SB Men's BUCS League match vs. Birmingham

On the 5th of November, Strange Blue Men's travelled to Birmingham for our first BUCS match of the season. Traditional powerhouses of the region and UK University Ultimate as a whole, Birmingham was definitely going to be a (possibly the league's toughest) challenge.

The graduation of numerous (almost all) first team players last year meant that it was time for our developing players to step up. The squad sent to Birmingham saw many familiar faces from the second team last year - Michael "MC" Chronias, Elliot Cheung, Louis Davies, Ravi Shah, amongst others. The team was captained by Perry Hong, along side senior members Jonny Slaughter and (an injured) JR. We missed out on our tall people Niall Jackson and Luke Smith. This match also saw the debut of a few new (and old) pick ups: Christian Esparza and Amos Leong (new), Alex Jones and Thomas Cope (old).

Of course, Tejas was there as well.

Squad list:
Alex, Amos, Christian, Elliot, Jonny, JR, Louis, MC, Perry (C), Ravi, Tejas, Theo, Tom "Tim" B , Cope

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We started on offence. A quick upfield pass followed by a deep connection from Tejas to Jonny meant Strange Blue took the first point of the match.

Birmingham quickly got into their flow, playing standard, fast-paced offence. They quickly took control of the game with 5 consecutive points. A timeout was called by us, and while there was evident improvement in our offensive flow in subsequent points, it was Birmingham who took half 8-1.

The second half saw our offensive continue to struggle against their defence. Birmingham's slightly poachy and smartly positioned defenders meant both our cutters and handlers faced immense difficulty in getting free. Despite some great individual defensive plays by Tim and Jonny in the endzone, our lackluster offense meant we were unable to convert on our possessions. UBU were clearly the better drilled team. The game ended Birmingham 15-2 Cambridge.

The match was disappointing. It was definitely not the result we were hoping for, but the newness of the squad means there is much room for improvement. We can and will only go up from here.