it on their chest, the turnover should stand.

7. In order to throw after landing but before establishing a pivot, a thrower must maintain contact with the ground throughout the throwing motion.

...they're the listed "Significant Changes", but I think there's some "Minor Changes" worth highlighting...

8. Allowed play to be stopped if play is obstructed by non-players or objects on the sideline.

9. Allowed non players to return an out of bounds disc to within 3 metres of the field.

10. Added new “Indirect foul” to deal with contact that does not relate to an attempt to catch the disc

Source - WFDF Rules of Ultimate 2009 Summary Of Changes

On first glance, I thought that all makes sense and the changes are a logical progression.

On a proper read through, I thought, "Wow, this is gonna remove heaps of stoppages at elite level."

Then I read through again and thought a bit more about it. My reaction now is that the application of these rules is going to be a fucking mess. I'm thinking at a league-or-weekend-tournament level. There are going to be so many players who stop for stuff that aren't stoppages any more, and will bleat about their ignorance, therefore creating a stoppage anyway.

Whenever we introduce these rules in Australia, there is going to have to be a fierce "re-education" campaign to get the message out there. I'm even considering establishing a requirement for the captain of uni teams to do a rules quiz prior to Uni Games, but have no idea how to enforce it.

But for now, I urge you all to read the new rules. Or at least the summary of changes. Then send the link to all of your team mates.

2009 Regionals preview

2009-03-13T15:36:00.003+11:00

I originally planned to post this on Monday and not on the night before so people might actually, y'know, read it before the tournaments happen. But it ended up taking me all week to write, so here it is...

Northern Regionals

In the Open division there's 74 players across 5 teams, but there's no escaping the notion that this is just Firestorm going through the formalities of getting to Perth. North easily has the most difficult path to the West financially and logistically, so it's no surprise that only one team has made plans to travel. Still, there's good regional representation, with players from Townsville, Gold Coast and Byron Bay joining the usual Brisvegas lads. Expect one of the Firestorm squads to take out the title, but there's no reason either Thor or Slamtown could slip in to second place and earn an invite to Perth. Firestorm D looks the better of the two, with Mike Neild, John McNaughton and Al Don on their list.

1. Firestorm D
2. Firestorm O
3. Slamtown Flatball Club
4. Thor
5. Brisbane Barbarians

The women's division looks to be the same - a warm-up for Sultry. Only four teams fronting up this time around, but it looks like Sultry will be testing themselves with two close-to-savage teams up against QUTies and Buff Breaka Bond Misfits. QUTies lack the experience to challenge any of the three teams but they'll definitely come out of the weekend as better players for the experience. I'm tipping the upset here, and picking BBBM to win. With a larger squad and a handful of key experienced players (Kristen Nott, Sandra Poon, Gen Healy) they're more likely to last the distance.

1. Buff Breaka Bond Misfits
2. Sultry Blue
3. Sultry Red
4. QUTies Women

Western Regionals

There's a Western Regionals this year? Awesome! Since last time Nats was in Perth (2005), there's been policy changes, meaning you have to go through Regionals to play Nationals, and not just slap together a team a few weeks before. Some might yearn for those good old days, but the growth of our sport realistically means that not just everyone can play Nats otherwise we'll be running WUCC-sized tournaments every year.

I'm the first to admit I know absolutely bugger all about the West. I can count on one hand the number of times I've ever seen a single gender Perth team play, and would need the other hand to count mixed. This weekend there's 106 players turning out to qualify for their backyard-based Nationals. Truth be told, I had no idea Sublime had 35 players on their list, and that there was enough interest in 3 women's teams. Rather than waffle on about educated guesses at the strengths and weaknesses of the 7 teams attending, I go straight to predictions that are largely based on how many names I recognise on each team. Although I do think the Open B2 v B3 could be an interesting game if it ends up being the Game To Go.

1. Sublime A
2. Sublime O
3. Fear
4. Happy Pig

1. Primal
2. Kaos
3. Suffer Jets

Yes, I know that's the order in what they're all registered, but I swear it's a coincidence.

Eastern Regionals

The big question this year - is Fakulti's dominance of the East on the way out? Fyshwick have again smashed their way through pre-season (one and a half tournaments, anyway), and with the addition of Matt Dowle and Warwick Shepherd to their roster they're only going to be more determined to take the title. On the other side of the fence, Fakulti have lost those two, and are returning to their "traditional" X/X split. But since they haven't actually registered the teams it's hard to make a call on how they're going to perform. At stake are 5 spots, with seeds 1, 2 and 3 at Nationals going to the top 3 from this group. Four of the top five seem pretty likely, but I reckon I-Beam have the goods to be able to sneak into the top 3. The fight for 5th is going to be interesting, with Hills, Umlaut and Brick all capable of taking it. I'm going with Brick, but whether they're making the trip west is another question.

1. Fyshwick United
2. Fakulti Pete (determined by coin flip)
3. I-Beam
4. Fakulti Ken
5. Brick
6. Umlaut
7. Hills
8. Westies
9. Slapdash

Question: Can anyone stop the Wildcard wagon? Answer: Yes. Ragine Wahine can. But they're not going to be at Eastern Regionals, so logic dictates that Wildcard should smash both the region and Nationals. However the reformation of the Manly team under the banner of Northern Beeeaatches (I think that's the right number of 'e's and 'a's) might have something to say about that. So will Southside. And Factory Girls. And Sugar Mags. And Hills Angels. Shit...this is going to be a close race. Wildcard's X/X split might go the same way as Firestorm and Fakulti and actually put them in a bit of trouble. I'll pick Wildcard Y as they seem to have a faster team than X, and Northern Beeeaatches to come in second.

1. Wildcard Y
2. Northern Beeeaatches
3. Wildcard X
4. Southside
5. Factory Girls
6. Sugar Magnolias
7. Hills Angels

Southern Regionals

I'm saving this for last because of two things. A) This is where I'm playing so I know more about the teams, and B) it's bigger than Easterns for the first time since ever (unless Fak have more than 30 players. Get registered, jerks!) Having local knowledge means I can tell you this - the best player this weekend is going to be the weather. Current forecast is for temperatures in the high teens (yay!), rain at times (workable) and high winds (oh bollocks). So experience is going to be essential, meaning the Gack Factor is going to be playing a big part in the outcome. Yep, he's back. Meanwhile Heads Of State keep getting better, and Karma are bringing probably their strongest team ever, assuming everyone is 100% fit. With some bias clearly swinging the decision, I'm picking Chilly to return to the top in South, with HoS taking second ahead of Karma. Chilly B is better than the last two incarnations of a second Chilly team, so they should safely take fourth. Cue the shitfight for fifth. Karma B, Evolution, HoS White and GFUC all have handlers who can easily deal with the wind, while Tassie remain an unknown quantity since everyone forgot they have a team until a few weeks ago. Much respect goes to Roflcopter for playing savage all weekend.

1. Chilly
2. Heads Of State
3. Karma
4. Chilly B
5. HoS White
6. Karma B
7. Evolution
8. GFUC
9. Tassie Tiggers
10. Roflcopter

The women's side is likely to be formalities right up until the playoffs, where we'll see Team Box versus Honey, and Bush versus whoever happens to win the B4 v B5 semi. Team Box have their usual crew, but with the additional experience gained by the four Terra girls during 2008. Bush have no significant losses, but gain Crystal Cheung, while Indies have lost Erin Wallis to Factory Girls. I'll tip Team Box to win for a third straight year.

1. Sporting Team Box Athletico United FC Albion City Town Rovers
2. Honey
3. Bush
4. Indies
5. Honey Gs

Good luck to everyone competing, and come back on Monday evening and watch me attempt to calculate the wildcards. Or wait for the AFDA to do it.

The kids aren't alright

2009-02-24T13:16:00.005+11:00

Apologies for titling this post with a decidedly average Offspring song, but over the email lately there's been a bit of discussion about the future Youth Nationals. And no, I'm saying that as in Youth Nats is going to drop off the radar. It seems that Youth Nats has never managed to find a comfortable home on the calendar.

The big problem is where to stage it. It has always been in Sydney because that's where the majority of youth players are. But it has always been a struggle to get interstate teams coming, largely due to parental permission and cost. Also commitment - most youth players have only been playing a short time (less than a few months) and aren't likely to commit to a weekend interstate.

And so the current favourite line of thought is to localise youth tournaments and training camps - have them run in capital cities. To a Victorian parent, having your teenager go for a weekend in Melbourne is more appealing than letting them fly up to Sydney for a weekend for some game with a plastic frisbee.

But from this train of thought came my idea - run state based championships, and have representative teams compete at Youth Nationals. There are three key reasons for this idea...

Funding: State Associations have a clear avenue for youth funding - getting their rep team to Nationals. Whether they pay for a coach, or a bus to get them there, or uniforms. They can even apply for government funding if they are sending a rep team, rather than a club team.
Legitimacy: Getting selected for a state team in any sport automatically places some legitimacy on it when talking to non-players. Particularly in this instance, parents and schools. Because many other sports use a similar system, it gives the parent or school an automatic basis for comparison - they equate it with being selected for the state team in footy or soccer or tennis or badminton.
Clear pathway: Play for your school/club team, play for your state team, make the Thunder/Terra training squad, make the Thunder/Terra team.

The format I suggested was as follows...

* The State FDA's are responsible for determining the selection process for their team. Whether they have selection trials or a state championships, or simply "who wants to go?" They submit their team by a certain date.
* NSW and Victoria split into Metro and Country, giving us teams of NSW Metro, NSW Country, Vic Metro, Vic Country, ACT, Queesland, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia. If a state doesn't have enough for a full team, merge them with the nearest team (eg: WA with SA)
* Selections for Thunder/Terra training squads may take this tournament into account.

This kind of format would also give the volunteers some clear roles they can aim for, particularly being coaches and selectors. With an increased presence of coaches and selectors at the elite level, this setup would give senior players an opportunity to cut their teeth on such a role. For example: rather than diving straight into to be a selector for Terra, a Sultry player may be a selector for the Queensland youth team to get a feel for the process.

Over the years, prestige will be built up for the rep teams - they could be given a name early on and treated like a club team, but would still fall under the jurisdiction of the state FDA (particularly their Youth Coordinator). Kids would strive to make the team and being selected would be an honour, similar to how it is being picked for Thunder/Terra. And players who then go on to club teams would still have a connection to the team, and may come back to coach or even just support them.

Um....who's actually going?

2009-02-20T13:00:00.002+11:00

After musing about it briefly over at Ultitalk, I thought I'd actually put a bit of thought into who is actually going to be in Perth at the end of April.

Flights booked already

Fakulti X & Fakulti Y - After taking home the shield last year, Fakulti are returning to their traditional even split teams this year. Whether they can go back to back is anyone's guess.

Fyshwick United - They came oh so close last year, and after smashing shit up at Share The Love, it seems they're prepped for a big season.

I-Beam - The ongoing success of I-Beam makes the Deathstar experiment seem funnier every year. Anything less than quarters would be disappointing. Not sure I'd back them in for semis though.

Chilly - Will take #1 or #2 in South.

Heads of State - Will take #1 or #2 in South.

Karma - Probably 3rd.

Firestorm - Well someone from North are gonna be there.

Sublime - Shouldn't have to explain this one.

Hot Chilly - I was going to put these guys as a 'maybe' but I think they're going to be a lot more experience and talent than Hot Chilly's of the past and should comfortably get themselves spot #3 or #4 from South.

Will have to wait until March 15th

Manly - With Barefoot's absence, that opens up a spot for a 'new' 5th place team from the East. I'm putting Manly up there as the best shot since they were part of the show in Melbourne two years ago.

Hills - The women have been, the mixed have been, but the open has never quite made the cut. Same boat as Manly, this year is their best chance so far.

Slamtown - It really depends on if they want to go or not. North will be competing with West to get numbers to Regionals and therefore a second spot via wildcard. Firestorm have said they'll only have one team, but if their second team come 2nd at Northern Regionals, that's gonna fuck up their eligibility to get on the team that goes. It's a long shot, but Slamtown could very well come in 2nd.

Fear - Their best shot is the AFDA giving West a second slot because they're hosting. I think North may get the edge in the wildcard stakes with more players competing.

Sublime B - Similar to Firestorm's predicament, they could either go even split to get the two spots and risk not being able to shift players if one misses out, or go A/B and let the B team fight their own battle.

Karma B, HoS B & Tassie Tiggers - It's gonna be a shitfight between these three to finish 5th at Southern Regionals and earn a (potential) wildcard. If I had to make the call today I'd pick HoS B, but that's because I have no idea what Tassie's team might look like.

Singapore & Phillipines - These are the two rumoured international teams making the trip. Since they aren't likely to be attending a qualifier any time soon (what region would they count as? NZ?) they'll have to wait and see if there's room for them. Affordability isn't likely to be an issue as it is surprisingly cheap to get to Perth from anywhere in South East Asia.

Sorry lads, not this time

Umlaut & Westies - these teams were formed simply to play some enjoyable open ultimate without the aim of going to Nationals. And good on them - it's what the sport needs more of.

Brisbane Barbarians - see above.

Ultimate Evolution - again, see above.

Thor - unless they have some first born children around to sell, I don't see them getting the capital together to make it happen.

GFUC - these boys lack the tournament experience needed in the open season, especially in an increasingly tough region. Give it two or three years and we'll see Geelong challenging for spots.

Roflcopter - Regionals fodder. They said it themselves.

Happy Pig - I think this team might be forming to try and get numbers towards a wildcard spot for Perth. Still, it's good to see Western Regionals actually happening this year.

Early season news and rumours

2009-02-11T18:27:00.003+11:00

So I've been keeping my ear to the ground in several places to see what's going on early in the season. And in my ongoing mission to be the first dedicated ultimate journalist (Match Diesel can suck it), I thought I'd share some of the more substantial rumours that are floating around the place.

- First off, the South Region, and it looks like Southern Regionals is already going to be bigger than last year. GFUC made their debut in both the open and women's divisions at GCC and came 4th in both, and won spirit in both. Both teams are young and athletic, and just need the experience that comes from playing in tournaments.

- Chilly's usual two team setup was looking shaky a couple of weeks back with not quite enough players to justify a second squad. Not after last year's effort with two small teams anyway. But since then they've gone on the recruitment trail and got enough for Hot Chilly to happen this season. Coupled with the return of quite a few veterans, and the enticement of a prominent Dingo to play south of the Murray, and Chilly are looking good for title #4.

- Karma are bringing two teams into Regionals, and will stick with an A/B split. Heads of State are over in Hawaii competing in Kaiamana, and will make their selections soon. They aren't sure whether they'll have numbers for a B team, but are still working on it.

- We don't know if Evolution or Tassie Tiggers are having a tilt at Regionals, but if they do come it could very well earn South a wildcard, which would give both of these teams a decent chance of getting a spot in Perth.

- Sporting Team Box Athletico United had a small squad at GCC but still cruised past Honey, who have more players to choose from this year. Without a Worlds campaign in the back of the mind of a fair percentage of their squad, Box should be able to bounce back into semis contention at Nationals.

- Going up North now, and that region isn't looking nearly as strong as 2008. They managed to secure a wildcard last year based on Regionals participation, but it isn't likely a second Firestorm team or The Pass will pony up for the cross country flights, so they might lose that wildcard in 2009. It will also be interesting to see if Minx return for season 2009, or if we'll just see Sultry representing North.

- West are taking advantage of a home turf Nationals with two more clubs entering Regionals, which means a Western Regionals will actually happen this year. Predominantly masters-based Fear have entered the open division against a split Sublime squad, and new women's team Kaos are going up against Primal. Unfortunately for Fear they might be waiting upon a possible wildcard, while a spot for Kaos seems safer, especially if a women's Northern Regionals doesn't happen.

- There is a long standing spot for New Zealand teams to participate in Nationals, but in a non-Worlds year, and with the high cost and logistical difficulty of getting from NZ to Perth, I'd be surprised to see either an open or women's team make the trip. Chalk up another wildcard in each division.

- In East, the big news is Barefoot choosing not to participate in this season. The club's younger players are finding homes elsewhere, while the old guard are resting the muscles to prepare for probably the worst kept secret in ultimate - Thong's tilt at World Clubs 2010.

- Fakulti will be defending their title for sure, but whether they stick with an A/B split or return to even split is anyone's guess. Well, anyone outside their leadership group anyway. The biggest discussion point with regards to this is Fakulbee's performance in Coffs. I wasn't there, but one drunken Nationals player did remark to me that, "they should be punched in the face for wasting everyone's time." Hmm.

- Fyshwick are gearing up for another tilt at the title. Jonno Holmes will play a big role, and there's talk he may be joined by a couple of big name former Sydney-siders this year. Anything less than semis would be a disappointment for United.

- But touching again on the withdrawl of Barefoot, it has opened up the door for a new club to get a spot, particularly if Wollongong also choose not to go west. A second Fyshwick or I-Beam team doesn't seem nearly as likely as Umlaut or Hills getting a berth.

- Wildcard look like having two teams, as seems the norm these days. Southside, Sugar Mags and Factory Girls all appear to have similar squads to last year without any major losses/gains. But this year sees the return of Manly to the women's division. A look at Share The Love and BC Invitational registrations shows there's a mix of old and new, and they'll almost certainly shake up the Easterns and Nationals placings.

Send any rebuttals or rumours of your own to the usual address.

Club history

2009-02-11T13:22:00.003+11:00

As of writing this post, BUUF has played 218 games and had 133 players pull on a navy shirt.

We've lost more than we've won (about a 60-40 split), but we've had a lot of fun doing it.

While we've had a lot of Australia rep players take the field for us, we've managed to produce two Australian reps of our own.

Next week we get our new jerseys. On the left sleeve everyone will have a number that is different to the number on their back. It is the number in which order they played their first game for BUUF - a move stolen from GFUC, who probably stole it from the Australia cricket team.

Also next week, on Wednesday, BUUF turns 5 years old. We're not sure of the exact date, but it was the week before O-Week in 2004 that myself and some friends were sitting around in the UBSA office, bandying about an idea for an ultimate frisbee team. We'd been talking about it all summer since some of us saw it played at 2003 AUG, but nothing had been planned. That day, we bit the bullet and said "let's do it" and came up with the name.

One week shy of the 5th birthday, we did two things to add to our history.

We broke our club record for longest winning streak (the record is now eight games).

And we finally broke through to win our first competition - Geelong League season three.

Yeah BUUF.

(L-R) Nathan Job, Tarrant Meehan, Simon Talbot , Doobie Kuchel, Dan Rule, Greta Hunt, Mon Connell, Jez O'Brien, Dylan Carter

Running tournaments for profit

2009-01-29T17:58:00.003+11:00

Unfortunately there's not a lot of money to be made in ultimate, otherwise I'd have quit my cushy IT gig ages ago. But things are changing - AFDA employ people, and QUDA are going to as well. League directors, coordinators, and coaches are getting paid for their services, so there's some opportunity to get some coin. The boys at Cultimate in the States seem to be getting by on running tournaments for profit.

So I've thought why not try it here?

This weekend I'm running the Golden City Classic up here in B-Town. In the past when I've run tournaments, I've always broken even, but the tournament is a very basic setup (there's the fields, you'll get lunch at 12-ish, have fun). This time we're making a profit. Not heaps, but enough to justify the effort. But with that statement being made, players are going to expect a better service. And I'm going to. There'll be shade, spring water at each field, catered lunch, lined fields and other little perks.

The biggest thing at the forefront of my mind is that I'm more likely to get negative feedback than positive. It will take just one thing to fuck up for people to have a negative experience. Management at Disneyland tell their staff about the "1 In 74 Rule", which says that the average Disneyland patron has 74 interactions with staff in a day out, and it would only take one bad experience to ruin their day. But sometimes things aren't always in their control.

Look at Mixed Nats 2006 - the weather was shit and that's all I heard about. Nothing about the fields, the food, the party, the merchandise...just the weather. Now to one degree, if that's the only thing they complained about then everything else must have been alright. But people are far quicker to highlight the bad parts than highlight the good parts.

On RSD this week, Cultimate have been savaged for some bad parts of the Trouble In Vegas tournament. It may only be a couple of people complaining, and the rest had fun, but the ones complaining are the ones speaking out, and those who weren't there are hearing only the negative.

Now this weekend I'm confident I have all bases covered. If I hear positive feedback, then fantastic! If I hear no feedback, then that's also good, because it means that everything was satisfactory.

Wait, where was I going with this?

Ah yes, making a profit. I'm sure that folk out there don't mind we're making a profit, as long as an excellent service is provided. If it's not, then it appears that we've made a grab for cash at the expense of players, and people won't come back next year. If we do a good job, then people will come back. And the positive word of mouth they spread will ensure more teams will come. And when we run other tournaments, teams will be willing to come.

Dammit, now I'm all nervous about Saturday.

Myers-Briggs personality type of ultimate bloggers

2009-01-17T14:40:00.002+11:00

Found this on RSD.

Apparently this thing can calculate what Myers-Briggs personality type a writer is by analysing their blog. So I ran a some of my colleagues' work through it...

Ballarat Ultimate (me), SIF (Tiger & Semfel), Canberra Ultimate Blog (Bags & Twat), This Things I Believe (Rueben), Brisbane Ultimate Blog (JdR & Wetnose) - ESTP (The Doers)
"The active and playful type. They are especially attuned to people and things around them and often full of energy, talking, joking and engaging in physical out-door activities. The Doers are happiest with action-filled work which craves their full attention and focus. They might be very impulsive and more keen on starting something new than following it through. They might have a problem with sitting still or remaining inactive for any period of time."

Thinkulti (O-Shep) - ISTP (The Mechanics)
"The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts. The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters."

First off...I ran all of them through three times to make sure it wasn't some randomiser. I've done the test a few times for different things and I've often come up as ESTP but sometimes ENTJ, ENTP or ESTJ depending on the test (I seem to be very borderline S/N and P/J, but strongly oriented towards E and T). Try it for yourself here. I reckon this says something about the personality types of our bloggers being quite similar.

But I've often had a few thoughts about how it takes a certain personality type to be an ultimate player. They need to be quite trusting and open to be able to self-referee and handle the necessity to rationally communicate with an opponent about it. And for the same reason I think they need some selflessness and patience about them to be able to handle playing alongside new players and welcome them to the game.

It would be interesting to hear from someone who has more qualifications than me (a credit grade in HP501 Introductory Psychology) about this.

Playing smart (as opposed to "playing dumb", I suppose)

2009-01-16T12:57:00.002+11:00

I'm all about corporate management buzzwords and cliches. Think outside the square, paradigm shift (personal favourtie - it means "trend"), touching base, taking ownership of the problem, delivering in real-time, etc etc etc. Brilliant to use as filler in 3,000 word essays when you only have 1,900 words of meaningful material, as long as you know what they mean. But the only one that I've actually taken from my Mickey Mouse degree and applied to real life is "work smarter, not harder."

Applied it on the ultimate field, anyway. I still manage to use the phrase 'paradigm shift' in conversation around once a week.

For those of you who haven't met me in person, I'm not exactly a definition of athlete. Despite being quite tall, I'm very slow and unfit, but for every second I'm playing I'm thinking ahead on what to do next. Quite often I'm athletically outmatched by my direct opponent, so I simply need to be smarter in what I'm doing.

A few scenarios for you.

1) Marking the dump. I usually position myself between the dump and the up-the-line cutting path because I see that as the most threatening option. My eyesight will be directed at the ground halfway between the dump and the thrower, so I can keep both in my peripheral vision. Even if the dump is floating around, I typically don't bother "switching on" until the thrower turns to look at the dump.

2) Cutting in. If, for reasons not known to me, I'm playing upfield against a marker that's much faster than me, I'll generally hang about in the stack and not do a lot other than look like I'll cut any second. With any kind of luck, my marker will poach off me. And as soon as they do, or even turn their head to see if it's possible, I take off. If they go in, I go deep. If they go deep, I go in.

3) Positioning on a deep throw. I learned this off Boothy in 2006, but didn't really refine it until late last year after watching this bloke and also seeing how well Amanda did it. When running with the flight of the disc, I always keep myself between the disc and the defender - about six of seven steps behind the disc and about two or three metres to the side the disc is going to fade to. As mentioned previously, I'm not exactly easier for a springy defender to step around with ease - they generally need to take three or four steps, but with one step of mine in the same direction, they often need to add more. If I position myself right, I end up taking an uncontested catch just above head height, out in front of me.

4) Marking a deep cutter. This works quite well at an intermediate level, but it wouldn't fly in advanced level (ie: Regionals/Nationals). Whenever I'm marking someone deepish, I'll always take quick glances back at the disc to check two things - who has the disc, and who is likely to get it next. If I know neither of those people can huck reliably, I'm likely to let the cutter go as deep as they want without me following. It also results in wasted energy for the cutter - they run fifteen metres out and fifteen back in, while I've been doing nothing.

5) Endzone defence. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but if you pay enough attention to the body language of the offence, you can generally tell who is going to be the first option cut. Easiest way - who is making eye contact with the thrower before the disc is in. Other ways - who is turned to face the open side space, who is the most "jittery" (so excited about getting to score that they're struggling to hold back an early cut), and whose name gets called by the coach on the sideline. Poaching off your mark onto the first option, even for a couple of seconds, is enough to shut them down and force teams into a state of improvisation, rather than the drill they've practiced at training repeatedly, and this is where you can generate turns.

6) Endzone offence. I'll let you in on a secret. If I'm in the endzone, I ain't the one planning to catch the goal. I've found it amazing how many teams will instinctively see the tallest person as the biggest threat. I'll always start from the middle of the endzone, a bit towards the back. I never cut first, instead I'll drift towards the breakside back corner and hope that two defenders follow. If they do, someone is poached and there's space in open side. If they don't, I'm open for a hammer.

I always pay a lot of attention to my opponents when I'm on the sideline and pick up on their mannerisms - fakes they fall for, patterns in their cutting, bad habits on defence and favourite throws to use. Then use them to my advantage. Muahahahaha.

Being held accountable for shit calls

2009-01-06T13:31:00.003+11:00

"Perth are receiving the pull and have the lead 14-12 after getting the late break. Chappell winds up, and sends it down. The Gold Coast team are running hard to get this one back, with only two minutes until time cap. Taylor catches the pull right on the endzone line and quickly sends it to Morris. Morris swings to Bailey in the power position on the far sideline and he puts it up! Perth are going for the win straight away! It's one on one, Wilson versus Anderson...and it's down! Neither man gets the plastic, and almost immediately Anderson has called the foul. As we look at the replay...inconclusive from that angle, but on the reverse angle...yep, Wilson took out Anderson's arm just before the disc arrived. Back to the players...and Wilson contests! Listen to the crowd, they are livid! Anderson clearly not happy with that one, and neither are the home fans. The disc goes back to Bailey for the restart and we'll do it again..."

I've been watching cricket and tennis again because that's what you do in January and you don't argue about it. Perhaps the biggest change to the television coverage of these sports in the last decade and a bit has been Hawkeye - the ball tracking system used to show line balls and LBW appeals for the viewers at home. Umpires and referees are under intense scrutiny in any sport, and the use of such technology hasn't made it any better. Case in point, run outs in cricket. Back in the 80s and earlier, umpires made the call straight away, and got it right more often than not. But these days, if it's within 2 metres, they'll call for the third umpire to make sure they don't get it wrong.

Just about every sport has specific rules concerning the public criticism of officials. Mostly they amount to "don't do it." In AFL, there is plenty of media pressure to have umpires face press conferences the same way coaches do, but the argument against (and a very convincing one) is that there's enough trouble recruiting and retaining umpires at grassroots levels, and adding more scrutiny wouldn't help.

But here comes ultimate with its "players are the refs" system. If we were to go primetime on Fox Sports 3 and we have situations like the one above, would the player then face the media who ask, "Why did you contest when clearly you were in the wrong?" Would they even face disciplinary action? Or would being labelled a "cheat" by fans be punishment enough?

The 2008 Ballarat Ultimate Awards

2008-12-22T15:13:00.002+11:00

Not to be confused with the BUUF Awards, the Ballarat Ultimate Awards recognises stuff I thought was pretty sweet over the year. The process of determining the winners of the awards, with several nominations received, scrutinised by a panel of highly regarded judges, voted on by industry insiders and forwarded on to the editor of Ballarat Ultimate who said "fuck that" and made these awards and winners up on the spot.

GAME OF THE YEAR (Spectating)

Honorable mention - Jam vs Ironside (UPA Nationals final)
Bit of a landmark game, really, given it's the first time we've been able to watch a non-Worlds game live on the internet instead of on a DVD 5 months from now.

Runner-up - Flinders vs Melbourne (AUG Semi Final)
Good close game, funny watching Freisy lose his shit.

Winner - Australia vs Colombia (Worlds Junior Women's Division semi final)
An outstanding come-from-behind victory to put the girls in to the gold medal match. Also exciting to be able to watch it live from the other side of the world.

GAME OF THE YEAR (Played in)

Honorable mention - BUUF vs Yoghurt Slingers (Geelong League Season 3)
Why a simple league game? It was the return of Dan Rule and Sam Kuchel to the line-up for the first time in months, and BUUF had gone winless for a season and a half in the league. The other teams were even referring to BUUF as 'Bye'. For nearly five years the Ballarat style of game was carefully structured and patient offense, but this game we canned all that and shifted to a "run and gun" offense where there were two passing options - dishy or shoot. And it worked brilliantly. We've used it since to great effect and it'll probably completely reshape the uni team's mindset in 2009.

Runner-up - Heads Of State Youth vs Karma Chameleon (Southern Regionals)
I'm the first to admit that I'm rather shit in open ultimate, and right up until this game I felt way out of my depth. Actually I was out of my depth, but when Karma B decided to run a pommy zone for the whole game, it put Tarrant and I in our element. With great support from Timill, Lochie Wise and Lewi Broad we managed to take our small squad of 11 and take down Karma B's 19-strong lineup with relative ease.

Winner - Heads Of State Youth vs Sweet Chilly (Southern Regionals)
For someone who doesn't enjoy open ultimate as much as mixed, I seem to have had a great time at Southerns. This game went Chilly's way by a few points, but as cliched as it is, the scoreline didn't reflect the intensity. The tension was at ridiculously high levels after some questionable calls and the Heads Of State senior team making the most noise I've ever heard on a sideline, but everyone on both teams kept their heads and played at their best.

WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT AWARD

Honorable mention - Furious George missing out on UPA Nationals
OK, so there's countless blogs out there covering the North American scene and only a couple for the Australian scene, but this was too big to ignore. Furious George - the Vancouver team that upset Sockeye and Buzz Bullets to take out the World Championships in their home town - couldn't back it up a few weeks later to qualify for the UPA Nationals. Talk about your premiership hangovers. In the end, Sockeye didn't even make it to the final as predicted, so you'd have to wonder if Furious would have.

Runner-up - Sydney Uni not selecting Calan Spielman for AUG
It's rare that a uni team even has to cut people from their AUG squad, and I'm sure that there's a perfectly reasonable explantion for it, but looking at it on face value it seems strange that they wouldn't want to take one of Thunder's most athletic players to a tournament where he could have dominated just about every opponent. It'd be easy to sit around and speculate whether he could have won the gold medal for Sydney, but with so many teams not fitting expectations at AUG it's tricky to say for sure.

Winner - Barefoot's fall from grace at Nationals
This season was all about Fakulti. Not all of Chilly's three-peat lineup was backing up for a fourth tilt and Fak were finally making the change from X/X to A/B. It seemed no one was going to challenge them, except for maybe Fyshwick and there was a bit of talk about Barefoot. Sure enough, after pool play, Barefoot had gone 3 and 0 and were looking good for semis. Then...well, no one outside the team is really sure. They failed to register another win and finished 12th. Even worse (or better?), Barefoot aren't even going to be around this season in the form they had for the last two years, choosing to reform as Thong/Southside/whatever.

HECKLE OF THE YEAR

Honorable mentions - There's a couple here...
"Get your f**king head in the game, champ. You're in a FINAL." (Mark Isherwood to Graham Prickett)
This came after about four minutes of Basil constantly yelling "Hey Spesh!" to try and get his attention.
"Nice forehand. Does it come in mens?" (Lewi Broad to...I forget who. Might have been me)
This was following some loopy bullshit outside-in forehand that hit the receiver somehow. It was clear that Lewi had been waiting quite some time for an opportunity to use this heckle.

Runner-up - "Sydney are still in this.....harr harr harr harr." (Tim Wise to whoever was listening)
After Flinders had gone up 13-5 in the AUG final. There is not a soul out there who can adequately explain why this was funny. It just was.

Winner - "You hit your peak in 2005. You're the Andy Roddick of Australian ultimate." (Frank Simmons to Alex Ong)
The anatomy of an outstanding heckle includes clever wit, perfect timing, clear delivery and devastating impact. This heckle nailed all of them. And just like explaining a joke is like disecting a frog (no one really learns anything, and the frog dies), the heckle shouldn't mean jack shit in written form. Moving on.

TOURNAMENT OF THE YEAR

Honorable mention - Halibut (Brisbane, July 26th-27th)
Despite a missed flight on the Friday night and subsequently missing the first game on the Saturday, this was a fantastic tournament. Great fields (felt weird playing on green grass), good food, and quality opposition.

Runner-up - The Big Wet 6 (Creswick, July 14th)
With all the big cities eating up so much of everyone's tournament time, it's great to see the small tournaments are still the most fun. It doesn't get much more country than ultimate on a footy oval, with the local players' parents cooking a BBQ for lunch as we all huddle around a barrel fire. I especially liked it this year because I won. Seriously, you should get to this tournament next year. Grassroots ultimate at it's finest.

Winner - Australian University Games (Melbourne, September 28th - October 3rd)
Many would argue it's hard to enjoy a tournament when you're getting your ass handed to you every game, but aside from that I couldn't fault AUG this year at all for sheer enjoyment. And I managed to make it through this year's mayhem without an injury or ambulance ride.

Keeping in-game statistics

2008-12-18T21:52:00.002+11:00

Back in school, I played in the school's 2nd XVIII team in Aussie Rules. For years the schools in B-Town had been um-ing and ah-ing about establishing a seconds competition, and in 2000 they finally bit the bullet and started it. As was the case with most other teams, my school's 2nd XVIII contained some Year 10 students being groomed for the 1st XVIII, and mostly Year 12s who either weren't good enough for the 1sts or simply didn't want to train as much. It was almost a social comp, since we all got along with the other teams, and only maybe six or so players from either team putting in a real effort to press for selection in the 1st XVIII. Where am I going with this story?

At the request of the 1sts coach, we kept stats in our games. Kicks, handballs, marks, tackles, goals, behinds and hit-outs for the ruckmen. They were collected by whoever happened to be on the bench at the time, and the next day they were given to the 1sts coach to go over. Quite often, the kid who got 30 possessions simply by following the ball around the field would get picked over the kid who got 15 possessions, but stopped three or four certain goals with his work across the half back line.

Which brings me to ultimate. I've kept stats before and I was given a bit of paper with four categories - goals, assists, blocks and throwaways. The stats on the paper and what I observed in the game often told a very different story. Player A caught 8 goals and Player B got 5 blocks - they must have played a great game! But they simply were in the right place at the right time...it was Player C who got the break throws that led to goals, and the pressure on the mark from Player D who forced the risky throws.

So it got me thinking about what stats I would like to see for a team that I am the coach or selector for. Assuming here that I'd have sufficient helpers on hand to keep track.

OFFENCE

Goals - this one's a given, really. It's the easiest for a non-player to follow.

Assists - similar to goals.

TTA (throws to advantage) - this one is for completed hucks and break throws, as these type of throws are what sets up goals and what defenders are trying to stop.

Throwaways - the hucks that go nowhere, the dump throws that get turfed...clearly the fault of the thrower. Getting handblocked would go in here.

Unforced drops - exactly what it says on the tin.

Forced drops - these are drops from contests. This doesn't count if the defender gets a clean block...only if a receiver gets their hand to it but doesn't take the catch. Drops after so-called "phantom Ds" would count here.

Contested catches - counting the number of catches per game wouldn't really tell us anything. Nor would the one-on-one catches, given the number of times they happen every point. What would be interesting to know is if someone regularly comes down with the disc from a pack-grab. So a contested catch would be against two or more other players (ie: at least 3 players going for it).

DEFENSE

Blocks - hitting the disc to the ground before the offense gets it. Straight forward.

Intercepts - catching rather than blocking the disc. Worth more than blocks as the attack can get going straight away.

Forced turnovers - plays which lead to forced drops for the offense. Also includes throwaways on high stall counts, and stalling out on the mark.

There's plenty of stuff you could keep stats on, but these are the key ones I'd want to know about. Any others you would want to see?

G-League update

2008-12-17T20:33:00.003+11:00

Wow, I haven't written about Geelong league for a while.

Well, we're in the tail end of Season 3. We've seen a longer season (9 of 10 rounds completed) and two new teams - Khaos and Storm. And we've seen BUUF's revival from a winless season and a half, to a Goldberg-like winning streak. Of course it certainly helps when you get folks like Dan Rule back from Worlds, and Tarrant, Doobie and Amanda finishing uni for the year.

So at the moment the ladder is topped by Khaos (led by Dave Pelletier and Tyler Dickson) and Yoghurt Slingers (defending champions, led by Jake Angelovich and Josh Logan), with Storm (Lewi Broad) and BUUF rounding out the top four. First season champions Vintage (Cal Broad and Nick McCoy) missed their chance at the finals this week with a loss to the Slingers, and Flying High (Pete Nixon and Andrew Berry) languish at the bottom.

Coinciding the school holidays, the league goes on hiatus until January 27th, with round 10 being played on that date. BUUF face off against Storm, who are the other in-form team, after what will probably be a month-long battle of Facebook sledging. The semis are the week after, with what ought to be a quality grand final taking place on Tuesday February 10th.

The importance of building professional relationships

2008-12-10T16:20:00.003+11:00

Monday and Tuesday were very productive days for me this week. Our little tournament in B-Town, the Golden City Classic, has gone from a "definite maybe" to "full steam ahead" in just over 24 hours.

As of 4pm last Friday, I was waiting on the council to get back to me about the use of Morshead Park, a venue we've never used before but I've had my eye on for times where we couldn't use Vic Park or the Uni oval. And this was one of those times. Unfortunately I didn't get confirmation before the council shut up shop for the week. So I had to wait.

I spoke to Racheal at the council on Monday about where we were at. Racheal has been very helpful because she knows that once we have the fields booked, we take care of everything else ourselves - the cleaning, the rubbish collection, and most importantly the public liability insurance. We also bring visitors to Ballarat. Racheal said that she was waiting to hear from Tony at the soccer club. Now I know Tony because I had dealt with him before when trying to find a new training venue earlier in the year. I called him up and asked about the fields - he said 'no worries', and Racheal confirmed the booking.

After setting up the rego page and sending out the first email of what I'm sure will be many, I made a big list of stuff I'd need. I shot off a quick email to my media contacts (Geoff, Mel and Fitzy) telling them to expect a formal media release later in the week. On Tuesday morning I went to see Geoff and Leighton at UBSA about using their PA system, BBQs and shade tents. While I was there, I sorted out a substantial loan for BUUF to buy custom printed discs for O-Week. They then spoke to me about BUUF doing a demo in Week 1. Later in the day, I spoke to both Mark at 21 Arms and Damian at the Bridge Hotel about a function, but decided not to book either of them until I knew how many teams were coming.

It was all too easy. And it got me thinking about the work I'd done to build that kind of rapport with all these people.

B-Town is a small town posing as a big city. As cosmopolitan as we like to think we are, there's still people who point at aeroplanes. It is very rare that you need to go more than two degrees of seperation to find someone who can do something you need. That's what makes it easy.

But once you find those people, make the effort to meet them in person. And dress well. I always make a point of scheduling face to face meetings with people before or after work, so I'm already dressed in business attire. I carry a folder with paper to make notes, even if I don't intend to use it. It gives a clear impression that I'm there for business and I know what I'm doing. It's little touches like these that get you remembered and makes a huge difference in the other person categorising you as part of a "sporting club" and not a "recreational group". Some others...

* Always follow any meeting up with an email that confirms any decisions that were discussed.
* Keep them in the loop with big news for your club. Eg: qualifying for Nationals.
* Try and have the same person from your club contact them each time, but take other club members to face-to-face meetings.

All of these actions keep your club active in the memory of other organisations, and establishes your club as an ongoing entity, rather than a series of one-off projects.

More photos from BUUF Awards

2008-11-25T12:50:00.009+11:00

A few more happy snaps from the big night...

Josh Rynan (Most Improved Player) and Dylan Carter (Spirit Award) with their awards.

Nathan Job (Rookie Of The Year) and Sara Talbot

Myself and Sara going through the votes.

Greta Hunt (Clubperson Of The Year) being presented with her award.

2008's milestone players - Greta (50 games), Sara (100), myself (150), Amanda (100) and Sam (100).

Amanda and Monique Connell getting stuck into it.

Sam, Dan Rule, Aaron Rutigliano, Josh and Aaron Stewart.

The "Wags" table (don't tell them I said that) - Phoebe Reid (our wonderful AUG trainer), Daiha Fehring (our gun female rookie) and Ang Longhurst (Sam's personal manager).

Thanks to Sara and Amanda for posting some of these photos to Facebook so I could steal them. I'd post more, but pretty much every photo post-ceremony is Dan sticking his middle finger up at the camera.

Does size really matter?

2008-11-17T22:42:00.002+11:00

Inspired by the readings on Bagel Fodder Ultimate over there on the right, I decided to delve into the propaganda-driven statistics offered up by the fine tertiary institutions of Australia. And some of the crap ones as well. The logical train of thought is that the bigger unis should have the bigger teams because, well, there's more people to choose from. Obviously this can't always be the case because there's a number of other factors here at play - previous success, the presence of an existing club, awareness of the sport, competition from other sports for the athletic folk, and the oh-so-attractive allure of being a drunken slob. But let's look at university size (undergraduates and postgraduates) and their ultimate team's finishes at AUG over the last three years.

University	Students	Campuses	2006	2007	2008
Monash Vic	55,000*	6	12th	4th	7th
Sydney NSW	46,054	3	5th	7th	2nd
QUT Qld	39,919	4	17th	11th	19th
Curtin WA	39,100*	1
Uni of Queensland Qld	37,518	3	2nd	1st
Griffith Qld	37,000*	4		18th	17th
UNSW NSW	36,789	1	9th	3rd
Uni of Western Sydney NSW	35,061	6		16th
RMIT Vic	34,107	3			13th
Deakin Vic	34,043	5			10th
Melbourne Vic	33,639	1	3rd	9th	4th
Charles Sturt Uni NSW	33,251	6		19th
UTS NSW	32,708	4		20th	14th
Uni of SA SA	32,187	4	15th
Macquarie NSW	31,660	1	1st	2nd	5th
Latrobe Uni Vic	28,000*	3		17th	9th
Uni Sthn Queensland Qld	26,174	3
Central Qld Uni Qld	26,000*	5
Victoria University Vic	23,600	5
Newcastle NSW	22,827	3	4th		8th
UWA WA	22,419	1	11th	10th	6th
Wollongong NSW	22,044	2			18th
Edith Cowan Uni WA	20,605	3			12th
Charles Darwin Uni NT	20,098	5
Southern Cross NSW	18,902	4
Adelaide SA	18,385	1	6th	14th	3rd
Uni of New England NSW	17,896	1
James Cook Qld	15,756	2
Flinders SA	15,110	1	10th	12th	1st
Uni of Tasmania Tas	15,050	2	8th	5th
Swinburne Vic	14,481	2
Aus Catholic Uni National	13,032	6
Aus National Uni ACT	12,482	1	7th	6th	15th
Murdoch WA	12,400*	3	13th	15th	11th
Ballarat Vic	10,500*	4	14th	13th	16th
Uni of Canberra ACT	9,000*	1
Notre Dame WA	6,000*	3
Uni of Sunshine Coast Qld	5,833	1
Bond Qld	3,200*	1

* - couldn't find the exact number, only an estimate

There's no consistency at all with these results - we have larger unis with a weak team (or no team at all) and we have small unis with successful teams. There's also the obstacle of different campuses - generally ultimate is based at one campus of a university, and the only cases of multi-campus involvement that I know of involve players who play ultimate anyway. They weren't recruited to the game through their university. However it is definitely an option teams should consider in the future, particularly unis with multiple campuses in the same city. Spare a thought though for CSU, who is spread out right across New South Wales, and ACU which spans four states.

Recruiting from other campuses is certainly a strategy Ballarat is going for next year. Our team is based out of the Mount Helen campus, yet we have Camp Street, Horsham and Ararat to draw from. We also have a luxury many other unis don't - Uni of Ballarat is also a TAFE provider, so we can also draw from another few thousand students at the SMB campus. It's all about finding and taking advantage of the opportunities.

2008 BUUF Awards winners

2008-11-08T15:35:00.003+11:00

Anyone who has played against Ballarat over the course of the year may have noticed that we got our opponents to vote on the best players from our team (3-2-1 for each gender). Last night we all got scrubbed up in our Sunday best and gathered at The Regent to count the votes over some beers and heckling. It was a really fun night enjoyed by all, topped off with the AUG votes counted by celebrity guest Dan Rule in a count that went down to the wire.

The minor award winners...

Rookie Of The Year - Nathan Job
Most Improved Player - Josh Rynan
Clubperson Of The Year - Greta Hunt
Coach's Award - Hamish Jansen & Daiha Fehring
Spirit Award - Dylan Carter

The top 5 in the female MVP...

Amanda Eastwood (68 votes)
Greta Hunt (47)
Sara Talbot (32)
Monique Connell (32)
Courtney Kelly (16)

And the top 5 in the male MVP...

Sam Kuchel (59)
Simon Talbot (54)
Dan Rule (34)
Nathan Job (33)
Mark Isherwood (19)

The two MVPs with their new bling

Putting the 'fun' in 'student services funding'

2008-11-03T16:09:00.003+11:00

Anyone who was at uni between 2004-2006 will know about VSU and the impact on services provided to students by student-run organisations (aka unions, guilds). Now there's fantastic news...

Story sourced from around about here

Government plan to charge university students compulsory fee

STUDENTS will have a say in how planned compulsory services fees are distributed, universities say.

Under the Federal Government plan, universities will be allowed to charge the fee, capped at $250 a year, from July next year to help fund sporting facilities, child care, counselling and other student services.

But voluntary student unionism, introduced by the previous Howard government, will remain in place.

Universities Australia, which represents the nation's 38 universities, says students will have input in how fees are spent.

"We think it will be very important for the universities to be able to direct the funding to what's most needed,'' Universities Australia chief executive Glenn Withers said to ABC Radio.

"The announcement also requires significant improvement in student advocacy and representation ... The two will go hand in hand.

"We don't step back from that in any way. The student voice is absolutely crucial for communication for us understanding what the students want at management levels at university.''

How does this affect ultimate? Sports associations (in some cases, particularly at smaller unis) are very likely to score some of those funds in addition to the AUS funding they get. To quote a uni admin type from earlier in the year - "the sports association just got a big sack with a dollar sign on the front full of money, and I intend to get my hands on as much of it as I can." Get yourselves some funding for equipment purchases or coaching or "elite development" (roadie to Bathurst for Stampede III).

We might even see the cost of AUG next year reduced.

A little bit.

Please?

Ultimate media - Digital TV versus Web 2.0?

2008-10-30T22:51:00.003+11:00

I'm a regular watcher of Channel Ten's late news. Is it Tom Piotrowski? Is it the obvious sexual tension between Sandra Sully and Brad McEwan? Or maybe it's just that my couch is damn comfy and I can't be bothered going upstairs to bed. Irregardless, the other night they announced Ten's new venture - ONE HD, a dedicated 24 hour sports channel going free-to-air. I love my sport and don't have Austar (that's Foxtel to you metropolitan types), so I'm quite excited about being able to watch NBA, NFL and MLB games in the comfort of my own home.

So I went for a bit of a hunt on Firefox for some more info, and I found the official press release. And I realised just how much of a stronghold this will give Channel Ten on free-to-air sports coverage in Australia - they will broadcast AFL, netball's ANZ Championship, the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the Indian Premier League, Formula 1, Moto GP, NASCAR, ARC, NFL, MLB, NBA, all the big golf tournaments in the US and Australia, NCAA football and basketball, ATP and WTA tour events, and also the Australian Swimming Championships. The final event is a huge coup, since it has always been a huge ratings winner for Nine, especially in Olympic years.

As I got even more aroused as I read through the release, this line caught my eye...

"From time to time, ONE will feature extreme sports, emerging sports and a range of sports-related programming including documentaries."

Hey! Ultimate's an emerging sport! Maybe we could be on One HD!

Not so fast there, champ.

This new channel is going to attract a lot of attention from advertisers looking to throw money at air time that the 18-44 male demographic is watching. Cars, bourbon, beer, sports drinks and the like. Markets that spend a lot of money on advertising, and that will leave Channel Ten executives wondering how deep to make their Scrooge McDuck Money Bin. Pretty soon the other two free-to-air networks are going to want some of that action and will look to set up similar digital channels in the future. But One HD has eaten up a lot of what sports are available, and Fox Sports has the rights to a lot of what's left. Seven (let's face it, Nine have their head so far up their own ass they won't realise what' going on) can take AFL, V8 Supercars and tennis (already massive cash cows), try and wrangle the A-League from Fox Sports, and maybe get horse racing, NBL and WNBL, and throw a bit of money at Super 14 (since they have the Wallabies matches) and they should have a decent competitor. That's the window for us - this is where ultimate could lobby either Seven or Fox Sports for some air time.

Alternatively...

We could continue down the road we've been on for a while - the "Web 2.0" road. Also known as the "user generated content" road, but that's a much less snappy name. Think about it - we have Ultivillage branching out into live coverage, Blockstack with their online TV show, Ballarat Ultimate with their opinionated and biased coverage of the Australian scene and The Huddle with their online magazine. Not to mention the countless amounts of blogs with local coverage, some of which are outlined to your right.

With the technology to do that kind of thing getting cheaper and more user friendly, it should only be a matter of time before we start to see more coverage of international events. Imagine in five years time being able to log on and watch live or delayed coverage of Potlatch, Paganello, UK Nationals and whatever else tickles your fancy.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to fire up the Score Reporter to follow UPA Nationals.

Can pick a winner

2008-10-26T14:08:00.004+11:00

So Mixed Nats 2008 was run and won last weekend, with Vintage taking out honours as predicted by yours truly about 3 months ago. In fact, I didn't do too bad with my predictions...

Predicted
1. Vintage
2. Spiderpig
3. FAF
4. Newcastle Pie Wagon
5. YOOOUUUU!
6. Kaboom 1
7. Tribe Of Miniature Horses
8. Mind The Gap
9. SMURF
10. Black Sheep
11. RuBi
12. Sugoi
13. Hills Anti-Socials
14. Newcastle WD
15. Flycatchers
16. UQ Lovers
17. Discasaurus Rex
18. LOG!
19. sCAPEgoats
20. Kaboom 2
21. Wollongong
22. Kaboom 3
23. Lounge Lizards
24. Hand Of God

Actual
1. Vintage
2. FAF
3. Kaboom 1
4. Spiderpig
5. SMURF
6. Sugoi
7. Tribe Of Miniature Horses
8. YOOOUUUU!
9. Newcastle Pie Wagon
10. Newcastle WD
11. Black Sheep
12. Flycatchers
13. Hills Anti-Socials
14. Kaboom 2
15. sCAPEgoats
16. Mind The Gap
17. RuBi
18. UQ Lovers
19. Discasaurus Rex
20. Hand Of God
21. Lounge Lizards
22. LOG!
23. Wollongong
24. Kaboom 3

Variance

+1
+3
-2
+4
+6
-
-3
-5
+4
-1
+3
-
+6
+4
-8
-6
-2
-2
+4
+2
-4
-2
-2

Also, it's only just today that I've worked out the connection between 'The Tribe Of Miniature Horses' name, their lineup and this post of Rueben's. I see what you did there.

It's so simple

2008-10-25T16:02:00.002+11:00

I've heard many people say that ultimate is boring to watch. Actually scrap that, I've heard many ultimate players say that ultimate is boring to watch. I've never heard a non-player say that. Of course it's boring to watch when you'd rather be playing. But there's an oh-so-simple explanation of why that perception exists among the frisbee fraternity.

You are not emotionally invested in the outcome of the game.

Or, in layman's terms, you're not barracking for anyone.

Every sport on the face of this planet is shit to watch if you don't care who wins. Think about the number of footyheads who pay out on soccer for the 3 years and 11 months that the World Cup isn't on. Think about how much more interesting equestrian at the Olympics becomes when there's an Australian within striking distance of a gold medal. Think about how you never cared about boxing until there was an opportunity to see Anthony Mundine getting repeatedly punched in the face by Danny Green.

If you are barracking for either side, any sporting contest becomes much more interesting. If you are watching the final in a tournament you got knocked out of a few hours earlier, of course you're not going to give a shit who wins - it's not your team.

I'm planning on going to Nationals next year. Not as a player, but as a spectator/journalist. I'll be picking someone to barrack for and I bet I'll find the final more exciting than anyone who is not in it.

Also, I've spent the better part of the afternoon reading the archives of Thoughts, Matt Mackey's blog. I think you should read it too.

Reflections of AUG Part 2

2008-10-22T14:14:00.002+11:00

After a sweet party on Wednesday night, we had to front up for the game where the tournament really began for us.

Day 4

After originally believing we were up against ANU, a reshuffle of a three way tie determined our new opponents. We were facing Edith Cowan Uni in the Quarter Nine-als. This was the game we really wanted to win as it would a) put us on the way to beating our seed and b) automatically give us our best ever finish at AUG (previous best was 13th in 2007). ECU were an athletic bunch, but had virtually zero experience outside a tournament or two in the west and a season of social league. We were very careful not to go into this game being too cocky, and approached it like we did with any other game. But ECU came out harder than we did and we had a very tough battle on our hands. Neither team could get any kind of breakaway going. Looking back, we never got out of first gear, and ECU simply wanted to win more than we did. But there were two distinct areas where we were simply rubbish. Catching, and transition from O to D. If we had have caught every throw that went to our endzone, we would have won 15-5. But to quote my under 12s cricket coach, "Catches win matches." We put down too many easy chances. As soon as we turned, ECU would have three or four long cuts straight away. I tore my vocal chords to shreds trying to get our team to "point to who you are marking" but it was a mess - guys marking girls, then girls marking guys, then guys not marking anyone because they can't see who was open. ECU just about always got in 4 or 5 passes to poached players before we were able to cover them. By the time we sparked up, it was far too late and ECU took the game 11-9.

We then had a long walk to our next game against RMIT. If you ever wanted to talk about how a positive mindframe can make a huge difference, a perfect example of what not to do would have been this game. RMIT were going in with absolutely no confidence and complete apathy, while we went in with no energy or enthusiasm at all. Our senior players were devastated that we'd just lost such a winnable game and having that mood filter through to our rookies was inevitable. Our offence was better in this game than the ECU game, but our defense was...well, non-existent. On any other day we should have convincingly beaten them, but on this occasion we simply couldn't get our shit together enough to string a few points together. We lost on universe point 11-10.

After this game I was in a filthy mood. Not with anyone or anything in particular, but a combination of hangover, two shitty losses, playing around 70% of all points and fulfilling team manager duties caught up with me and I simply needed to be grumpy for a while. We'd done everything as a team all week, but that afternoon was declared "free time". I pulled up a chair to watch the Melbourne v Flinders semi final, and some Robsquading with Doobs cheered me up.

That night I got a stern talking to from our trainer and coach for being such a dickhead. I had it coming.

Day 5

By this point, we were over the competitive aspect of Uni Games and we wanted to have some fun. In the 15th/16th playoff we were facing ANU. We arrived at the fields at 8:27 (game time 8:30) to see ANU in the middle of throwing drills. The following quote was delivered from one of our leadership group - "If they want fifteenth place THAT bad...they can fucking have it!" We threw seven on the line as I considered cleating up. This game we brought up all the usual shenanigans - upside down throws only, underwear points, disrespect D (aka Protect The Castle), and created the Pinball Point, although ANU weren't keen on the idea of a Multi-disc Bonus Round. At this point I should mention ANU weren't joining in our tomfoolery and were playing their normal game. ANU took out the win 10-5, which puts another game on the "we probably should have won that" list.

Flashback to Thursday night - our trainer and I joined a couple of other Uni of Ballarat people at our backpackers bar for a trivia night. Nice relaxing night, and plenty of laughs were had. In the end, our table won convincingly and got a $50 drink card for our efforts (which equaled five jugs of beer between 7 of us. Good return). I was about to pack it in for the night when I was invited up for the Impossible Question Cash Jackpot Round. Now, I like going to trivia nights because I know a lot of useless shit. The question - "Which brand of Ford car celebrated it's centenary this week?" My first reaction - "Are you from Syria? This question is worth one hundred bucks?" The MC tried to build up the suspense while I was trying to take the mike off him to give the answer (this is the answer, by the way). Well, I won $100, and immediately took it to the bottleshop to buy vodka, goon and cheap champers.

Flashforward to Friday morning - I busted out the booze stash for the team and we watched the Latrobe v Deakin 9th/10th playoff and taught the newbs how to play Fantasy Ultimate and Stubby Guts. We got our Robsquad on in the final with the Monash and Latrobe boys and all in all had a really fun day. It was the perfect antidote to the sour mood the day before. It was also the drunkest I have ever been prior to 3:00pm.

I like winning. Most people do. But AUG was still a lot of fun for me because we were able to make the week fun. We came third in spirit (in fact, we've finished 3rd or better in spirit every time we've been to AUG) through no particular effort - we play hard right to the end, and we bloody love our ultimate. It's no secret that I'm disappointed with our 16th place finish, but we took 11 new players to their first AUG, and they're already looking forward to AUG2009. Which means we have a good player base to build on. For once.

Yeah BUUF.

Mixed Nats preview (Part 2)

2008-10-17T22:48:00.003+11:00

Ok, I'll try this again.

For the first time in four years, I'm not fronting up to the Australian Mixed Ultimate Championships. The trouble is when all Victorian players decide they have the energy and funding to go play, I get relegated to "not good enough". So I'll be honest, I haven't really been following the build up. Although there hasn't really been any since the qualifiers. Hmm.

What really strikes me as strange this year is the shifting about of many players between "states". Pottsy playing for an SA team? John Damiani playing for a Victorian team? Wetnose and Stefan playing for a Tasmanian team? Tanya Waisbord playing for a Sydney team? Is everyone taking the piss?

I thought about picking the quarter finalists, then realised I could simply divide the field into three tiers.

The Developers

Well I'm not going to call it "The Shit Teams", am I? Last year I predicted that we have seen the last of the "party teams" at Mixed Nats, with the qualification process making sure folks have been stacking their lineups to get one of the 24 spots. That being said, Hand Of God and Lounge Lizards will still be flying the flag in that regard. ACT have taken the smart approach by creating Kaboom, who aim to establish themselves as a fully fledged mixed club. However I think their second and third teams won't challenge a lot of the more talented teams. My personal belief is that NSW get too many spots, but that is the reward for having nearly three times the number of players as any other state. I can't see the bottom 3 NSW teams getting higher than 17th, and I think there's teams that missed out from Victoria and SA that would seriously challenge them. The absence of Ash Martens and Mike Baker leaves a massive hole in Log, so I don't think they'll improve on last year.

24. Hand of God (Townsville)
23. Lounge Lizards (Brisbane)
22. Kaboom 3 (Canberra)
21. Wollongong (Wollongong)
20. Kaboom 2 (Canberra)
19. sCAPEgoats (Sydney)
18. LOG! (Hobart)
17. Discasaurus Rex (Sydney)

The Nine-als

Last year, it was fairly straight forward to seperate the quarter finalists from the rest of the field, but this year the line is a bit more blurry. UQ Lovers have a great lineup but are missing a key playmaker. Sugoi will benefit from the addition of Owen Shepherd to their lineup, but didn't really impress me at Halibut (as iCarrot), and it remains to be seen if they've improved since then. Newcastle reckon they haven't split A/B, but I think that on paper Wing Defence are the weaker side. Ocean Madness' performance last year suggested that Newcastle didn't have a lot of depth outside their A team, but I think that will change this year. Hills have a large squad with some star power in Andrew Goldstiver, Lee Coady and Nikki Shires, but I'm not convinced they can break the top half. Suufa...sorry, RuBi...are making a lot of noise, but even with the addition of Megan Gamble and Rach Grindlay to their Uni Games line up, they don't look to be quarters material. Black Sheep and SMURF could very well be quarter finalists, but I can't really go picking ten top 8 finishers, can I?

16. UQ Lovers (Brisbane)
15. Flycatchers (Adelaide)
14. Newcastle Wing Defence (Newcastle)
13. Hills Anti-Socials (Sydney)
12. Sugoi (Brisbane)
11. RuBi (Sydney)
10. Black Sheep (New Zealand)
9. SMURF (Adelaide)

The Top Eight

I should include some sort of disclaimer about my blatant Victorian bias, but fuck it, it's not like I have some sort of journalistic integrity to uphold. There's 3 Victorian teams at Mixed Nats this year - the lowest since 2004. And I believe that all of them will make the top 8. In the absence of Bootius Maximus, I think that Mind The Gap will revel in the hometown advantage and get to quarters, but probably not further. Kaboom and Miniature Horse certainly have the talent to challenge for the title, but may lack the experience of playing a tournament together. YOOOUUUU! will still be in the running by Sunday, but I don't quite think they can crack the top 4. So that leaves the top 4 that I've picked - Spiderpig, Vintage, FAF and Pie Wagon. It's late, no one will read this, so I'll just throw this prediction out there and see if it floats.

8. Mind The Gap (Brisbane)
7. The Tribe Of Miniature Horses (Melbourne)
6. Kaboom (Canberra)
5. YOOOUUUU! (Melbourne)
4. Newcastle Pie Wagon (Newcastle)
3. FAF (Sydney)
2. Spiderpig (Sydney)
1. Vintage (Melbourne)

It's not like I'm bitter at not going or anything.

Uni ultimate teams are part of a larger team as well

2008-10-17T19:08:00.002+11:00

Believe it or not, ultimate isn't the only sport at AUG. It certainly seems that way for most of us, since we rarely get to see any other sports in action. A lot of campus sporting organisations take great pride in how their squads perform in the Overall Winner and Doug Ellis Trophy classifications at AUG. You can spot these unis - they're the ones with the matching uniforms across all sports, and have all teams staying together at the same accommodation. So I thought it might be interesting to look at where everyone's squads finished in the Overall and Doug Ellis Trophy classifications.

For those not in the know, the Doug Ellis Trophy is awarded to the university that earns the most points per student enrolled. It is used as a measure of how strong a university's sporting program is.

AUG Ultimate (Mixed) Final Standings
1. Flinders
2. Sydney
3. Adelaide
4. Melbourne
5. Macquarie
6. UWA
7. Monash
8. Newcastle
9. LaTrobe
10. Deakin
11. Murdoch
12. Edith Cowan
13. RMIT
14. UTS
15. ANU
16. Ballarat
17. Griffith
18. Wollongong
19. QUT

AUG Overall Classification
number in brackets denotes actual ranking

1. Monash (1)
2. Melbourne (2)
3. Sydney (3)
4. UWA (4)
5. Macquarie (6)
6. UTS (8)
7. Latrobe (9)
8. Griffith (10)
9. QUT (11)
10. Adelaide (12)
11. RMIT (13)
12. Deakin (14)
13. Newcastle (16)
14. Wollongong (17)
15. Edith Cowan (19)
16. Flinders (21)
17. Murdoch (23)
18. Ballarat (25)
19. ANU (26)

Doug Ellis Trophy Classification
number in brackets denotes actual ranking

1. UWA (1)
2. Monash (3)
3. Melbourne (4)
4. Ballarat (5)
5. Macquarie (7)
6. Adelaide (8)
7. Sydney (9)
8. Latrobe (12)
9. Griffith (13)
10. Deakin (19)
11. Flinders (20)
12. UTS (22)
13. Murdoch (23)
14. Newcastle (24)
15. Wollongong (25)
16. QUT (26)
17. Edith Cowan (27)
18. ANU (28)
19. RMIT (31)

So what can we learn from this? Well, we can identify which campus sporting organisations would give a shit in starting up an ultimate frisbee team with assistance from the ultimate community. Out of the top 20 Overall unis, 15 had ultimate teams at AUG, and 3 have teams that didn't attend. Victoria University (7th) and University of New England (20th) obviously have large sporting programs so they would be good to target. Using the Doug Ellis Trophy standings, we can add Australian College of Physical Education (6th), Bond University (11th) and Southern Cross University (14th) to our target list.

And people reckon I make this kind of shit up on the spot.

Mixed Nats preview (Part 1)

2008-10-17T00:02:00.001+11:00

Mixed Nats is on? When the fuck did that happen?

Part 2 coming tomorrow.

Geelong League update

2008-10-16T23:16:00.002+11:00

On Tuesday night I drove down to Geelong, as has now become the norm. Much better than the hike to Albert Park that was the Monday night routine for three years. But this week I didn't have the cleats packed - just a chair. It was Grand Final time, and BUUF wasn't in it. Again. In fact, BUUF lost every game this season. The game was between Flying High and Yoghurt Slingers. Both teams had around 14 or 15 players, all itching to get game time.

The standard of the first round of Geelong League a few months back wasn't crash hot, and BUUF had a bit of a stroll through the park for the first few weeks. But the standard jumped. Dramatically. And the game on Tuesday night was a bloody good game. Dan and I speculated on the possible match-ups... Jake Angelovich versus Lewi Broad, Pete Nixon versus Dave Pelletier, Tyler Dickson versus whoever wanted to follow him on a deep cut, and Maddie Thomson versus anyone cutting in. But those match-ups got changed up, with several other kids taking the job of Boss and Jake-As. Dave P continued to run wild, but his targets were limited. Andrew Berry threw himself at countless stray discs - I think he took about four or five catches on second efforts. Luke McCully caught anything thrown remotely near him. It was a great game to watch.

Flying High won in the end, but next season they'll be two teams. You see, Slingers and Flying High have a LOT of players. Last time BUUF played Slingers they had 19 players. The growth of this league is ridiculous, and with the warmer weather starting to (finally) show, it'll happen faster. So the move to a new venue (Deakin University) and expansion to 6 teams is necessary. Am I working towards a point here? Yes.

Everyone...well, the AFDA and UPA, seems to banging on about youth development. And while I thought the intentions were good, I wondered why we were reaching out to an audience that can't drive themselves to tournaments. But with the enthusiasm, energy and improvement shown over these last few months, I'm sold. Kids all the way.

Reflections of AUG

2008-10-12T14:26:00.002+11:00

It's been over a week since I dragged my worn out self back to B-Town after a long, arduous week at Australian Uni Games. There's been plenty of write-ups around the place about what went on among the top few teams, so I thought I'd focus on Ballarat's efforts down the bottom end of the table. We finished 16th out of the 19 teams after making it through to the top 12 on Day 2, which I am incredibly disappointed with. I thought we had the capability to finish top 10, and if we were given the week again, I have no doubt we'd have been in Deakin's place playing Latrobe for 9th spot on Friday.

So what went wrong?

Actually, that's an unfair question. We should be asking ourselves, "What could we have done better?" And the answer is easy - better preparation. We had 16 players - 5 with AUG experience, 3 who were at the higher end of the learning curve but hadn't played a tournament longer than two days, and 8 whose ultimate experience level stood somewhere between 'little' and 'none'. Our biggest training (the week before holidays) saw 12 players in attendance. More commonly we had 4 or 5 show up at any one time, and our Geelong league team consisted mostly of non-uni players. The first time all 16 of us were in one place at one time was at the backpackers bar on the Sunday night. As best as we'd tried to make it happen, we did not have 16 players on the same page come Monday morning.

Day 1

Our first match up was against QUT. I knew that they didn't have much going for them, with all but one player making their debut. But I didn't tell our team that - we wanted to go out and do what we practiced. And that's exactly what we did. Once our jittery throws got out of our system early, we cruised to a 15-2 win. Our next game was against Sydney, and our team had caught wind of the hype. It was Suufa's first game, and they weren't keen on showing any mercy. The game was over 15-0 in about 40 minutes, but we'd showed some promise on defense. The third game against UWA was the biggest shock of the day. In years past, BUUF vs UWA was always a tough, hard fought game, but this year we got rolled 15-1. UWA brought the one thing we left at home somewhere - intensity. In the first 10 minutes, we got stalled out four times. Our newbies faced up against a pommy zone and a LOUD sideline, and they froze. They completely forgot the one thing Greta had drilled into them at training all year ("turn and look at your dump on stall 5") and would throw away on stall 8 or just not even throw at all. We pulled our experienced handlers back behind the disc to work their zone around a bit, even if it meant we weren't going to score. After several breaks through the zone and an eventual score after a magnificent drive of around 40 passes, UWA abandoned their zone. We'd achieved one of our aims - face up to a top team and force them to rethink their strategy.

Day 2

Our final pool game was against Wollongong - 7 players who had never played before. We approached this game with the completely wrong attitude (walk-in-the-park). Our key players didn't hit their stride at all (I didn't even cleat up until 30 minutes into the game) and our D was flat out lazy. It wasn't until 10 minutes to go, and we were down 5-4, that Coach Greta put her game face on and called a rockstar line. We closed out the game 7-5, and we were through to Pool E. That afternoon we faced Flinders, who possessed a very strong lineup. However it was remarkably similar to the team we beat for the bronze medal at SUG in 2006. Hmmm. This game demonstrated just how long two years is in frisbee (ie: it's pretty much fucking era), but Flinders approached this game very differently to Sydney. They came out all guns blazing until half (8-0), and then took the foot off the pedal. Joel Pillar didn't play the rest of the game, while Erin Wallis and Sean Lace only played a couple of points each. The second half went Flinders' way 7-4, but their tactic of resting their key players obviously payed off later in the week. The game against Adelaide was a similar story to the UWA game - we contained them on D to the point where they didn't get easy goals, but we simply couldn't get our shit together on O. The 2 points we got against them were the result of steady, patient O - something we couldn't consistently achieve.

Day 3

We only had two games on Wednesday to round out the Pool E games - Latrobe and Melbourne. By now we'd identified where we were getting killed - the transition from O to D. Our new players were too used to both teams taking their time to set up on a turn, and had never come up against teams that "run and gun" off a turn. In previous games, we'd turn in our endzone, and 10 passes later, the opposition was shooting for their endzone and we still hadn't matched up man-on-man. Our big focus against Latrobe was getting that done. And we did. There was a strong cross wind in this game, and both team's zone D was forcing turns, their's moreso than ours. Latrobe would often break past our wall, and our deep and wings would be able to pick off risky punts to the endzone. However our O could never get it moving because Latrobe's wings would play short enough to mark the handlers, leaving only their deep to police the entire field behind their wall. And it worked - have you ever tried breaking a force, around a wall to hit a marked cutter while throwing upwind? And that was just to hit the dump. In the end we started taking risks on long throws to force their wings to get out back. Despite a lot of turns, this worked and we were able to get 4 points and hold out until timecap for the first time (in a losing game). Latrobe 11-4.

In the afternoon we faced Melbourne, minus Tarrant Meehan and Michelle Phillips who were resting injuries. At this point we were content just to get out there and work on our weaknesses - we were finishing 6th in Pool E no matter what, and Melbourne were relying on some convoluted result to finish higher than 4th, so the game was more or less a dead rubber. Once again, zone D was the order of the day, although the wind had died down since the morning. As expect, Chris Freise ran the show on O, and his upwind hucks always came when they were least expected and caught our deep and wings out every time. We simply could match their efforts, and were relying on short throws. We eventually started to use the width of the field and opened up several gaps in a tiring zone and got 2 points, but Melbourne closed out the game 14-2.

For the final point, we opted for a bit of fun. We suggested to Melbourne we have an "all-in" point - 16 on 16. They took the line, while only myself and Doobie took the O line for BUUF. As the pull went up, Melbourne sent their two rookie girls down to play D. Doobs and I had great fun with this - blatant fakes, directionless cuts, and bullshit throws that should only be reserved for showing off down at the beach. We turned it over around 5 metres from the endzone. Sadface. Chaos ensued as the rest of our squad stormed the field, and in the end, we got the point.

My memory of Wednesday night and beyond is hazy at best due to a kick-ass Rubix Cube party at The Precinct. I'll continue this story when I start getting Lost episode-style flashbacks.

2008 Uni Games Preview: Part 3

2008-09-28T09:26:00.004+10:00

It's 9:30am on Sunday, and all the interstate folk are arriving in Melbourne and getting settled. The excitement is starting to reach fever pitch as we are less than 24 hours away from the first pull.

And I'm at bloody work.

Still, gives me time to go over my thoughts and predictions for the week ahead. In keeping with my ubernerdishness, I actually bothered to go through the draw and predict each head to head game. And these are the final standings I've come up with...

1. Sydney
2. Monash
3. Melbourne
4. Flinders
5. Latrobe
6. UWA
7. Newcastle
8. Macquarie
9. Adelaide
10. Ballarat
11. Murdoch
12. Griffith
13. UTS
14. QUT
15. ANU
16. RMIT
17. Edith Cowan
18. Deakin
19. Wollongong

A few notes...

- I don't think Deakin are a bad team as such, but with only 9 players they are going to run out of legs on Wednesday and will struggle to keep up with larger squads on Thursday and Friday.
- I have Newcastle and Macquarie down lower than most because my little model showed them facing Monash and Melbourne respectively in the quarter finals, and I think the hometown heroes will get up in both those instances.
- Also in my model, Adelaide would be very unlucky to not make quarters from Pool E. However if UTS beat them in Pool B, they'd have a better shot of a quarter final berth in Pool F. Hmm.
- I know a lot about some teams, and bits and pieces about others, but absolutely nothing about ANU this year. They might be semi final contenders for all I know.

Now the Green & Gold team is based on form at AUG, not any previous accolades. That being said, here's my prediction for the lineup (courtesy of Ultitalk.com)

Seb Barr (MON)
Alex Britten-Jones (AU)
Lu-Wee Koh (USYD)
Chris Lavis (NCLE)
Pete Liddicoat (USYD)
Lachlan McDonald (LTU)
Tarrant Meehan (MELB)
Joel Pillar (FU)
Owen Shepherd (MON)
Megan Gamble (MQU)
Sarah Hammer (USYD)
Isobel MacAuley (USYD)
Karen Palmer (AU)
Ellie Sparke (NCLE)
Jenica Villamor (LTU)
Erin Wallis (FU)

On top of that, selectors will be watching Liz Dodd (NCLE), Rian Dutch (AU), James Eley (UWA), Chris Freise (MELB), Chris Hill (NCLE), Dave Lockhart (LTU), Andy Moroney (MON), Michelle Phillips (MELB) and Carol Seeto (USYD) very closely.

MVP predictions - Jason Gibson (Deakin) and Bec Wallbridge (RMIT)

And my picks for the Martin Laird Award...Mike Tarn and Rosie Suthers.

I'll write a review if I remember any of it.

2008 Uni Games Preview: Part 2

2008-09-27T18:41:00.002+10:00

Today we look at the two other pools...

POOL C
Sydney (3), UWA (6), Ballarat (11), QUT (14), Wollongong (17)

This seems to be another pool with a clear frontrunner - Sydney. The size of Suufa's structure led to them being the only team that had to turn quality players away this year. They love to play a lot of zone D, and why not - they're good at it. They have the most depth of any team coming, but they have been known to succumb to brain explosions - insert AFL-style "mental toughness" cliche here. UWA seem to be a complete mystery to eastern states, but they had 5 of their players representing Sublime and Primal in Coffs this year, so UWA will know more about us then we'd probably like them to. They have a large squad and plenty of experience as a team, so they should wrap up 2nd place and may even take Sydney to a close game. QUT and Ballarat have both lost a lot of their top talent from 2007, so the team that settles into their rhythm first in their game on Monday morning should take third. As odd as it seems, the weather should be a huge factor in this pool - Ballarat will thrive in winter weather, but UWA and QUT will be more adapted to the conditions if Melbourne produces temperatures of 25° plus.

Prediction: Sydney 4-0, UWA 3-1, Ballarat 2-2, QUT 1-3, Wollongong 0-4

Game to watch: QUT vs Ballarat, 0830 Monday

Players to watch:
Lu Wee Koh (Suufa) - Plays as the chaser in Sydney's zone D. Is very quick and very smart on the mark, forcing teams to either move the disc quicker than they'd like to, or to take risks. Which is what you want a zone to do, I suppose.

James Eley (UWA) - Comes into AUG carrying a knee injury, but even at a reduced capacity should be a target player.

Amanda Eastwood (BUUF) - Is playing her final AUG and will be looking to wrap up a fourth consecutive BUUF MVP award. Will be on the end of a lot of deep throws. May be an outside chance at G&G selection, depending on where BUUF can finish.

POOL D
Newcastle (4), Melbourne (5), Murdoch (12), Griffith (13), RMIT (18)

If you had to pick a "pool of death" like you do in every tournament, this one is probably it. But really, that tag is only applied because there's two potential semi finalists in it - Newcastle and Melbourne. Moho are still hurting after last year's Pool A points difference debacle, so they'll be gunning to improve upon 2006's bronze. Having four current Australian representatives doesn't hurt, either. Newcastle have a squad loaded with talent, but are missing Dave Jarrott who was their lynch pin at ECC. Chris Lavis has plenty of support, but it will be interesting to see if they can hold it all together for five days. And once again, the battle is on for 3rd. Murdoch are missing Andrew Hutcheon, who was the key player in their last 3 AUG outings, so will probably be adjusting to a new style. The G-Unit are also missing their key guy Stefan Rappazzo, but have a lot of athletic folk who may give a lot of teams a solid runaround. RMIT shouldn't be discounted, and certainly have the potential to upset Murdoch or Griffith. In fact, that's what I'm tipping.

Prediction: Melbourne 4-0, Newcastle 3-1, Griffith 1-3, Murdoch 1-3, RMIT 1-3

Game to watch: Newcastle vs Melbourne, Monday 1030

Players to watch:
Tarrant Meehan (Moho) - This is what junior development does. It produces players who are two-time Australian reps and two-time Nationals players that are in their first year of university. Taz is freakish. That's all there is to it.

Chris Hill (Newcastle) - "Chilly" has a lot of raw talent, and can punt a forehand further than most players I have seen. Will probably act as a target for Chris Lavis and Liz Dodd to throw at.

Bec Walbridge (RMIT) - Bec still rates herself as a novice in women's ultimate, but a season of experience in the single gender game can do wonders for a uni player. Will get more confident as the week goes on, and may be up for MVP on Friday.

Full predictions to be posted tomorrow morning.

2008 Uni Games Preview: Part 1

2008-09-26T19:22:00.002+10:00

It's probably about time I did this.

On Monday, 19 teams will descend on the at-times-questionable fields of Albert Park for the 2008 Australian University Games. It can be said that the competition is weaker than 2007, with many big name players and big name teams missing, but I'd disagree with that. I think the quality competition will be a lot better, with more "teams" and less "bunch of people that are going to have the same institution name on their Bachelor of Arts degree". This year sees a welcome return to the reclassification (ie: normal) format, so teams that show consistency over the week will be rewarded.

Unless they're consistently terrible.

POOL A
Macquarie (1), Flinders (8), Latrobe (9), Edith Cowan (19)

There was a bit of discussion over whether Mac should get the #1 seed, since they have an almost entirely different line-up to the gold medal winning squad from last year. But as a wise man once said, "Seeding is not intended to be a predictor of results, per se. It is, rather, a reward and reflection for performance to that point." Both Flinders and Latrobe have remarkably stronger teams than last year. Flinders welcome back Joel Pillar and Erin Wallis, and Latrobe have some mystery imports plus Super Macca. With the top 3 going through, ECU have been very unfortunate to be landed in a pool with three high quality teams. Hopefully they can learn something from them and have a decent crack at success in Pool G. I wouldn't be surprised to see Fury and LaTuf top the pool, with Mac in 3rd.

Prediction: Flinders 3-0, Latrobe 2-1, Macquarie 1-2, Edith Cowan 0-3

Game to watch: Latrobe vs Flinders, 1030 Monday.

Players to watch:
Megan Gamble (Mac) - Will run most of the offense given her recent Worlds experience. Will be well supported by Tiger Webb and Neil Roxburgh, but should outclass any female marker.

Sean Lace (Fury) - Impressed many opponents last year, and now has a Nationals and Junior Worlds campaign under his belt. Will be able to mark high quality players, allowing Pillar and Alec Deslandes to run riot.

Lachlan McDonald (LaTuf) - It's Super Macca. Do I need to explain further?

POOL B
Monash (2), ANU (7), Adelaide (10), UTS (15), Deakin (16)

This pool should see a bit more competition for the top 3 spots. Monash are coming to win, and their practice matches against Ballarat and Deakin last weekend showed this. They benefitted from the leadership of Booboo from the sidelines last year, and they should do again with O-Shep on the field. A very well drilled team that has a plan for every situation. Adelaide are quite similar to Flinders with key players returning - Rian Dutch and Karen Palmer. They have a larger squad this year, but would do well to avoid the late-week burnout with only 5 women coming. These two should comfortably top the pool, with the real fight coming for the 3rd spot. UTS and Deakin have both shown remarkable improvement over the last 12 months and have been playing and training with the same core squad for that time. However they may let themselves down - UTS are all capable on O, but always seem to play into the defence. They can never seem to break free and let their offence dictate the pace of the game. Deakin have a small squad (9 players!), no aerial threats and lack solid leadership. Unfortunately I don't see ANU getting the 3rd spot, so it will be between UTS and Deakin. I'm going with UTS.

Prediction: Monash 4-0, Adelaide 3-1, UTS 2-2, Deakin 1-3, ANU 0-4

Game to watch: Deakin vs UTS, 1030 Monday

Players to watch:
Tom Rocks (UTS) - Is their "token Nationals player" but at the same time isn't their only go-to-guy. Should be playing upfield, but will almost certainly handle all week.

Karen Palmer (Adelaide) - One of the best female handlers in the uni scene. We'll probably see her playing axis most of the time in a quaterback-like role, much like Huy Vu used to back in the day. Should keep room in her bag for a G&G medal.

Jason Gibson (Deakin) - Controls all of Deakin's offensive play and has the throws to pull that off.

Part 2 comes tomorrow.