Yesterday we played in one of the semi-finals against Japan. Our offence had a shaky start coughing up the disc to give Japan a 3-0 lead. Japan had been filming our games against opposition and presumably this influenced their tactics of largely giving us the under cut. Poor execution and option taking meant Japan took the half
9-4 (?). We clawed back a few points in the second half, including a 3 point run, but left it too late. Japan took the win 17-10. Ash Martens was another victim of the poor quality fields with a bad ankle injury (torn ligaments, possibly break?) in the second half.
This left us to fight off for Bronze against Canada. All the semi-finals were being played on the stadium fields and the scheduling was incredibly tight meaning our game started 1.5 hours late at 5:30pm. We started the game flat giving up another 3-0 lead, prompting yet another time-out call to regroup. We got one on the board but that was it giving Canada half at 9-1. The second half we actually came out to play and put up a fight with the final score being 17-7 (so a 6-8 second half scoreline). It was a disappointing way to end the tournament, but we still have the satisfaction of coming 4th.
We ended the day thanking everyone who had made this week a success for us:
Pat - preparing our lunches everyday, pre-chopped lunch fillings and having everything amazingly at the fields when we needed it was awesome
Mike, Mark & Dan - for assisting with the lunches and being the pack horses for the physio table and first aid kit (& Mike for being our own personal photographer)
Annette - our physio, who kept us all running all week
Granny, Bel & Keah - for organising the pre-tour
Tom - Coach, for his contribution to getting us as far as we got
Lisi - for her fitness program which got us all into shape and always being willing to answer questions
Lisi & Granny - for running the warm ups and warm downs
Diana - for 7 months of tireless work; strategically, emotionally & physically. Leading on and off the field, always positive. An amazing job.
The family and friends who supported us both at the fields and from afar!
DIRECT FROM THE FLOCK ITSELF, ENJOY UPDATES FROM THE AUSTRALIAN FIRETAILS ULTIMATE TEAM ABOUT THEIR PRE-TOUR AND TOURNAMENT ADVENTURES AS THEY TRAVEL TO WUGC 2012 IN SAKAI, JAPAN
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Semi-finals here we come
As many of our avid readers are probably aware we had a sudden death win 16-15 over Great Britain yesterday in the quarter-finals. Here is a bit more colour for the readers at home...
We started on defense and the game went on serve till 6-6. Aussies called a time-out and put on a strong D line to try and get the break. Brits scored and then Australia gave up a break. A couple more trades for GB to take half 9-7. Hussey let fly with a full-blown back hand huck which connected with Laura Pearce's (GB) forehead 3m from the point of release.
Australia received to start the second half to bring it to 9-8. The D got 3 turns before finally converting to make it 9-9. GB sored, then Australia had a messy O point with 2 opportunities with the disc before GB scored again to make it 11-9. Trading continued to 13-13 to GB and time-cap going so the game was capped at 16. The Aussie D got 2 turns but failed to convert and GB took it to 14-13. The next point an execution error by Australia gave GB an easy score to make it 15-13 - match point for GB. The Australian offence scored courtesy of another Diana to Mama connection for 15-14. Then the Aussie D pulled out puppy and got the turn then converted to make it 15-15 - match point for both teams. The Australians again played puppy and on the second pass coming out of their endzone GB threw the disc into Liz Edye playing in the wall. Liz could have scored a Callahan goal but instintively batted the disc firmly to the ground. Ash Martens rushed to the disc surrounded by GB defenders faked a flick then threw a wobbly hammer to Diana Worman for the final goal.
A lot of emotion followed from both teams in a game which either team could have won. Diana Worman had a strong game with 5 goals, 5 assists and a lay out block in the endzone. Keah Molomby also had 2 blocks and Lisa McGinnigle was her usual dominating self as the puppy.
There were 4 games between GB and Australia to determine semi-finalists today: Junior Open, Open, Womens, Mixed.
The Junior Open was almost a mirror-reversal of the women's result, with the Aussie boys losing after being up. The Aussie Mixed team accounted for GB fairly comprehensively 17-11 (after it being 9-8 at half) and the Aussie Open team looked a shade of its usual self going down 17-11, and also losing Pete Gardner just before half to a torn ACL.
The most exciting game of the day (of which there were many!) was the Junior Girls semi-final against Colombia. The Aussie support base arrived (after the Dingoes game) to a half-time score of 9-7 to Columbia. The second half had many exciting plays with the Columbians getting to a 3 point lead 14-11. The Aussies had played man to that point, they transitioned to their well drilled pommy. They forced the turns and then scored 6 of the last 7 points to take the game 17-15 and earn themselves a place in the final.
While yesterday was the clash of GB & Australia, today is Japan v Australia with 3 match-ups: Mixed (semi), Womens (semi) & Junior Girls (final). Good luck to everyone.
We started on defense and the game went on serve till 6-6. Aussies called a time-out and put on a strong D line to try and get the break. Brits scored and then Australia gave up a break. A couple more trades for GB to take half 9-7. Hussey let fly with a full-blown back hand huck which connected with Laura Pearce's (GB) forehead 3m from the point of release.
Australia received to start the second half to bring it to 9-8. The D got 3 turns before finally converting to make it 9-9. GB sored, then Australia had a messy O point with 2 opportunities with the disc before GB scored again to make it 11-9. Trading continued to 13-13 to GB and time-cap going so the game was capped at 16. The Aussie D got 2 turns but failed to convert and GB took it to 14-13. The next point an execution error by Australia gave GB an easy score to make it 15-13 - match point for GB. The Australian offence scored courtesy of another Diana to Mama connection for 15-14. Then the Aussie D pulled out puppy and got the turn then converted to make it 15-15 - match point for both teams. The Australians again played puppy and on the second pass coming out of their endzone GB threw the disc into Liz Edye playing in the wall. Liz could have scored a Callahan goal but instintively batted the disc firmly to the ground. Ash Martens rushed to the disc surrounded by GB defenders faked a flick then threw a wobbly hammer to Diana Worman for the final goal.
A lot of emotion followed from both teams in a game which either team could have won. Diana Worman had a strong game with 5 goals, 5 assists and a lay out block in the endzone. Keah Molomby also had 2 blocks and Lisa McGinnigle was her usual dominating self as the puppy.
There were 4 games between GB and Australia to determine semi-finalists today: Junior Open, Open, Womens, Mixed.
The Junior Open was almost a mirror-reversal of the women's result, with the Aussie boys losing after being up. The Aussie Mixed team accounted for GB fairly comprehensively 17-11 (after it being 9-8 at half) and the Aussie Open team looked a shade of its usual self going down 17-11, and also losing Pete Gardner just before half to a torn ACL.
The most exciting game of the day (of which there were many!) was the Junior Girls semi-final against Colombia. The Aussie support base arrived (after the Dingoes game) to a half-time score of 9-7 to Columbia. The second half had many exciting plays with the Columbians getting to a 3 point lead 14-11. The Aussies had played man to that point, they transitioned to their well drilled pommy. They forced the turns and then scored 6 of the last 7 points to take the game 17-15 and earn themselves a place in the final.
While yesterday was the clash of GB & Australia, today is Japan v Australia with 3 match-ups: Mixed (semi), Womens (semi) & Junior Girls (final). Good luck to everyone.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Worlds heats up
The competition and the weather got a lot hotter at worlds today.
With forecast temperatures up to 33C even our 10:30am game against Mexico was hot. The goal for this game was just to finish it quickly and get in the shade. We were pretty successful finishing the game in around half an hour 17-1.
With the initial pool play complete we were now into cross-overs. Finishing second in our pool meant we met the second placed team from the other pool, Canada. We played Team Canada on our pre-tour and had run hard with them so were hoping for the same in this game. Unfortunately the heat was affecting a some of our players and simple errors in the first few points gave Canada a 3-0 lead. We picked things up after a time out but the Canadians physical game combined with the heat meant we didn't peg back the early lead we gave them. It was 9-5 (?) at half. We scored immediately after half to 9-6, with the Canadians answering to make it 10-6. A long point followed where perhaps 15 picks were called, on pretty much every pass which made it difficult for our offense to get any flow. There was some good flow but overall the Canadians played very well and took the game 17-9. The highlight post game was the dance-off between Kylie and Jill Calkin.
We take the 4th place ranking into the quarter-finals which puts us up against Great Britain (5th) at 11:30am tomorrow.
With forecast temperatures up to 33C even our 10:30am game against Mexico was hot. The goal for this game was just to finish it quickly and get in the shade. We were pretty successful finishing the game in around half an hour 17-1.
With the initial pool play complete we were now into cross-overs. Finishing second in our pool meant we met the second placed team from the other pool, Canada. We played Team Canada on our pre-tour and had run hard with them so were hoping for the same in this game. Unfortunately the heat was affecting a some of our players and simple errors in the first few points gave Canada a 3-0 lead. We picked things up after a time out but the Canadians physical game combined with the heat meant we didn't peg back the early lead we gave them. It was 9-5 (?) at half. We scored immediately after half to 9-6, with the Canadians answering to make it 10-6. A long point followed where perhaps 15 picks were called, on pretty much every pass which made it difficult for our offense to get any flow. There was some good flow but overall the Canadians played very well and took the game 17-9. The highlight post game was the dance-off between Kylie and Jill Calkin.
We take the 4th place ranking into the quarter-finals which puts us up against Great Britain (5th) at 11:30am tomorrow.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
A satisfactory day at the office
Day 3 brought an early start with our first 9am game out at satellite fields "Jericho". Our physio Annette was up strapping at 6am, we all received varying amounts of sleep depending on whether we were being serenaded by Dingos, having hall way guts played outside our rooms by the masters or sleeping next to the smoke alarm which went off incessantly at 4:30am.
Despite the disrupted sleep we were at the fields with plenty of time to spare with lovely views of the mountains to inspire us. First up the big trans-Tasman clash. We traded to 3-3 before a few breaks from strong defense, including a layout D by Lisa McGinnigle, to take a comfortable half time lead 9-5. The second half we continued well getting to 16-10 (?), including another layout D by Lisa. The Kiwis pulled out a zone after that which we had been working well against, but closed it up and got us stuck in our endzone and soon it was 16-11. Hard pressure from the Kiwis, and less than optimal choices by us, had the Kiwis on a run getting to 16-13 before we finally punched in the last goal. A win but not quite as satisfying as we would like. The game also saw the return of Vivian and Gamble following days off with the flu, they both performed strongly.
We had a long break as our second game was in the 4:30pm time slot. We were fired up to take on the Finns (finalists at Worlds in 2004 and #2 seed). We came out with strong man defense and took a 4-0 lead before the Finns called a time-out. They scored the next point but we continued to force the errors and took half 9-2. The second half contained more strong defence before Tania went down heavily (later diagnosed as a torn ACL). The team was shaken but continued to execute smoothly to finish the game 17-5. Vivian was again a stand out with several perfect hucks and strong defense deep.
Tomorrow we finish pool play with a 10:30 game against the Mexicans. This is followed by a cross-over game (probably against Canada) in the afternoon to determine our position going into the quarter-finals.
The other Aussie teams also had a strong results today, 11 wins and 1 loss across the 6 teams. Tomorrow brings some much tougher match ups in the other divisions.
Despite the disrupted sleep we were at the fields with plenty of time to spare with lovely views of the mountains to inspire us. First up the big trans-Tasman clash. We traded to 3-3 before a few breaks from strong defense, including a layout D by Lisa McGinnigle, to take a comfortable half time lead 9-5. The second half we continued well getting to 16-10 (?), including another layout D by Lisa. The Kiwis pulled out a zone after that which we had been working well against, but closed it up and got us stuck in our endzone and soon it was 16-11. Hard pressure from the Kiwis, and less than optimal choices by us, had the Kiwis on a run getting to 16-13 before we finally punched in the last goal. A win but not quite as satisfying as we would like. The game also saw the return of Vivian and Gamble following days off with the flu, they both performed strongly.
We had a long break as our second game was in the 4:30pm time slot. We were fired up to take on the Finns (finalists at Worlds in 2004 and #2 seed). We came out with strong man defense and took a 4-0 lead before the Finns called a time-out. They scored the next point but we continued to force the errors and took half 9-2. The second half contained more strong defence before Tania went down heavily (later diagnosed as a torn ACL). The team was shaken but continued to execute smoothly to finish the game 17-5. Vivian was again a stand out with several perfect hucks and strong defense deep.
Tomorrow we finish pool play with a 10:30 game against the Mexicans. This is followed by a cross-over game (probably against Canada) in the afternoon to determine our position going into the quarter-finals.
The other Aussie teams also had a strong results today, 11 wins and 1 loss across the 6 teams. Tomorrow brings some much tougher match ups in the other divisions.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Day 1 & 2 - Firetails 3-1
Two days of worlds are over and the Firetails are well positioned.
Our first game of Day 1 was against Team USA who we played a couple of weeks ago in San Francisco. We came out fired up on D and had a very close first half, including the opportunity to take half 9-7 before a couple of basic errors allowed USA to take half 9-8. Receiving going downwind to start the second half we should have evened things up but an incompletions allowed USA to take an upwind goal. They then applied a suffocating 4-man cup which we struggled to advance against. After a 4 point run we finally got back in the game but then just traded out to finish 17-12, a disappointing result though we did take a lot of positives from the game.
Later on day 1 we played Ireland, who are a younger, less-established team. We had some very clinical points but unfortunately quite a few that were far from clinical. Final score 17-2 but quite a lot we could improve from.
Day 2 we had Switzerland first up. We came out and pressured them a lot early to take half 9-3. In the second half the Swiss pulled it together and scored some excellent goals, we mainly traded the second half for a final score of 17-9. Our offence was very crisp and a marked improvement from the Irish game.
Last game of the day we took on Italy. Italy had played NZ earlier in the day and gone down by a few, the Italians came out pumped up and with nothing to lose, and we ended up in a very tight first half. Goals were traded till 5-5 before we changed up the D and took half 9-6 (?). The second half our defence remained stifling and we took the game 17-9.
Following that we were very excited to watched the U19 girls beat Team USA. Day 2 was a very good day for Australia with 8 wins, 2 losses across the 6 teams.
We are largely injury free, with Annette our physio keeping us all running. Unfortunately a bit of flu is going round and we were without Gamble or Viv today, hopefully both will be right to play tomorrow.
Our first game of Day 1 was against Team USA who we played a couple of weeks ago in San Francisco. We came out fired up on D and had a very close first half, including the opportunity to take half 9-7 before a couple of basic errors allowed USA to take half 9-8. Receiving going downwind to start the second half we should have evened things up but an incompletions allowed USA to take an upwind goal. They then applied a suffocating 4-man cup which we struggled to advance against. After a 4 point run we finally got back in the game but then just traded out to finish 17-12, a disappointing result though we did take a lot of positives from the game.
Later on day 1 we played Ireland, who are a younger, less-established team. We had some very clinical points but unfortunately quite a few that were far from clinical. Final score 17-2 but quite a lot we could improve from.
Day 2 we had Switzerland first up. We came out and pressured them a lot early to take half 9-3. In the second half the Swiss pulled it together and scored some excellent goals, we mainly traded the second half for a final score of 17-9. Our offence was very crisp and a marked improvement from the Irish game.
Last game of the day we took on Italy. Italy had played NZ earlier in the day and gone down by a few, the Italians came out pumped up and with nothing to lose, and we ended up in a very tight first half. Goals were traded till 5-5 before we changed up the D and took half 9-6 (?). The second half our defence remained stifling and we took the game 17-9.
Following that we were very excited to watched the U19 girls beat Team USA. Day 2 was a very good day for Australia with 8 wins, 2 losses across the 6 teams.
We are largely injury free, with Annette our physio keeping us all running. Unfortunately a bit of flu is going round and we were without Gamble or Viv today, hopefully both will be right to play tomorrow.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
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