We're not in Kansas anymore Dorothy... aka Emerald City Classic

Back row: Crossie, Cath, Hammer, Kez, Molly, Tegan, Gaby, Ash, Shaz, Alex
Middle: Lila, Kylie (coach), Maylin, Keato, Hayley, Liz, Keah, Emer, Erin
front: Mica, Rachel, SPillar, Hebs, Liz

For many of us the first adventure was arriving in LAX after 13+ hours on the plane to find a monstrous queue at customs and not much time to make connecting flights. Ash and Shaz were the lucky ones, but many of us found ourselves stuck in LA for a few more hours on standby hoping to get on the next flight. Fortunately we all got on the next flight and so arrived in Seattle mid afternoon. At least we got to the US on time unlike Lila who with a misplaced passport didn’t get there till Friday night.

Picking up the cars we hit another snag. Somehow Thrifty failed to have enough GPS units and so we had two cars but only one sat nav. The helpful advice from their staff was to “why can’t you just go to Wal-Mart and buy a map”. Kylie took charge of the Chevrolet Suburban with the GPS unit, and Kez got the car and the plan was to follow Kylie. That plan lasted all of 5 minutes out of the airport when we got separates at traffic lights. Kylie’s van had a minor detour back to the airport from taking a wrong exit but that was nothing compared to the traumatic adventure the others found themselves on. I’m not sure I can do the story justice given I wasn’t there but after visiting the bogan outskirts of Seattle, a fender-bender, police interview, a replacement car but still no GPS, they eventually arrived at Britta’s about 5 hours after leaving the airport.

The rest of us were occupied with shopping at REI and wake-boarding at Britta & Kevin’s. Liz, Hayley and (someone else – sorry I’ve forgotten who) did a stella job in sorting out some roast chooks and salad for dinner. Post-dinner Britta’s latest toy got a workout – the dancing game.

Friday we got a little bit of a sleep-in as the first game wasn’t till 10:30 and the fields were nearby. A longish coffee stop and a tour of the fields meant we weren’t there quite as early as planned. First game we faced Seattle Underground. This was a good game for us to start with – an opportunity to clear out the jet lag. It was tight early on but Underground had a large number of unforced errors (mainly drops) which we capitalised on and so took the game 15-9.

Day 1
v. Underground (Seattle)	W 15-9
v. UNO (Japan)	L 9-15
v. Brute Squad (Boston)	W 16-15
Day 2
v. Huck (Japan)	L 11-15
v. Fury (San Francisco)	L 5-15
v. Slackjaw (San Francisco)	W 15-2
v. Scandal (D.C.)	L 9-15
Day 3
v. Zeitgeist (San Francisco)	W 17-16
v. Huck (Japan)	L 11-15
v. Nemesis (Chicago)	L 9-15
v. Brute Squad	DNP

Second game was against UNO from Japan. As expected their speed and precise hucking was a challenge to us but it was a respectable scoreline of 9-15.

Third and final game of Friday was against Brute Squad from Boston. Crossie had a personal vendetta to settle against them after playing them in Prague and challenged the team to help her. We had a good first half – up 8-4 at half. Brute Squad looked a little shell-shocked but they picked up their game after half and brought a lot more intensity. Eventually we were locked in a universe point game which we ended up on the right end of 16-15.

During one of Friday’s games (can’t remember which) Keah took a ridiculous layout goal from a hammer helixing away from her. It was one of the best takes I’ve seen.

We elected not to go to the showcase game but return to Britta’s (some of us via a little shopping expedition for new cleats) for more wakeboarding and dance game action.

Saturday came upon us all far too early as we had to leave at 5:30am. The tournament was a bit over an hour north of Seattle in Burlington and our first game was 8am. Arriving at the fields they looked lush with long grass cover but we were soon to discover the long grass was covering a surface that wasn’t unlike concrete.

Saturday went like this:

There were 16 teams, split into 2 top pools of 4 and 2 bottom pools of 4. We played the other 3 teams in our pool plus a cross-over against our equivalent seed in the bottom pool.

Game 1: Huck (Japan) – we gave them a 3-0 lead early on after a bit of rabbit in head lights action. We got over that and clawed back to 12-10 before eventually going down 15-11. It felt like a game that got away.

Game 2: Fury (San Francisco, USA). We got to change our shirts twice before this game since their captain didn’t quite understand we only had one set of shirts with numbers on… so made us flip for shirts, then got us to change back once their coach (Matt) realised what had happened. The only game where I felt we were outclassed – reflected in the score line 5-15.

Game 3: Slackjaw (San Francisco, USA). This was a cross-over game against the bottom pool team and the scoreline reflected it. We put the game away comfortably 15-2. Some of you will remember playing Slackjaw in our pre-tour in 2008. They rolled out the slackjaw dance again – Keah put in a memorable performance, and Liz Dodd gave it her best shot.

Game 4: Scandal (D.C., USA). Scandal had a very close game with Fury so I was a little concerned we were going to get another lesson dealt to us. Scandal had a very tall team but didn’t really use their height. We were close but just not close enough to quite be in it going down 15-9. Liz E unfortunately landed very heavily on her knee (on aforementioned concrete-like ground) while getting a layout block to save a goal and so didn’t play the end of the game. This left us as seeded as 4th in our top pool.

We headed off to our hotel for the night, getting there just in the nick of time as our booking was in the process of being cancelled and rooms being given to other people. Fortunately only one room was lost so we were pretty happy having double beds to ourselves. Back to the fields for the salmon dinner – long queues meant we didn’t get to see all of the boys in the showcase game.

Sunday’s schedule was a round of 16, quarter-final, semi-final then final/placing. The round of 16 was against Zeitgeist, the top of one of the bottom pools. We had another slow start (a bit of a theme for the weekend) – this time really slow being down 6-1. We found some fire and pulled our socks up and found ourselves in another universe point situation, which we won 17-16. It was great to see the intensity brought by everyone in the team to take that game. Zeitgeist were pretty upset.

We had to pick up our gear walk to our next field to start immediately. For reasons I still don’t understand we were playing Huck. I don’t understand how they did the draw because a normal quarter-final would’ve had us playing UNO (top of the other pool). We thought Huck’s 12 sets of legs would be weary but they still had plenty of gas to burn us deep. We didn’t adjust our man-to-man defence well enough and went down 15-11. And so finally we ended our 3h15mins of straight ultimate. The highlight was post-game – Shaz decided to herd all of the Huck players together so that they could leap for our Aussie souvenirs. Not realising that Maylin was still a way off so Shaz had to keep them all herded together – with the language barrier they had no idea was going on. Then Ash hoisted us one of their shortest players on her shoulders to give her a chance of catching something.

We should have played Scandal next but Scandal thought (and we agreed) it would be better to try and mix up who we played so Kylie did some wheeling and dealing and negotiated us to play Nemesis (Chicago) instead. We lost 15-9, but a good challenging game. Liz E cleated up and played the last 3 or 4 points as some of the swelling in her knee had gone down – managing to score a goal the first point she was on.

Finally we were meant to meet Brute Squad again in the 7-8 playoff. They had just finished a long game against Scandal and had a number of injuries so weren’t keen to play. This was disappointing for the team as almost everyone was still keen to play. However, it meant we could watch Fury v Riot in the final (Riot won in universe point for the record). Most of us headed back to Britta & Kevin’s after that where we went out for cocktails and burgers and finished the night with more dancing game and rockband.

Everyone played solidly and had some great moments. It was great to have a 22 person roster – it was a challenging schedule and you really need a roster that big to be able to play properly for the whole tournament. We played in three subbing groups which I think worked fairly well with managing play time.

Other comments about the tournament experience:

• I like the UPA pick rule - personally I would support a change to the WFDF pick rule
• Aussies are pretty spoilt with tournament food & facilities – there wasn’t necessarily water anywhere near the fields. Food consisted of bagels and bananas. (oh and the port-a-loos were pretty gross too)
• We had a lot of post-game awkwardness as the US teams just do a “great game” cheer then slap hands.
  
  We never quite worked out what to do. we had spirit circles with a few of the teams which were also a little awkward but I don’t think we insulted anyone… We started a trend of throwing our gifts in the air and making the other team fight for them.
• We barely got to see the boys play given we had such a full schedule.

Big thanks to the following people:

• Keah & Kylie for organising most of the logistics
• Liz & helpers (Hayley, Hebs & others) for organising dinners on Thurs & Fri night and lunches
• All of the drivers (Kylie, Keats, Keah, Crossie, Gaby, Kerry, Ash) – personally so very grateful I didn’t have to drive
• Ash for organising the shirts
• Liz & Keah for running warm ups and warm downs

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.

4th in the world

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.