The difference between AUG08 and AUG09 was pretty unreal. In Melbourne last year, the final was basically written in stone between FU and USYD as no other teams could reliably knock one of those two out. All of the semi-finals this year were tight games, as was the final itself.
And it didn't stop there - with the exception of Griffith (who still managed to take Melbourne to universe point, in one of the most exciting matches of the whole tournament!) there were no easy games for any teams. Macquarie, who finished 10th, traded points with eventual 4th-placers Flinders, took a Callahan to go up against Newcastle (5th) and made Ballarat (6th) work for every goal they scored. So the competition was much, much harder this time around, which is the perfect segue into this next bit:
Two Divisions
This year was the first year that ultimate embraced two divisions at AUG. There was a lot of furore about the change, and a lot of it was negative, but the resultant calibre of Division 1, as well as the amount of tight games offered to (most) Division 2 teams, proves that the system is capable of enhancing the integrity of the competition.
The two division structure does need work. Too much changes from year to year (contrast UQ's performance over the last two years) to have seeding or composition of Division 1 dependant wholly on last year's results. This year, things worked out, mostly, although it remains to be seen how much room to move AUS will be willing to give the ultimate community in coming years.
The Draw
The draw was nice. The TOC did a good job with the spastic AUS seeds they were handed, and everyone had an 11am start after the first night's party. My one gripe with the draw was that, in an effort to have less games overall, the repechage, or power pool play, had results from the first round of scores carried over from the first round of scores. Macquarie lost to UWA in their first game of the tournament, so in the repechage we didn't play UWA again, meaning we had to win against both Ballarat and Newcastle to stay in the running.
To be completely honest, I really wouldn't mind this - draws are always imperfect, and anyone who whines about them should have just won all their games to begin with - except for the fact that repechage comes from French, means 'second chance' and ironically did not give a second chance for any teams to have a rematch.
U23
Things are looking promising for this event. Piers Truter was in full notebook mode, scouring the the fields for talent, and found a lot. Andrew Jackson, known to the world as AJ from FU, showed that he can do things that aren't getting layout blocks on Chilly players by controlling the ANU offence all week. UTS, in their hordes innumerable, have a solid player base of tall, fast, athletic runners in Ashley Symons, Evan Sieff and Martin Forrest. Tom proved his fitness by playing every point of every game for Griffith and still being effective by the last day. John McNaughton had to amputate one arm halfway through the final and still managed to catch the last goal in universe point. I'd say things are looking good.
Some Tweaks
The wind was ridiculous all week, so it was good fun to see how teams adjusted.
UWA in particular impressed me by running all their women at the front of their pommy zone (on the mark, points of the wall) and having their men play both wings and deep. The off-points in the wall poached on the dump, leaving very difficult cross-field breaks or floaty swill to their aforementioned dudes the only options for a lot of the time.
Sydney University whipped out the old 'standard zone with assassination' against UQ, with mixed results. Largely, I saw them assassinate John McNaughton for being too effective at shredding their zone, and largely I saw him do what very few assassinated players do against a standard, which is remove his defender from the short deep space to create unguarded options for the wing/deeps. Leaving Loren on the mark to try and not to let aL, Piers, Will Churchill and Julian Sacre do whatever they wanted with the disc was another thing entirely.
Many teams are still stuck in the 'it's windy, let's play zone no matter what' mindset. Playing man defence when the opposition have to go upwind can be just as, if not more, effective, especially when your aim is purely to force a turn as close to your attacking endzone as possible. Griffith and UTS were the only teams to do this consistently that Macquarie played.
AUG 2010
Perth is the venue for next year, and I really don't think that it will be a successful year for university ultimate - the cost of flights coupled with the already ludicrous university packages will deter many, and the lure of U19's, WUCC and U23's will sap at the player base of those frisbee-obsessed enough to splurge on flights there anyway. Here's hoping, though. The Perth kids come out every year and deserve to have a quality tournament on their own grounds every once in a while.
