Sincerest apologies for not being in contact with you as much as we would have liked for this campaign. Our schedule from Tuesday and Wednesday saw us play 4 games in just over 24 hours - not ideal time to get a minute to write an update on those games. However, here we are and I hope you find this update enlightening, and there are more to come!
Tuesday 10th of July - Day Five
With a morning off from games, the Firetails hit the pool for a water recovery session before heading to the fields to deal with our first game of the day against the persistent German women's team. Thankfully we were back on the grass fields for this game, with a strong cross field breeze similar to our game against the Canadians.
Viv used her inside knowledge of the German team to fire up that tails with a sweet hand block followed by the score to get the Firetails rolling. Looking confident in the wind and throwing quite a few zones in the mix the Firetails came out with the win. The German's were persistent to the end with some great layout offence grabs and a dangerous long game. Final score 17 - 8 to the Aussies.
Following our afternoon game against Germany, we took on the Columbian Women's team under lights while trade night was on, yes I know another showcase game. What can I say? The Firetails are a good looking bunch and we're big in Japan!
Columbia. If I felt it were appropriate to write all the expletives necessary to completely convey how I and some of my team mates felt about this game I'm not sure this post would be appropriate. However, I will do my best to convey said feelings without the expletives. In short. It was a highly controversial game featuring some fantastical rule generation, many, many stoppages, a spirit time-out called against Australia and some very very poor spirit from the Columbian team and coach.
The Aussies started out strong with a classic huck to Mamma in the end zone as we took control of the game early. The Columbians were quick to respond and demonstrated why they were such a dangerous team breaking the Aussie zones and showing their speed on the field. The Columbians were a little frustrated as a result of the Firetails enforcement of the travel rules according to WFDF and called a spirit time out early in the game to clarify. After a few breaks from the Columbians, they took the Firetails to half 9 - 7.
The Aussies came out strong in the second half, determined to take the Columbians to task. Unfortunately, the game suffered from poor rule knowledge on our oppositions side and many many stoppages, preventing the game from continuing. In particular, an 'offensive pick' call was made by the Columbians which, even after clarification from WFDF rules master Ruben Berg, the player would still not retract or allow play to continue for at least 5 minutes. For all the spectators watching, the need for observers or umpires in Ultimate became apparent as a result of player conduct during this game. Our opposition were unwilling to listen, and often argued violation calls, were not willing to accept contested calls, well past the acceptable 30 seconds and preventing the game from continuing.
Unfortunately for the Columbian team, these incidents detracted from the athleticism and some spectacular plays and grabs. There were some standout grabs from the Phillips' and Keah seemed to be picking up everyone's stray discs. Mamma was unstoppable in the end zone as usual, but unfortunately the Aussies could not get around the Columbians, going down 14 - 12 and making their road to the top four that bit harder.
An added blow to our campaign is that our fearless fabulous Firetail captain Crossie injured her ankle on defence during this game and will likely keep her from the field for the rest of the tournament. Luckily, she's on the only red head on the team and our amazing co-captains Hussey and Keah stood strong against the persistent and stubborn Columbians.
After playing for over two hours thanks to the frequent breaks in the game, the Firetails didn't get back to the hotel until 10:30pm. We were back on deck to face up to Finland at 9am the next day followed by Great Britain at 2pm - four games in just one 24 hours people, that's how its done!
But that my friends is a story for tomorrow.
Good night for now from Firetail central in Sakai, Japan!
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