The National Junior Selection CAMP!

What can I say,

That was an amazing weekend, played with the best juniors in Australia, had some excellent coaching, got to play for NSW against the rest of Australia and even had a chance to learn from the Dingoes and play with them during one of our training sessions. I got beat down by some 16 year olds, ultimate is only getting stronger and in 2 years time itll be even harder to get into the team.

The highlight of the weekend was probably the games with the Dingoes I learned so much and it was awesome playing with these people that I see as my own sporting heroes and people whose play I aspire to, it was absolutely awesome to get to play with these guys.

it was also fun having a non stop deep hucking threat.

I got to play with abra, john liddicoat (i think) oshep, and big steve from wollongong, as well as my own junior team mates. It was awesome learning from these guys and watching how they play, though the funny thing is I noticed that they are easier to mark than the juniors, they will get more open and they will burn me harder, but they are a lot more predictable to mark since they always make plays that make sense for the biggest gains, which Juniors dont do, they sort of just run around randomly, not reading the field or anything like that. The dingoes on the other hand read the field and cut to where its going to help and be the biggest threat, so as a defender if they can notice this, its easier to know where to go.

But that said, they're still Dingoes and becuase of that can do whatever they want against us.

Abra is probably the most energetic player I've seen, his ability to play with such fire and energy is amazing, he was also a good teacher showing me what to do, and keeping us fired up and ready to play some D. Oshep had a croquet for cutting people, but also is probably the best communicater I've ever had a chance to see in action, his words are invaluable to the people on his team. Steve was probably the friendliest and most enthusiastic to play with, having someone like him with a big forehand and was such a strong team player. He also helped me score some brownie points for the selectors, by passing a perfect dump throw to me off a turn for a power play set up, unfortunately I screwed up the backhand, which sadly was the only backhand i've bladed since pre-ultimate throwing.

Ken shephard also helped me have a throwing revolution, he called me over and asked me to throw a back hand. he pointed out that for some reason I always seem to double cock my backhands (rather than one cock then release) whenever I throw my backhands, which slows me down a lot. The funniest thing was how much it affected me, i struggled to make a 10m right hand backhand without the double cocking, and I had to think about it so much more to get it out, I guess its true that to unlearn is harder than learning.

The weekend was stricken with injuries and injured people, I think that we managed to reach our quota of knocking at least one person out for the weekend per game.

first game sal went out, I got some fat welt on my knee and there were a few other crashes and bangs.

Brock, and will larkin were out for the weekend, josh's shin splints became too much, max's knee hospitalised one of the dingoes.

robbie also skied tim booth, that was pretty cool. For the few people that were left playing in the last game just about every person was nursing some sort of injury, from shin splints, to ankle problems, shoulder problems and knee problems, phil had ruined fingers so couldnt play with his right hand (he was still a weapon) and tarrant was sick for the weekend.

dale got hit in the neck with a disc and was hospitalised. we all went and visited him at RNS hospital, it was good to see him and hear that he's ok.

Amazing fun weekend, I probably learned the most during the dingoes game, probably had the most fun in the NSW vs game.

I had a few moments, but not as many as I would have liked. Unfortunately with a few exceptions of some bad throwing choices, I played about as good as I can at this level of skill and fitness. So the good thing is if I don't get into thunder, which I feel unfortunately is quite a possibility (a 50 50 possiblility) I won't feel like I could have done better, I know that every person who gets in, deserves to be there.

Friskee had a good weekend, I think that Max, Tiger, Sal and Josh will get in!

So if I don't get into Thunder, at least there will still be Nationals to look forwards to!