This is sort of a mesh together of my experiences playing for Fakulti at NUFL1 and browsing over slides from UCPC.
Your D-line is not your O-line. Sounds really simple, but has pretty far-reaching implications. For a team like Fakulti - and, I'm presuming, any elite team - the offence (don't matter if it relies on big hucks with massive takes from 6"11 playmakers or a speedy in-cut game like Buzz) is worked out. Tweaked. Taken apart, worked with, tested to see what works and what doesn't. It can take weeks or a season or many seasons to find out what works best for your team and their skillsets. You'll find that D players will participate in this O structuring, and it will rub off on them. But:
Your D-line is not your O-line. Ultimate is all about recognising weakness and exploiting it. For a defence, the biggest single weakness to exploit is the seconds immediately surrounding a turnover. The regimented, start-from-the-stack, lets-call-a-play (could be an isolation, could just be 'horro') option merely gives the opposition the chance to adjust and recall how to play defence.
I can recall two contrasting experiences with the same club in the same season: Fakulbee, at Nationals, calling an isolation play after a turnover and getting nowhere, is one, whereas Fakulti, at NUFL, using the fast break and scoring 5-6 goals with almost sickening ease. This isn't just because one team was better than the other - the iso play was working, after all - but because it shows two approaches to a D-line offence; one static, one dynamic.
Ben Wiggins has some slides up on the UCPC website. I wasn't at UCPC so I have no idea what they actually meant or what he said to describe them, but the important lesson I learned from them was about converting with your D line. The D-line should exploit the fast break. That doesn't mean a speccy huck to the endzone with marker on the disc, either. It just means getting the disc moving as quickly as possible, with the aim being to catch the opposition's O-line defence off-guard. That isn't all: the D-line should look for - or at least consider - options a disciplined offence would not necessarily choose: the breakside hammer to the endzone, high floaty break throws to achieve power position, the works. Unconventional, unorthodox methods of moving the disc achieve a greater degree of viability precisely because your defenders are not defensive players.
Once play becomes stagnant and starts to resemble the ho/vert stack of your O-line, it doesn't mean your team isn't going to convert, it just means that the advantage you were given is now nullified.
T.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Playing Outside your Competitive Environment
Last Wednesday was the Sydney Uni interfaculty Ultimate Frisbee Comp, I didn't really get a chance to play properly becuase of my injury, but still got to fat handle for a game and a little bit before my knee started playing up and I stopped.
Signed up for the Economics and Business Faculty, there was two people who played on my team who had played frisbee before and we played against Arts Faculty which had Mike Tarn on it and a few other people who had played before.
I played a little bit Arts vs. Education. Education was basically all PE teachers who were very athletic but had very little disc skills, I was a bit disappointed at how Arts played despite their frisbee experience. Education had huck and hope, lay out d's and and straight line speed. Arts had experience, cleats, and Mike Tarn (whose could do pretty much whatever he wanted becuase of the level of play) However before I left education had started winning. With their fast give and go's, and getting D off Lazy arts players.
I was really disappointed at the lack of adaptability at the time. I saw one guy with cleats against a guy without cleats, several times he saw the guy fall over becuase he just stopped and turned around. Still the arts player would start his cuts from very far away, and try and make one straight cut with no fakes towards the disc, becuase of the distance he started away. The education player could not turn but could beat him in a straight line race, and got so many d's without the arts player realising how to abuse his strengths. Arts had used a huck to a runner strat becuase of lazy defense against Econ and Business and still against education used it again despite educations height and straight line speed, this didn't work, when it would have been so easy for mike and one other player to move the disc up the field with just some good handler cuts.
Then again, probably thinking too hard for what wasn't all that serious of an occasion. It's like those times when I mark people in Frisbee that are so much faster than me, but I'm still able to keep up with them since they never realise that they are quick enough to just beat me in a footrace every time and so never abuse this. The same goes for people who have amazing turns, or a lot of height. Some people don't take what they are given.
So I guess its still take what you are given...
The highlight though was the Law faculty vs. Science Faculty, although this was a middle game being a knockout it effectively became the finalsince the other side of the draw had no competition on it.
Law featured names such as Simon Baume, Dave Rountree, and Sam Schroder (spelling? I think thats his name) and some other very solid players I forgot the names of. While science was fielding players like Brett Latham and Pete Liddicoat. It was a great game to watch. Science struggled as Pete was trying to lace his cleats up as Brett cried at him to hurry up becuase Sam was hucking the crap out of them.
I never really had a chance to see Pete play in a sort of unrestricted way without the constraints of teamwork and so on. Sure, I saw him winning at Nationals playing for faculty, but really that was uninteresting, dump, swing, safe secure passes, very clinical offense and solid defense... extremely solid play, but in some ways uninteresting to watch.
This on the other hand was about taking stupid risks and watching cool stuff happen. It was always Sam on Pete and I never really saw how well Pete could throw until then when it was basically just Pete hucking to team, or Sam hucking to team.
I noticed a lot of inside out,extremely wide reach low forehands and one fake that I found beutiful. There was a turn in the Law endzone, someone tried to take advantage of using the fast break by cutting deep (his defender was too far away becuase he was so far behind on the turn) expecting a huck to come quickly from Pete. A little miscommunication and Pete hasn't realised the hilariously open cut and so walked patiently over to the disc. Sam realised and put on a hard straight up mark.
Pete tried to stretch out wide for the inside out flick. Sam bit hard... no huck.
Then Pete seemed to for just the perfect amount of time, stretch out that little bit further that said "If you don't bite, I'm going to throw it, if you do bite I'm going to throw it" just holding the disc out there. Sam bites. Pete with his great balance and reach is able to step back across for a full wind up backhand. There was no doubt this time what he was going to do.
Great throw...
Signed up for the Economics and Business Faculty, there was two people who played on my team who had played frisbee before and we played against Arts Faculty which had Mike Tarn on it and a few other people who had played before.
I played a little bit Arts vs. Education. Education was basically all PE teachers who were very athletic but had very little disc skills, I was a bit disappointed at how Arts played despite their frisbee experience. Education had huck and hope, lay out d's and and straight line speed. Arts had experience, cleats, and Mike Tarn (whose could do pretty much whatever he wanted becuase of the level of play) However before I left education had started winning. With their fast give and go's, and getting D off Lazy arts players.
I was really disappointed at the lack of adaptability at the time. I saw one guy with cleats against a guy without cleats, several times he saw the guy fall over becuase he just stopped and turned around. Still the arts player would start his cuts from very far away, and try and make one straight cut with no fakes towards the disc, becuase of the distance he started away. The education player could not turn but could beat him in a straight line race, and got so many d's without the arts player realising how to abuse his strengths. Arts had used a huck to a runner strat becuase of lazy defense against Econ and Business and still against education used it again despite educations height and straight line speed, this didn't work, when it would have been so easy for mike and one other player to move the disc up the field with just some good handler cuts.
Then again, probably thinking too hard for what wasn't all that serious of an occasion. It's like those times when I mark people in Frisbee that are so much faster than me, but I'm still able to keep up with them since they never realise that they are quick enough to just beat me in a footrace every time and so never abuse this. The same goes for people who have amazing turns, or a lot of height. Some people don't take what they are given.
So I guess its still take what you are given...
The highlight though was the Law faculty vs. Science Faculty, although this was a middle game being a knockout it effectively became the finalsince the other side of the draw had no competition on it.
Law featured names such as Simon Baume, Dave Rountree, and Sam Schroder (spelling? I think thats his name) and some other very solid players I forgot the names of. While science was fielding players like Brett Latham and Pete Liddicoat. It was a great game to watch. Science struggled as Pete was trying to lace his cleats up as Brett cried at him to hurry up becuase Sam was hucking the crap out of them.
I never really had a chance to see Pete play in a sort of unrestricted way without the constraints of teamwork and so on. Sure, I saw him winning at Nationals playing for faculty, but really that was uninteresting, dump, swing, safe secure passes, very clinical offense and solid defense... extremely solid play, but in some ways uninteresting to watch.
This on the other hand was about taking stupid risks and watching cool stuff happen. It was always Sam on Pete and I never really saw how well Pete could throw until then when it was basically just Pete hucking to team, or Sam hucking to team.
I noticed a lot of inside out,extremely wide reach low forehands and one fake that I found beutiful. There was a turn in the Law endzone, someone tried to take advantage of using the fast break by cutting deep (his defender was too far away becuase he was so far behind on the turn) expecting a huck to come quickly from Pete. A little miscommunication and Pete hasn't realised the hilariously open cut and so walked patiently over to the disc. Sam realised and put on a hard straight up mark.
Pete tried to stretch out wide for the inside out flick. Sam bit hard... no huck.
Then Pete seemed to for just the perfect amount of time, stretch out that little bit further that said "If you don't bite, I'm going to throw it, if you do bite I'm going to throw it" just holding the disc out there. Sam bites. Pete with his great balance and reach is able to step back across for a full wind up backhand. There was no doubt this time what he was going to do.
Great throw...
Monday, May 12, 2008
Chicks Mate
Last weekend some Thunder boys (Phil, Max, Lex, Jackson, Josh, Sali and myself) and some star recruits (Eshan, Sam and Xavier from Chatswood High School, Luke from Thunder 06) were punching bags for the Women's team, the Firetails. This involved playing them in a game to 17.
Let's get things straight. I like women, and I really like women's ultimate.
The Firetails are a way better team than BLAMP (our name when we played them). We managed to pull out a win 17-16 (thanks Lisi). I think a lot of this was due to them not playing at 100% for fear of injury, and the fact that they'd been training extremely hard for the whole weekend. Most of BLAMP had fresh legs.
The Firetails have some very solid players. Though I was very impressed with perennial standouts Diana Worman and Liz Edye, also I'm going to have to single out Jo McClellan and Belinda Kinneally. The juniors were not supposed to be playing at 100% but I'm not (really all that) ashamed to say that marking the latter two really took it out of me. I'm tempted to blame it on my lack of fitness and rib injury making it harder to breathe deeply, but regardless of the reason those two girls were really tough to mark and kept up a good standard of play even though they must have been ragged from the end of the weekend.
On a slightly more important scale, I was really impressed by the Firetails team game. They played a very aggressive straight up defence, and their sideline let each woman on the mark know what was happening without flooding the air with useless yelling. There was a lot of intelligent switching from their end, which I really liked. They really worked us on some iso/sandshoe/feldy type offences, and after about an hour of gametime (after which most of us were out of sprint juice, somewhat negating the physiological advantage we had over some of them) their man defence was pretty strong.
I'm not sure exactly what they wanted to work on, because I'm not in their team - I should have asked! - but I really wanted to see them let loose their long game. They generally did not throw it long against us, unless it was to Mama or a blatant mismatch/no defender. It wasn't a huge downside to their game - what they were doing was working well enough, after all.
T.
Let's get things straight. I like women, and I really like women's ultimate.
The Firetails are a way better team than BLAMP (our name when we played them). We managed to pull out a win 17-16 (thanks Lisi). I think a lot of this was due to them not playing at 100% for fear of injury, and the fact that they'd been training extremely hard for the whole weekend. Most of BLAMP had fresh legs.
The Firetails have some very solid players. Though I was very impressed with perennial standouts Diana Worman and Liz Edye, also I'm going to have to single out Jo McClellan and Belinda Kinneally. The juniors were not supposed to be playing at 100% but I'm not (really all that) ashamed to say that marking the latter two really took it out of me. I'm tempted to blame it on my lack of fitness and rib injury making it harder to breathe deeply, but regardless of the reason those two girls were really tough to mark and kept up a good standard of play even though they must have been ragged from the end of the weekend.
On a slightly more important scale, I was really impressed by the Firetails team game. They played a very aggressive straight up defence, and their sideline let each woman on the mark know what was happening without flooding the air with useless yelling. There was a lot of intelligent switching from their end, which I really liked. They really worked us on some iso/sandshoe/feldy type offences, and after about an hour of gametime (after which most of us were out of sprint juice, somewhat negating the physiological advantage we had over some of them) their man defence was pretty strong.
I'm not sure exactly what they wanted to work on, because I'm not in their team - I should have asked! - but I really wanted to see them let loose their long game. They generally did not throw it long against us, unless it was to Mama or a blatant mismatch/no defender. It wasn't a huge downside to their game - what they were doing was working well enough, after all.
T.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Plagiarism, and Geelong
At uni recruitment drives for Mac ultimate frisbee, my 'tactic' was, for the first few days, throw a slow forehand to anyone walking near the sports tent who was wearing any sort of athletic shoes, thus testing their reflexes. If they caught the disc or dodged appropriately, I would approach them and ask them to play ultimate.
After day one, I ditched this tactic in favour of throwing hammers into crowds and at hot women.
The question I got asked quite a lot when meeting folk at Nats was 'so what sport did you play before frisbee?'. (soccer, for those of you playing at home). So here is my list of sports and what, in my limited experience, they can bring to potential ultimate players.
Examples of this in a juniors context: two guys on Thunder are from Geelong, Jake-as and Lewi. Both of them are consummate athletes, and definitely have the most potential to go far from anyone on Thunder. It's not just about genetics and physiology - though that supports them in spades - it's also about attitude and commitment. Phil White is our captain, and he is a phenomenal player, but I'm yet to see him get angry or fire up. He is a consistently amazing and consistently quiet team player. Tom 'Cupcake' Tulett is the opposite. He plays perfectly for his height (I think he's 5"6?) and can fire absolutely any of us up. He gets too emotionally involved - Barefoot syndrome - and sometimes can't cope when the chips are down.
Lewi and Jake-as sit somewhere in the middle of these polar extremes. They fire up, but I'm yet to see them lose their heads. When Fakulbee were up 3-0 against Heads of State in pool play, they kept their wits about them and played well. Jake seems to be a bit more nervous, and Lewi seems a tad more inclined to egoist ultimate, but they are both very good, and better yet, still have so far to go. Can't wait, Geelong.
T.
After day one, I ditched this tactic in favour of throwing hammers into crowds and at hot women.
The question I got asked quite a lot when meeting folk at Nats was 'so what sport did you play before frisbee?'. (soccer, for those of you playing at home). So here is my list of sports and what, in my limited experience, they can bring to potential ultimate players.
- Soccer. It brings fitness, footwork and has a similar stuttered sprint-stop-jog pattern of play.
- Netball. Girls who play netball don't travel with the disc, generally have wider pivots and better balance, but also generally have a truckload of injuries. Rapid change of direction is suited to Ultimate, but avoid juking! Netball helps the vertical.
- Ice Hockey. Brings field sense, insane leg strength for both sprint juice and vertical. Unfortunately brings the bad habit of full on contact when going for the disc.
- Athletics. Seem obvious? Undoubtedly, the fitness is a big plus. However, I know quite a few decent marathon runners who just can't adapt to frisbee. No point being able to run 100% on day four of Nationals if your 100% is someone else's 30%.
- Field hockey. Fitness, yes. Vertical, no. Field sense, yes, in a big way. The decent amount of hockey players that have turned to frisbee that I know seem to have an intuitive grasp of concepts like the stack, and zone defence. Whether this is because of their hockey upbringings or their athletic nature I don't quite know.
- Basketball. If someone has played basketball, recruit them. Chances are they are tall, fast, can jump and catch. Like netball, most do bring injuries with them.
- League/Union. League is probably more suited to Ultimate than union, just in terms of body type. Ultimate, being non contact, doesn't need the bulk of union but the sprinting and dexterity required to break through a line of defensive players translates very well in terms of cutting.
Examples of this in a juniors context: two guys on Thunder are from Geelong, Jake-as and Lewi. Both of them are consummate athletes, and definitely have the most potential to go far from anyone on Thunder. It's not just about genetics and physiology - though that supports them in spades - it's also about attitude and commitment. Phil White is our captain, and he is a phenomenal player, but I'm yet to see him get angry or fire up. He is a consistently amazing and consistently quiet team player. Tom 'Cupcake' Tulett is the opposite. He plays perfectly for his height (I think he's 5"6?) and can fire absolutely any of us up. He gets too emotionally involved - Barefoot syndrome - and sometimes can't cope when the chips are down.
Lewi and Jake-as sit somewhere in the middle of these polar extremes. They fire up, but I'm yet to see them lose their heads. When Fakulbee were up 3-0 against Heads of State in pool play, they kept their wits about them and played well. Jake seems to be a bit more nervous, and Lewi seems a tad more inclined to egoist ultimate, but they are both very good, and better yet, still have so far to go. Can't wait, Geelong.
T.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Sydney League - A Mixed Bag?
Pun in the title courtesy of Owen "Dad" Shepherd.
In Sydney, the largest Ultimate league is the Northern Suburbs League, with four divisions of roughly ten teams each. It is mixed, as are most leagues in Sydney.
The Dingoes aren't playing League this season because they have a crazy amount of other trainings to do. Thunder and Terra are discouraged from playing 'social league' and it doesn't count as a run as far as our training requirements go.
I often wonder why attempts at opens and womens leagues haven't really taken off. NUFL aside, afdastalking tells me that apart from the Brisbane Women's League and the proposed Premier League in WA, there aren't any Opens/Women's leagues this year, and the Brisbane league only had 20 players, about as much as were playing the pick up in Geelong (I will post about why Geelong excites me later on).
Now, I can understand why a mixed league is so popular during the mixed/uni season, where tournament formats are mixed - the Mundi's have a sort of rep team in division one this season, which makes sense in this, a worlds year - but it seems odd to me that there aren't even any efforts to have an open or women's league operating during Nationals season.
I was trying to think of reasons why this is so: is it just a case of (understandable) administrative fatigue? I remember some folk trying to run a women's league last year sometime (I registered as a beginner as a joke) in Sydney but it didn't take off, due to, I think, lack of players. So I can see why the powers that be would be hesitant to try again. That isn't the only sort of fatigue at play here - teams like Fakulti are training 2-3 times a week during the season, so perhaps asking folk to shell out another weeknight away from HSC/uni work/actual work/relationships with people is a bit much.
Or maybe there are larger forces at work here. Australian ultimate may still be experiencing 'growing pains' at a Worlds level, but when it comes to the schism between Mixed and Open/Womens ultimate... er, there is none? Roughly half the players at Mixed Nats last year were Nationals players, and with the exception of JD I can't think of a single person who prefers to play mixed, and even then I may have just made that up. Why is this relevant to Sydney league?
To use a scientific term, aussie ultimate is too squished. Trying to fit a proper opens season (complete with league) as well as a mixed season for the same group of players in one year is too much. There is not enough time, there are not enough people, and those people don't have enough money to make it work. What we have at the moment is viable - regionals, the odd Share the Love/April Fools tourney that are mostly neglected, followed by mass convergence at Nationals - and will probably be our best option until either people start getting paid to disc, or the numbers reach breaking point.
T.
In Sydney, the largest Ultimate league is the Northern Suburbs League, with four divisions of roughly ten teams each. It is mixed, as are most leagues in Sydney.
The Dingoes aren't playing League this season because they have a crazy amount of other trainings to do. Thunder and Terra are discouraged from playing 'social league' and it doesn't count as a run as far as our training requirements go.
I often wonder why attempts at opens and womens leagues haven't really taken off. NUFL aside, afdastalking tells me that apart from the Brisbane Women's League and the proposed Premier League in WA, there aren't any Opens/Women's leagues this year, and the Brisbane league only had 20 players, about as much as were playing the pick up in Geelong (I will post about why Geelong excites me later on).
Now, I can understand why a mixed league is so popular during the mixed/uni season, where tournament formats are mixed - the Mundi's have a sort of rep team in division one this season, which makes sense in this, a worlds year - but it seems odd to me that there aren't even any efforts to have an open or women's league operating during Nationals season.
I was trying to think of reasons why this is so: is it just a case of (understandable) administrative fatigue? I remember some folk trying to run a women's league last year sometime (I registered as a beginner as a joke) in Sydney but it didn't take off, due to, I think, lack of players. So I can see why the powers that be would be hesitant to try again. That isn't the only sort of fatigue at play here - teams like Fakulti are training 2-3 times a week during the season, so perhaps asking folk to shell out another weeknight away from HSC/uni work/actual work/relationships with people is a bit much.
Or maybe there are larger forces at work here. Australian ultimate may still be experiencing 'growing pains' at a Worlds level, but when it comes to the schism between Mixed and Open/Womens ultimate... er, there is none? Roughly half the players at Mixed Nats last year were Nationals players, and with the exception of JD I can't think of a single person who prefers to play mixed, and even then I may have just made that up. Why is this relevant to Sydney league?
To use a scientific term, aussie ultimate is too squished. Trying to fit a proper opens season (complete with league) as well as a mixed season for the same group of players in one year is too much. There is not enough time, there are not enough people, and those people don't have enough money to make it work. What we have at the moment is viable - regionals, the odd Share the Love/April Fools tourney that are mostly neglected, followed by mass convergence at Nationals - and will probably be our best option until either people start getting paid to disc, or the numbers reach breaking point.
T.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Eat My
Shorts.
I saw a lot of them at Nationals.
Fakulbee wore GAIA shorts. These cost $38 (they had a design on them, usually they're $34). Like most GAIA things that I have come in contact with, they were durable, comfortable and easy to put through the wash. As a slight downside, they are extremely heavy when wet or stained with mud. Also, going to put it out there, just a tad expensive?
I've never actually seen anyone wearing VC shorts, I don't think, but at $25 they're certainly a tad cheaper than GAIA. My previous experience with VC has been one of unbridled enthusiasm. They have excellent customer service, and they're definitely a bunch of really cool guys committed to upholding the Canadian stereotype of overly nice and informative. Feedback on their shirt material (which I really like, although it feels a bit too heavy even whilst dry) has pretty much been positive except the designs chafe.
Patagonia. Firestorm wear this, and I first experienced it last year when Robbie rubbed his Firestorm shorts in my face - although if you know Robbie and how tall he is, he was probably just trying to walk past me. Like other Patagonia items, they are extremely lightweight even whilst wet or muddy, and extremely comfortable due to their silky nature. However, like other Patagonia items, they can apparently chafe over time and are sometimes more rash vest than sports gear, while being (ironically) slightly less durable. $22 team price, $44 individual (!).
Five Ultimate: now this is one I want to try. Team Box wore these, and I'm not ashamed to say I spent most of day one and two trying to stroke Team Box players. It feels almost unnaturally soft, and according to their players had no durability issues throughout Nationals. Easy to wash, as well, and cost only $15 for a base short (so closer to $20 for numbers/design). Tempted to label this as the mithril of the ultimate gear community.
I'm not really going to draw conclusions about anything here because all of the above companies make really fine gear, I just thought I'd collect some observations from the frisbee community and do the obligatory 'gear blog'. Keep in mind Aussie readers that you'd have to jack up the price for each team member by maybe $5-10 to cover overseas shipping, which is usually somewhere along the lines of US$100-200.
T.
I saw a lot of them at Nationals.
Fakulbee wore GAIA shorts. These cost $38 (they had a design on them, usually they're $34). Like most GAIA things that I have come in contact with, they were durable, comfortable and easy to put through the wash. As a slight downside, they are extremely heavy when wet or stained with mud. Also, going to put it out there, just a tad expensive?
I've never actually seen anyone wearing VC shorts, I don't think, but at $25 they're certainly a tad cheaper than GAIA. My previous experience with VC has been one of unbridled enthusiasm. They have excellent customer service, and they're definitely a bunch of really cool guys committed to upholding the Canadian stereotype of overly nice and informative. Feedback on their shirt material (which I really like, although it feels a bit too heavy even whilst dry) has pretty much been positive except the designs chafe.
Patagonia. Firestorm wear this, and I first experienced it last year when Robbie rubbed his Firestorm shorts in my face - although if you know Robbie and how tall he is, he was probably just trying to walk past me. Like other Patagonia items, they are extremely lightweight even whilst wet or muddy, and extremely comfortable due to their silky nature. However, like other Patagonia items, they can apparently chafe over time and are sometimes more rash vest than sports gear, while being (ironically) slightly less durable. $22 team price, $44 individual (!).
Five Ultimate: now this is one I want to try. Team Box wore these, and I'm not ashamed to say I spent most of day one and two trying to stroke Team Box players. It feels almost unnaturally soft, and according to their players had no durability issues throughout Nationals. Easy to wash, as well, and cost only $15 for a base short (so closer to $20 for numbers/design). Tempted to label this as the mithril of the ultimate gear community.
I'm not really going to draw conclusions about anything here because all of the above companies make really fine gear, I just thought I'd collect some observations from the frisbee community and do the obligatory 'gear blog'. Keep in mind Aussie readers that you'd have to jack up the price for each team member by maybe $5-10 to cover overseas shipping, which is usually somewhere along the lines of US$100-200.
T.
Nationals? Seeding.
Based on everything this year, Nationals can only get better for me. I'm not slagging the TD's or anything, they did a great job, but I was injured in the lead-up, played terribly and was woefully unfit, then got injured on the second day. And there were (gasp) personal reasons, too.
As it is I don't really have any observations to make about the game itself, other than how a lack of fundamental training can really hurt your skillset, even if its only from a month's absence. I hadn't picked up a disc in a month because the throwing action hurt too much and subsequently all my throws were rubbish, even in no wind. The image of pro basketball players sinking hoops all alone for hours despite their proficiency springs to mind: these skills are called 'fundamentals' because they need to work no matter how fatigued you are. Unfortunately, we're not at the stage where we are paid to throw around in the park for hours every week, so most of us have to have a different sort of motivation.
Something else I took home from Nationals was how silly the seeding system seems to be. Granted, it works as well as a seeding system can be expected to for most years. But all of a sudden threepeat winners Chilly split x/x and HoS are seeded 1st. Everyone save HoS realised that they weren't going to retain their #1 status through Nationals (this is not slagging Heads of State, they are a great team, and while they did manage to give Fakulti the closest non-finals run Fak had at 15-9, they were never going to beat them) and they ended up 5th, which is a hot showing by the boys nonetheless.
It seems like the AFDA went through a lot of trouble to create an objective seeding system that works. By and large, this is what happened. However, the 'everyone knows everyone' nature of Australian ultimate seems to be a pretty good call for the use of a subjective seeding system (as was used for the women in Eastern Regionals: the seeds were just guesses based on who was in what team, and the guesses were 100% accurate) in years where it is clear that basing Regional seeds for Nationals on past performance isn't going to be the most accurate way of doing things.
Unfortunately no seeding system - objective or otherwise - can cure the Barefoot syndrome: lots of good players, but they don't win any games!
T.
As it is I don't really have any observations to make about the game itself, other than how a lack of fundamental training can really hurt your skillset, even if its only from a month's absence. I hadn't picked up a disc in a month because the throwing action hurt too much and subsequently all my throws were rubbish, even in no wind. The image of pro basketball players sinking hoops all alone for hours despite their proficiency springs to mind: these skills are called 'fundamentals' because they need to work no matter how fatigued you are. Unfortunately, we're not at the stage where we are paid to throw around in the park for hours every week, so most of us have to have a different sort of motivation.
Something else I took home from Nationals was how silly the seeding system seems to be. Granted, it works as well as a seeding system can be expected to for most years. But all of a sudden threepeat winners Chilly split x/x and HoS are seeded 1st. Everyone save HoS realised that they weren't going to retain their #1 status through Nationals (this is not slagging Heads of State, they are a great team, and while they did manage to give Fakulti the closest non-finals run Fak had at 15-9, they were never going to beat them) and they ended up 5th, which is a hot showing by the boys nonetheless.
It seems like the AFDA went through a lot of trouble to create an objective seeding system that works. By and large, this is what happened. However, the 'everyone knows everyone' nature of Australian ultimate seems to be a pretty good call for the use of a subjective seeding system (as was used for the women in Eastern Regionals: the seeds were just guesses based on who was in what team, and the guesses were 100% accurate) in years where it is clear that basing Regional seeds for Nationals on past performance isn't going to be the most accurate way of doing things.
Unfortunately no seeding system - objective or otherwise - can cure the Barefoot syndrome: lots of good players, but they don't win any games!
T.
SiF Logo
Was thinking about calling our div 1 team SiF
Which would also mean we would need some kick arse shirts (even just iron on prints)
So I made up a quick logo:
Logo design is something that can take a disgustingly long time to come up with. the simple Friskee Heart logo I made for our shirts took a few days to work out, the colours, what we wanted on the design and other designs I came up with that are now gone took way too long considering the simplicity of the Friskee Heart final product. Hell even that UPA logo took some crazy amount of money to make.
Well heres the final product.
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