OnThePitch - At home with a thigh burner

Tonight OnThePitch talks with the injured Mikey “Ricky Beats”  Strelan with his views on the match last night. We've had to pull him away from recovery exercises for this special, one-on-one chat at home. As you can see by his Heroes vault picture, Rick really is enthused about his current injury that sidelines him at this present time.

Heres a bit of how it all went down:

me:  so how did we play last night in your opinion

mikey:  from the sideline it seemed wonderful, the best part was that all of our passes stuck, and didn't make the unforced skill errors we are known for

me:  hmm yea that’s true, do you think it was a conscious effort made by the team to play better? Or maybe extra subs helped?

mikey:  to be honest I think it was just "about bloody time" - we've been together as a team for quite a while now and most of us have a few seasons under our belt... now is the time for us to come together and dominate div 2 buml

me:  I whole heartedly agree. What did you think of the coming of age of some of the newer players ie Vanessa and Chris

mikey:  chris is a dirty old man

me:  also agreed

 mikey:  but vanessa has really embraced her newly found adulthood. I think I misinterpreted your question mate

me:  well here at OnThePitch, thatll happen... I’d like to press deeper into you. How have the last few weeks been sitting it out on the sideline?

mikey:  speaking of deeper, I've got a deep burn in my sweet thighs and by that I mean that I'm in the middle of my hip flexors as we speak

me:  Mikey we can't even pull you away for a second it seems

mikey:  I have really enjoyed spectating, despite the undisclosed desire to get back on the field it's been a great insight in to what we look like from the sideline and we look great - these new shirts are most likely the reason we played so well

me:  Well then, from your perspective who in Heroes looks the best?

mikey:  last night’s game I was thinking about this ... initially I though Steph showed great strength and Chris had a good start too, but as the game went on I got distracted because EVERYONE was playing so well. Shouts out to Vanessa for a marvellous improvement, but also we saw a lovely leap to the end zone from Alana, great positioning by Megs, new found confidence from laura s and the not so unusual dominance from laura h

me:  Where do you think we can still improve Rick?

mikey:  uniform - we should all get white socks

 me:  and shorts? I was thinking white shorts for BPL and black for BUML? thoughts?

Mikey: yeah that could be a good combo, I liked the afl umpires on Saturday wearing green shirts like ours with blue shorts

mikey:  Also I think given how well we handled the disc last night we can start to focus on the drills that danny tries to make us do each week, which we can never master because we aren't mastering the basic skills

me:  Ok Mikey one last question

You've just been scored on in the grand final and the scores now 10-10. You get the Offensive play, how do you win it with a creative play?

mikey:  TIME OUT, get tomsteve off the field to avoid any hammers, thumbers, push passes, or any other stupid throws that tomsteve might try,... (hold on mate spaz is interrupting, apparently it should be called "offthepitch" coz im a softy)

me:  nice nice, i like your tactics already

mikey:  sorry I've lost my train of thought

me:  we'll do a 13th hour edit on the title

mikey:  All I was basically trying to say is to use your common sense, don't rush it, make passes that are guaranteed to stick and don't throw it away. I guess that's not really creative so if you want creative put tomsteve back on and pass it to him

me:  Tell me how your play would move up the field, if your 10m from the end zone do you hammer it?

mikey:  swing swing swing, pass up the field followed by another pass up the field. someone runs to the end zone and scores. call it simplistic but that's what I'm down for

me:  And that really is the basic premise of mikey's play: KISS. Not one for public displays of affection on the frisbee field from Mikey that is for tonight. Thanks to Mikey for giving up some time and we at Heroes Ultimate all hope your hip gets better soon.

Well there you go readers, it seems that even a softy spectator like Mikey, bound by the sideline enjoyed the game. And as always this has been me, you've been great and we'll see you next time - OnThePitch

Heroes Vs exQUisTe

Last night saw the pumped Heroes take on the newly kitted out exQUisTe in fluro pink (interesting selection) but they certainly showed more character than little girls in pink dresses. Heroes opened up with the new O strategy which we had never tried before. The new horizontal stack immediately showed up exQUisTe and Heroes struck to take the first 4 points of the game. The movement of the disc was superb with Steph showing her skills handling and myself managing to pull off a nice huck flick, up wind to score. Dave was quoted to say "That was probably your best ever throw" to me after we scored the point – (haha Hi Dave)

With Mikey showing the commitment of someone who should probably be engaged, laying out in the end zone in spectacular fashion, and unfortunately injuring himself in the process the Heroes were put on the back foot by exQUisTe. As Mikey left the pitch reports mentioned that Mikey was to say "Geez Rick, not in bike week!!!" Nice to see the bike doesn’t control you on the field Mikey.

The newer heroes really needed to step up to the disc in the midpoint of the game with Nessa excellently positioning herself in the right place to get a D on an opponent bigger than herself, well done Nessa!

exQUisTe soon came back with the help of a nicely structured zone which put the Heroes under the gun and drew some mistakes. The game quickly levelled to 5-5. The teams traded points and both got to 7-7. At this stage Heroes were still confident to get the win but with some again good defence exQUisTe were able to take the lead for the first time of the night when it really mattered. 8-7. Just at that time the game was time capped and last point called. (I hate time cap) Heroes threw everything at the draw and ran too hard for the disc, when on turn exQUisTe were able to easily swing the disc and score in the near corner to take the game by 2.

Heroes last night was a really great effort and all in attendance agreed one the better games we've played. For the first time we ever tried a Horo (or now Zoro) guys we did really well! Don't forget to get out for a throw mid week and again on the wkend. Focus on catching and swinging and looking up field to find those 4,5,6,7 cutters. Check out and study the firestorm powerpoint too. For mine Steph best on field and it was great to see silent G back to play a few points for the Heroes.