Mixed Nats Disqualifier

On a windy and drizzly morning, I got up early, practiced Qi Gong before slamming down 3 coffees and a bacon and egg roll. Some squad members enjoyed a few beers at Archive the night before, and this seemed like adequate preparation before riding to a tournament.

After roughly 270 minutes of game time, I felt alright, but the 3 girls, Robyn, Steph, and Laura probably felt deathly as they played savage and I'm pretty sure we were ineligible after our other girl dropped out.

We struggled to get warm before the first game, and some players looked reluctant to be alive. Robyn and Adam found the ground just before game time, and suddenly we were away to a dodgy start.

UQ 15 def. Heroes 9

UQ took the first half 8-1, with the only Heroes score coming from a high floating forehand from Your Humble Narrator, down-wind to James in TEZ (The End Zone). It was frustrating, because UQ's zone looked beatable. There were errors from both teams but UQ capitalised in end zone play, due to great assists from their fearless leader Nathan.

Whether it was James' verbal efforts, Carl's concussion* or a general desire to play better ultimate (my vote), we dominated the second half.

*Carl went up for a grab and took it, very AFL style, only to come down on his back and hit his head. He felt very groggy but still pissed up at a wedding later (i assume). He later returned to the field to put on some assists.

I don't really remember anything specific, but we tried resetting zones with Adam as a big puppy dog, and this must have worked, getting some turn overs in UQ's back half and calmly scoring. Some mention of the Brown Brothers playing for UQ should be made. Assholes. JK.

John Doe 15 def. Heroes 0

So our pants came off and Gav's skin coloured tights were voted more disturbing than my best pair of racing Reds. JD are an elite team who only had 5 points scored against them all tournament. They take every match seriously, so they didn't just dick around with us and finish it quickly, they stuck to their strats, and while their zone was beatable, we could only get the disc half way down the field before making an error, and there were a few close ones in the end zone too. Rick played hard to make the most of his limited tournament time. We were appreciative.

Heroes vs Sugar

I put one to James that he had to lay out for and everyone loved it. We played some good D, and some of Adam's forehands downwind actually came off. We didn't take advantage of the wind in a sensible way.. always hucking from the side that the wind was blowing rather than putting it across from the other side. We played 4 handlers a lot upwind, and those points were a lot of hard work. Gav stepped up as handler and Steph had a glorious fumble and regain that took me back to our indoor tournament. Laura ran hard all day, and Sean worked well down the line with James. Hopefully I've mentioned everyone now.

All I really remember from this tournament was telling Robyn that if she put it to me in the end zone that I'd lay out. I cut long off someone else and as I turned to come under, I saw Robyn receiving about 20m out, so I cut across the endzone with Paul Sanguentti close on my tail. Robyn put it beautifully into the corner so I happily obliged and layed out. Celebrations were had. I'd apologise for this public display of self-congratulation, but Carl gets to do it week in, week out, sometimes twice.

Heroes fought hard and it was great to play a bunch of games as a small squad. I look forward to training more seriously together and making a more serious bid this time next year.