Monday, May 23, 2011

The start of the long road to WUGC2012

It was 512 days before the World Ultimate & Guts Championships (WUGC) would commence in Sakai, Japan, not that the date or location was known at the time, that potential Australian players had to submit their initial expression of interest.

Through the 2011 Australian Nationals campaign the selectors for the Dingoes (Open), Firetails (Women) and Barramundis (Mixed) stalked the sidelines watching those who had submitted their names. Two months after the initial EOIs were submitted the Australian Squad, vying for the right to wear Green & Gold, was announced.

An All Australian (AA) camp was run 21-22 May 2011, nominally in Sydney, but in reality somewhere in the far south-west which was almost as close to Canberra as it was to Sydney (Minto). Around 60 men and 60 women showed what they had to the selectors in a series of benchmarking tests and games (both single gender and mixed).

After the AA camp the Firetails and Dingoes squads were chosen. The Firetails squad had 3 more selection camps, all in Sydney, in June-July 2011. The selection part of the campaign culminated in a trip to the USA for the Emerald City Classic in August 2011.