Strange Blue Tournament Report

Since for various reason Matt is unlikely to remember much of the weekend and if Natman writes the report we'll be waiting until next summer I thought I'd give a brief (it's really not in any way brief so if you need the loo or are a bit hungry I'd do that first) round up of SB's trip to the deep South.

SB Was:
Tom B, Anna, Matt H, Katie, Nick SD, Jess, Ruben, Susanna, Natman, Lauren, Myself, Rob G (Sunday!)

Some of us camped on Friday, some of us didn't, but we all congregated bright and early in a somewhat hazy but soon to be sun drenched Weymouth with varying degrees of optimism/ambition. We were seeded 22nd

SB 11 - 5 BAF

In the pre-game I kindly informed the team that BAF were probably expecting to beat us fairly comfortably but that if we played our best we had a good shot at beating them. Luckily we played even better than that, our detailed plan of 'Boosting' it long to our women at every available opportunity left them somewhat bewildered and we played good defence to romp to an 11-5 win.

SB 11 - 6 MXU

Since MXU had just accounted for Bristol I had a sneeky suspicion that they might be somewhat underseeded, however we continued with our form and tactics of the previous game, they never managed to shut down our long game and whilst I think they troubled us more than BAF we never looked like losing and strolled to an 11-6 win.

Bristol 9 - 7 SB

This was a wonderful game of mixed ultimate. I think it's fair to say that we definitely had chances to win, our deep game was still excellent, and that on another day we might well have won. However Bristol moved the disc around with far more patience than any other team we'd previously played. We also lost the services of Matt late on in a rather nasty collision after he'd scored a huge layout in the open stages! In the end we lost 9-7

As MXU had beaten Bristol we finished top of our pool to be seeded 6th (in the country!) however sadly Bristol came through to the 'power pool' in second and that result was carried over.

Flump 11 - 4 SB

Again we played some really good stuff at times, but Flump put us under far more pressure than any team we'd previously played. When our offence fired we still looked amazing but although we got turns we didn't convert them often enough, perhaps because Flump shut our long game down more effectively than our previous opponents. The final result was that we lost 11-4

LADS 9 - 8 SB

Light and Dark were made up mostly of old EMU players (including 3 players who I played with in the distant past at EMO). They were a very similar team to us in many respects and both teams showed early signs of fatigue with drops that just wouldn't have happened earlier on in the day. In the end both teams clicked a bit more and after using lots of 4 women (our girls were awesome all weekend and definitely carried us through some games!) we arrived at 8-8 in a game to 9. Starting on D we managed to get the turn but unfortunately we couldn't convert and they punched it in for the winning goal. That meant they could finish no lower than 12th whereas we'd have to win all of our games on Sunday to come 13th, on such fine margins......

Saturday evening.

We all camped except Susanna who had more sense and popped off to catch up with an old friend. We got Fish and Chips, Lauren gave Ruben some pretty great advice and he 'enjoyed' his first ever pickled egg. Quote 'I wish that this was either something else pickled, or an egg not pickled.' Does this go down as Ruben's first ever mistake? Rob Green arrived, we all camped, some people got cold, others slept badly, others proudly proclaimed that they slept wondrously, despite losing an hour's sleep the fact we didn't start 'til 11 more than made up for it.

MXU ? - ? SB

We promised never to speak of this game again. Sorry.

SB 12 - 7 Glasgow

Luckily the previous games debacle turned out to be a temporary blip and we returned to playing sweet ultimate here. At 4-1 down we decided to throw some Clam and it proved to be a far better decision than Ruben's above. Anna, Jess and Susanna worked so hard on the chases and we scored the next 8 points with some sweet long plays. After getting riled (I didn't actually get riled, ever!) by some of our earlier decisions to resort to sketchy hammers I decided to show the rest of the team how it was done. Matt got hit on the head (agan!) but I think we closed the game out 12-7, including one goal after a pretty huge layout from Rob! A great team performance.

SB 13 - 6 Flaming Galahs

Again we blew up huge and our long game killed them. After our umpteenth Huck for a goal their coach yelled, 'they've only got one play' to which one of their players responded 'well it's not a bad one.' Our clam wasn't as effective in this game, but our man D stepped up to the plate and we stifled them. Another long shot closed out the win 13-6 to put the gloss on what was an excellent weekend.

Overall 17th was a reasonable effort though I think we can definitely move up next outing. What was more pleasing however was the manner in which we played for the vast majority of the weekend and the fun we had doing so. Mixed Ultimate is so much fun and if you're still reading at this point, well done by the way, then you should definitely consider gracing Mixed Tour 2 with your presence in about 3 weeks time!

Things we learnt.

#1 Not much stops Matt from playing
#2 Katie and Lauren are Goal Machines
#3 Boosting discs is fun, but it's only effective when good stack discipline is maintained to allow proper cuts to be set up.
#4 Jess takes a lot of photo's
#5 Our girls love cutting, especially deep, but dislike handling. (It's all about the glory apparently, not to mention they're really fast!)
#6 Ruben is probably wrong at least 3 or 4 times more than the average person.
#7 Anna's 'childs' sleeping bag is not so great when it comes to actually keeping someone warm
#8 Positivity can lead to greatness but it still needs to be combined with intensity and focus.
#9 I am beginning to challenge Mike when it comes to rambling, both spoken and in prose.

Well done to Nick SD in his first tour outing! That I believe is all, If I've missed any key events I'm sorry, but my overall feeling is one of tired joy (and not just because my pupils are currently sitting an exam!)

Love,

-Nimbs