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...