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.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Keeping in-game statistics
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?
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?
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
G-League update
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.
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.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The importance of building professional relationships
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
More photos from BUUF Awards
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).
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.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Does size really matter?
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.
* - 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.
| 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 |
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.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
2008 BUUF Awards winners
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
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 blingMonday, November 3, 2008
Putting the 'fun' in 'student services funding'
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?
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?
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Ultimate media - Digital TV versus Web 2.0?
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.
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.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Can pick a winner
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...
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.
| 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.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
It's so simple
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Reflections of AUG Part 2
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.
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.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Mixed Nats preview (Part 2)
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.
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
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.
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.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Geelong League update
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.
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.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Reflections of AUG
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.
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.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
2008 Uni Games Preview: Part 3
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...
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)
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.
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)
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.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
2008 Uni Games Preview: Part 2
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.
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.
Friday, September 26, 2008
2008 Uni Games Preview: Part 1
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.
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.
Friday, September 19, 2008
"Tattoos and Santa Cruz: A Lesson In Diplomacy" by Dan and Timill
So Dan and Timill are over in the States at the moment, doing some travelling and ultimate following their Worlds duties. Got this email a while back from the boys, and wanted to share it with you. It's presented here in full, save for a bit of editing for readability. Enjoy.
"The very first night Timill and I arrived in Seattle from Canada we went out to a pub called Dantes. We met a bunch of people that Miranda and Idaho knew while we were out. One of the people we met was a guy called Reid. I knew he didn't play for Sockeye and I didn't know quite where this Reid fitted into the Seattle frisbee scene. A group of 5 or so of us got talking about Kaimana and Timill and I were trying hard to get Idaho and Nate The Great to commit to playing HoS instead of Sockeye. Nate was a little unsure he would have any time or money to come. Reid piped in and said, "I'm in for sure."
We didn't know this guy very well and thought he was a little weird, probably like the main admin guy of your uni team. Timill and I looked at each other and changed the topic because we didn't think he was any good. We started to talk about college ultimate, our friend Cyle was telling us how college ultimate meant a lot more to people here than any other division. We told him that university ultimate was mixed and didn't mean anything in Australia. And Reid said "Well it's serious over here, people even get tattoos for there college teams here." We asked him if he had a tattoo for his college team and he smiled and said yes. Reid used to go to the University of Western Washington and he played for their team Dirt. So i asked Reid what year Dirt had won Nationals.
He told us that his team had never qualified while he was there.
Timill and I lost our shit. All i could think about was Pissy getting a BUUF tattoo or Reevesy getting a Badgers tat. As we laughed he started to pipe, "We're a good team and if we were in any other region we would have qualified for Nationals". Waving our fingers around counting him out a pfeiffer and yelling, "Oooh piping," was hilarious. Reid said, "Fuck you guys I'm not coming to Kaimana with you anymore" and returned to his beer. And we thought well that was amusing - "I can't believe average players care enough to get a tattoo over here. We'll probably never see this guy again."
Three weeks later, while I was on the sidelines in Santa Cruz i got thinking, "Gee I'd like to play a couple tournaments during the series over here," and I spoke to a couple of Sockeye guys about Voodoo - the second team in Seattle - and what they thought my odds were of getting a game. "Oh it's sweet, we know the captains they'll take you for sure." Voodoo seems to have acted as the main feeder for Sockeye for the past few years, with Nate Castine, Sam Harkness and Aly Lenon all making it through to Sockeye via Voodoo. Voodoo are a pretty good team but it's unlikely they'll make it out of NW as there are three bids to nationals in a region dominated by Furious, Sockeye, Jam and Revolver.
I thought, "Well it sounds like fun to play Sectionals and Regionals," and I only have to stay around one extra week to play both. So i went over to Sockeye and asked for the captain of Voodoo's number, and of course they said:
"So his name is Reid, and this is his number...."
"...Oh shit."
So over the past four days I have worked some massive harry and have not talked about tattoos at all. Reid ended up inviting me to tryout last thursday night at a practice dominated by throwing drills... and I ended up making the team.
I'm quite unfit after eating fast food and drinking beer for four weeks post-Worlds but I'm excited to have the opportunity now, despite how hard I may have made it for myself.
Sectionals is next weekend and Regionals is a couple of weeks after that. Oh and by the way, Idaho thinks there is a gap going to open for a D handler on Sockeye next year and he is tipping Reid to break into the team.
Didn't tolkien it at all."
Glossary
pfeiffer - continually reacting to antagonisaiton.
harry - sweet talking
tolkien - read the situation
"The very first night Timill and I arrived in Seattle from Canada we went out to a pub called Dantes. We met a bunch of people that Miranda and Idaho knew while we were out. One of the people we met was a guy called Reid. I knew he didn't play for Sockeye and I didn't know quite where this Reid fitted into the Seattle frisbee scene. A group of 5 or so of us got talking about Kaimana and Timill and I were trying hard to get Idaho and Nate The Great to commit to playing HoS instead of Sockeye. Nate was a little unsure he would have any time or money to come. Reid piped in and said, "I'm in for sure."
We didn't know this guy very well and thought he was a little weird, probably like the main admin guy of your uni team. Timill and I looked at each other and changed the topic because we didn't think he was any good. We started to talk about college ultimate, our friend Cyle was telling us how college ultimate meant a lot more to people here than any other division. We told him that university ultimate was mixed and didn't mean anything in Australia. And Reid said "Well it's serious over here, people even get tattoos for there college teams here." We asked him if he had a tattoo for his college team and he smiled and said yes. Reid used to go to the University of Western Washington and he played for their team Dirt. So i asked Reid what year Dirt had won Nationals.
He told us that his team had never qualified while he was there.
Timill and I lost our shit. All i could think about was Pissy getting a BUUF tattoo or Reevesy getting a Badgers tat. As we laughed he started to pipe, "We're a good team and if we were in any other region we would have qualified for Nationals". Waving our fingers around counting him out a pfeiffer and yelling, "Oooh piping," was hilarious. Reid said, "Fuck you guys I'm not coming to Kaimana with you anymore" and returned to his beer. And we thought well that was amusing - "I can't believe average players care enough to get a tattoo over here. We'll probably never see this guy again."
Three weeks later, while I was on the sidelines in Santa Cruz i got thinking, "Gee I'd like to play a couple tournaments during the series over here," and I spoke to a couple of Sockeye guys about Voodoo - the second team in Seattle - and what they thought my odds were of getting a game. "Oh it's sweet, we know the captains they'll take you for sure." Voodoo seems to have acted as the main feeder for Sockeye for the past few years, with Nate Castine, Sam Harkness and Aly Lenon all making it through to Sockeye via Voodoo. Voodoo are a pretty good team but it's unlikely they'll make it out of NW as there are three bids to nationals in a region dominated by Furious, Sockeye, Jam and Revolver.
I thought, "Well it sounds like fun to play Sectionals and Regionals," and I only have to stay around one extra week to play both. So i went over to Sockeye and asked for the captain of Voodoo's number, and of course they said:
"So his name is Reid, and this is his number...."
"...Oh shit."
So over the past four days I have worked some massive harry and have not talked about tattoos at all. Reid ended up inviting me to tryout last thursday night at a practice dominated by throwing drills... and I ended up making the team.
I'm quite unfit after eating fast food and drinking beer for four weeks post-Worlds but I'm excited to have the opportunity now, despite how hard I may have made it for myself.
Sectionals is next weekend and Regionals is a couple of weeks after that. Oh and by the way, Idaho thinks there is a gap going to open for a D handler on Sockeye next year and he is tipping Reid to break into the team.
Didn't tolkien it at all."
Glossary
pfeiffer - continually reacting to antagonisaiton.
harry - sweet talking
tolkien - read the situation
Thursday, September 18, 2008
The background of the Martin Laird Award
Since most of my readers are into the uni ultimate scene, you all should be familiar with the Martin Laird Award. If you're not, get over the to website and have a read. It should be fairly obvious to most that the idea came from the Callahan Award from the US college scene, and it's an idea I've had for a while.
It started out as a 'cut-and-paste' of the Callahan Award, but as I went through it trying to apply it to an Australian context, I found there were simply too many differences between the US and Australia for it to work. When they make the movie of my life, they'll insert the scene of the wastepaper basket piling up with rejected ideas right here. I started from scratch - who exactly did we want this award to recognise?
At AUG, there are two individual merits that a player can achieve - MVP and Green & Gold selection. As far as I know, there's no MVP award in other sports, but all of the others have G&G merit teams. I've felt that the MVP format used in ultimate doesn't necessarily find the best player at a tournament - there's a saying going around that to win MVP you have to be "the best player on a shit team." Unlike typical MVP awards where the votes are shared between the two teams, each gets their own set of votes that the opposition awards, so a standout player is always going to attract attention and votes.
But on the other hand, I have different fingers. Look at the literal meaning of the words Most Valuable Player - a Nationals player is highly valuable to a lower ranked team.
At SUG in 2005, we actually had to give 3-2-1 for guys and girls, but from both teams. At the end of the game, the two captains sat down and discussed who the best players were. This was...well, quite awkward. Trying to find a way to say that your best player was better than their best player without being a dick about it was quite difficult. In the end the case was usually 3 votes to the best player from the winning team, 2 votes to the best player from the losing team, and 1 vote to...someone else.
With the Green & Gold team, it is selected by non-players (usually coaches) so it takes care of that impartiality business. However there is always a bias towards the top 8 teams. From 2005 to 2007, only three players whose teams finished outside the top 8 made G&G - Chris Freise (Melbourne, 07), Mike Neild (QUT, 05) and Beth Rougier (QUT, 05). Even then, those teams finished 9th. There's any number of reasons why this is - the selectors tend to watch the higher ranked teams, and they may already have an idea of the players to watch for.
But I digress.
The idea of the MLA is to give recognition to the players who would otherwise get overlooked by the MVP and G&G processes. I also wanted put a focus on recruitment and development. Some teams put more effort into finding new players than others, and the "elite" players (ie: Nationals and Worlds players) already have a chance to get recognised with MVP and G&G, so they've been ruled out of contention.
I went to the Universities Committee and AFDA board with the idea, looking for feedback. The response was pretty much the same - we need to recognise the volunteers. And I thought, "Shit, why didn't I think of that?" It's quite difficult to display your volunteering prowess at AUG, so I tweaked the nomination process. Rather than simply submitting a name, clubs would also have to give a short write-up on why they are being nominated. A lot of grassroots volunteering often goes unnoticed, so the intent was to have their efforts highlighted, and that being nominated by their club for the award was an honour in itself.
The reaction of more than one person is that this is a glorified rookie-of-the-year award. That was never the intention. A couple of nominees have been playing for over two years. As I've written about before, there is a high crossover between AUG and Nationals/Mixed Nationals players, which rules a lot of players out of contention. Last year, 155 players were eligible for the award. That number will be bigger this year. The 111 players who played AUG and a Nationals last year will continue to play with their clubs after they graduate, so in a few years the trend will be uni players playing on Regionals teams rather than Nationals teams because, simply put, there's no room in Nationals for everyone. By 2011, the MLA will be recognising the best uni players in Australia. There'll only be a handful of chumps still doing the Nats/AUG double.
I've been very impressed with the stories nominees so far. I don't want to go endorsing any candidates just yet, but I do have my thoughts on who I would like to see win. Judging by the nominees that I know personally, I think we've got the aims and the process right so far because and all of them would be worthy winners. I really look forward to meeting the other nominees at AUG, and hope that they all go on to be club leaders in 2009 and 2010.
It started out as a 'cut-and-paste' of the Callahan Award, but as I went through it trying to apply it to an Australian context, I found there were simply too many differences between the US and Australia for it to work. When they make the movie of my life, they'll insert the scene of the wastepaper basket piling up with rejected ideas right here. I started from scratch - who exactly did we want this award to recognise?
At AUG, there are two individual merits that a player can achieve - MVP and Green & Gold selection. As far as I know, there's no MVP award in other sports, but all of the others have G&G merit teams. I've felt that the MVP format used in ultimate doesn't necessarily find the best player at a tournament - there's a saying going around that to win MVP you have to be "the best player on a shit team." Unlike typical MVP awards where the votes are shared between the two teams, each gets their own set of votes that the opposition awards, so a standout player is always going to attract attention and votes.
But on the other hand, I have different fingers. Look at the literal meaning of the words Most Valuable Player - a Nationals player is highly valuable to a lower ranked team.
At SUG in 2005, we actually had to give 3-2-1 for guys and girls, but from both teams. At the end of the game, the two captains sat down and discussed who the best players were. This was...well, quite awkward. Trying to find a way to say that your best player was better than their best player without being a dick about it was quite difficult. In the end the case was usually 3 votes to the best player from the winning team, 2 votes to the best player from the losing team, and 1 vote to...someone else.
With the Green & Gold team, it is selected by non-players (usually coaches) so it takes care of that impartiality business. However there is always a bias towards the top 8 teams. From 2005 to 2007, only three players whose teams finished outside the top 8 made G&G - Chris Freise (Melbourne, 07), Mike Neild (QUT, 05) and Beth Rougier (QUT, 05). Even then, those teams finished 9th. There's any number of reasons why this is - the selectors tend to watch the higher ranked teams, and they may already have an idea of the players to watch for.
But I digress.
The idea of the MLA is to give recognition to the players who would otherwise get overlooked by the MVP and G&G processes. I also wanted put a focus on recruitment and development. Some teams put more effort into finding new players than others, and the "elite" players (ie: Nationals and Worlds players) already have a chance to get recognised with MVP and G&G, so they've been ruled out of contention.
I went to the Universities Committee and AFDA board with the idea, looking for feedback. The response was pretty much the same - we need to recognise the volunteers. And I thought, "Shit, why didn't I think of that?" It's quite difficult to display your volunteering prowess at AUG, so I tweaked the nomination process. Rather than simply submitting a name, clubs would also have to give a short write-up on why they are being nominated. A lot of grassroots volunteering often goes unnoticed, so the intent was to have their efforts highlighted, and that being nominated by their club for the award was an honour in itself.
The reaction of more than one person is that this is a glorified rookie-of-the-year award. That was never the intention. A couple of nominees have been playing for over two years. As I've written about before, there is a high crossover between AUG and Nationals/Mixed Nationals players, which rules a lot of players out of contention. Last year, 155 players were eligible for the award. That number will be bigger this year. The 111 players who played AUG and a Nationals last year will continue to play with their clubs after they graduate, so in a few years the trend will be uni players playing on Regionals teams rather than Nationals teams because, simply put, there's no room in Nationals for everyone. By 2011, the MLA will be recognising the best uni players in Australia. There'll only be a handful of chumps still doing the Nats/AUG double.
I've been very impressed with the stories nominees so far. I don't want to go endorsing any candidates just yet, but I do have my thoughts on who I would like to see win. Judging by the nominees that I know personally, I think we've got the aims and the process right so far because and all of them would be worthy winners. I really look forward to meeting the other nominees at AUG, and hope that they all go on to be club leaders in 2009 and 2010.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
NUFL: our neglected bastard step-child
Four or so years ago, some dude had a vision. A vision where the best ultimate teams in Australia would compete in a league across two or three or four weekends. That vision became NUFL - National Ultimate Frisbee League. It was where our best could compete to improve their abilites at the elite level, and play an important part in the selection of our National teams.
Fast forward to 2008, and NUFL seemed to be pushed to the side a bit. After the "dustbowl" fiasco of NUFL 2 in Melbourne last year, and the trouble NUFL 1 had with rain delays this year, NUFL 2 didn't even happen because, it seemed, no one really cared that much.
The problem at the moment is that it doesn't seem to fit anywhere in the ultimate calendar. You've got club trainings/tryouts in January to February, Regionals/Nationals in March to April, Uni season from May to September, Mixed season from July to October, and "hat" season November to December. The aims of the program also seem to be a little misguided. Initially it was started in the wake of 2004 Worlds after the powers that be identified a need for regular elite competition in preparation for 2006 WUCC and 2008 Worlds. But now 2008 Worlds has been run and won, what now for NUFL? Do we start looking to 2012 now?
I reckon NUFL needs a bit of a revamp.
First off, the aim of the competition. Yes, we need to emphasise the importance of regular elite competition for our top players. But NUFL is also the perfect vehicle to showcase our sport. It should be our "traveling circus" so to speak. Have three events per year around the country, with points counting towards a place in the final at NUFL 3. Push this form of our sport out to the media and spectators - "come and see the best of the best!" And at each event, have the local league coordinators and team captains going amongst the crowd - "come and learn to play like these guys!"
Second, the timing. While ultimate is played year-round, it is ideally a summer sport. Rather than have our elite competition in the middle of winter, we should be playing it in November, December and January. Right when the warmer weather is at its best, when the fields aren't taken up by rugby, soccer and AFL, and when the folks are going to come outside and watch.
So, in keeping with the "vision" theme, allow me to present my vision of what NUFL should be like...
The locations
The obvious answer to "where" is Sydney since that's where most players are. But I'd like to see it as our travelling roadshow - have a NUFL event as a major event "package" that we can sell to local councils. We tell the councils "give us somewhere to play and stay, and we'll bring the event". You would be amazed at how many smaller councils would jump at an opportunity like this - fields would be free, we could find local sponsors to help for catering, and we could get bulk discounts on accomodation. We could even tie it in to existing events - have a NUFL event played on Austar Arena on the same weekend as the Ballarat Show in November, or even down at the Peanut Farm Reserve during the St Kilda Festival in early February. The crowds are already there.
The teams
There's two routes we could go with this - have the top 6 open and top 4 women's Australian clubs from Nationals be invited to NUFL. So a hypothetical 2008/2009 NUFL would have Fakulti, Fyshwick United, I-Beam, Heads Of State, Chilly and Taipans or Sublime in the open, and Wildcard, Southside, Factory Girls and Team Box for the women. However, as I've previously stated, I have a problem with the marketability of existing team names. Plus we'd be leaving out talented interstate players. So here's the system I'd propose.
- Have existing groups "bid" for a team. For example, Chilly's leaders might bid for a Victorian team, while QUDA might bid for a Queensland team.
- Teams then pick X amount of players from their region, followed by interstate players via a draft.
"But that's exactly what NUFL already does!" I hear you cry. Not so fast, I say. We would have to emphasise the new entities having a seperate identity from their clubs, and having them identify with a geographical region. This would be specifically aimed at spectators, sponsors and local media. People are more likely to stick with a sport if there's a team or athlete they can identify with and support, and the easiest way to give them that is by having teams named for the states or cities they are from. At a NUFL event in Geelong, spectators are going to be instantly drawn to a team called Victoria Vikings, rather than a team called Team Box or Firestorm or whatever. After they've seen the Vikings play at NUFL 1 in November, they'll click onto the website in December and January to see how they went at NUFL 2 and NUFL 3.
The atmosphere
At risk of being accused of "selling out", we would have to make the events very spectator-friendly. We'd want it to be a day out for them - heaps of space between fields to allow people to set up deckchairs and picnic rugs, scoreboards on both sides, food and drink vendors, people distributing magazines with player names and photos, big noticeboards with fixtures and current league standings. I would think ground announcers would be a must - for things such as "goal caught by Player X with the assist from Player Y", and "foul called by Team A, contested by Team B, so the disc will go back to Player Z to restart play."
I let my imagination run wild a bit - corporate marquees, elevated above the fields a bit for a better view, for sponsors and the like. Live DJs playing sets between games. Team mascots. NUFL merchandise (official discs and Gaia shirts). Photos and video highlights posted on the website. A sideline bar on one field, like WUCC and Worlds.
Let's keep Nationals for the players, and take NUFL to the world.
Fast forward to 2008, and NUFL seemed to be pushed to the side a bit. After the "dustbowl" fiasco of NUFL 2 in Melbourne last year, and the trouble NUFL 1 had with rain delays this year, NUFL 2 didn't even happen because, it seemed, no one really cared that much.
The problem at the moment is that it doesn't seem to fit anywhere in the ultimate calendar. You've got club trainings/tryouts in January to February, Regionals/Nationals in March to April, Uni season from May to September, Mixed season from July to October, and "hat" season November to December. The aims of the program also seem to be a little misguided. Initially it was started in the wake of 2004 Worlds after the powers that be identified a need for regular elite competition in preparation for 2006 WUCC and 2008 Worlds. But now 2008 Worlds has been run and won, what now for NUFL? Do we start looking to 2012 now?
I reckon NUFL needs a bit of a revamp.
First off, the aim of the competition. Yes, we need to emphasise the importance of regular elite competition for our top players. But NUFL is also the perfect vehicle to showcase our sport. It should be our "traveling circus" so to speak. Have three events per year around the country, with points counting towards a place in the final at NUFL 3. Push this form of our sport out to the media and spectators - "come and see the best of the best!" And at each event, have the local league coordinators and team captains going amongst the crowd - "come and learn to play like these guys!"
Second, the timing. While ultimate is played year-round, it is ideally a summer sport. Rather than have our elite competition in the middle of winter, we should be playing it in November, December and January. Right when the warmer weather is at its best, when the fields aren't taken up by rugby, soccer and AFL, and when the folks are going to come outside and watch.
So, in keeping with the "vision" theme, allow me to present my vision of what NUFL should be like...
The locations
The obvious answer to "where" is Sydney since that's where most players are. But I'd like to see it as our travelling roadshow - have a NUFL event as a major event "package" that we can sell to local councils. We tell the councils "give us somewhere to play and stay, and we'll bring the event". You would be amazed at how many smaller councils would jump at an opportunity like this - fields would be free, we could find local sponsors to help for catering, and we could get bulk discounts on accomodation. We could even tie it in to existing events - have a NUFL event played on Austar Arena on the same weekend as the Ballarat Show in November, or even down at the Peanut Farm Reserve during the St Kilda Festival in early February. The crowds are already there.
The teams
There's two routes we could go with this - have the top 6 open and top 4 women's Australian clubs from Nationals be invited to NUFL. So a hypothetical 2008/2009 NUFL would have Fakulti, Fyshwick United, I-Beam, Heads Of State, Chilly and Taipans or Sublime in the open, and Wildcard, Southside, Factory Girls and Team Box for the women. However, as I've previously stated, I have a problem with the marketability of existing team names. Plus we'd be leaving out talented interstate players. So here's the system I'd propose.
- Have existing groups "bid" for a team. For example, Chilly's leaders might bid for a Victorian team, while QUDA might bid for a Queensland team.
- Teams then pick X amount of players from their region, followed by interstate players via a draft.
"But that's exactly what NUFL already does!" I hear you cry. Not so fast, I say. We would have to emphasise the new entities having a seperate identity from their clubs, and having them identify with a geographical region. This would be specifically aimed at spectators, sponsors and local media. People are more likely to stick with a sport if there's a team or athlete they can identify with and support, and the easiest way to give them that is by having teams named for the states or cities they are from. At a NUFL event in Geelong, spectators are going to be instantly drawn to a team called Victoria Vikings, rather than a team called Team Box or Firestorm or whatever. After they've seen the Vikings play at NUFL 1 in November, they'll click onto the website in December and January to see how they went at NUFL 2 and NUFL 3.
The atmosphere
At risk of being accused of "selling out", we would have to make the events very spectator-friendly. We'd want it to be a day out for them - heaps of space between fields to allow people to set up deckchairs and picnic rugs, scoreboards on both sides, food and drink vendors, people distributing magazines with player names and photos, big noticeboards with fixtures and current league standings. I would think ground announcers would be a must - for things such as "goal caught by Player X with the assist from Player Y", and "foul called by Team A, contested by Team B, so the disc will go back to Player Z to restart play."
I let my imagination run wild a bit - corporate marquees, elevated above the fields a bit for a better view, for sponsors and the like. Live DJs playing sets between games. Team mascots. NUFL merchandise (official discs and Gaia shirts). Photos and video highlights posted on the website. A sideline bar on one field, like WUCC and Worlds.
Let's keep Nationals for the players, and take NUFL to the world.
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