Halibut Heroes

This blog has laid dormant for too long! Last weekend the Heroes mixed squad played in the 15th version of the Australia-wide recognised Halibut tournament. This year the tournament was held on the Gold Coast at the home of the GC suns, Carrara stadium. The fields were fantastic, as to was the organisation of the tournament by Stef and co.

Heroes were seeded in 11th spot and unfortunately we were unable to improve on our seeding, finishing in 11th overall. Although we finished in the bottom 4 of the tournament it certainly doesn't represent the number of games where we were in genuine contention. Saturday saw us play against Blue Steel (byron bay), Griffindoor (new pick-upy team), Short Skirt Long Jacket (old schoolers), and lastly DTF (young hipsters).

BS took control early against a nervous Heroes outfit. Heroes managed to get 4 on the board, all of which came from some very nice play. The team played fairly well with good structure but a few skill errors let us down, and against a team like BS they score after every turn. Griffindoor were playing their first game together ever and Heroes were able to take advantage with a solid 15-4 win. A few of their American imports were really quite good and I hear they improved throughout the tourney. SSLJ were too slow, too old, too achey, but really they were just too damned good. Great experienced calm offence and an awesome no look scoober into the endzone to score by big Tony Ross. Score was 15-6 to SSLJ.

The focus before the tournament was on our last game of the day against DTF. We were really excited for it and everyone played exceptionally well for the first half, hardly any errors and well structured play (we also focussed on the weaknesses of Carl and Laura, the former becoming quite frustrated ;) ). At one stage we raced away to a 7-2 lead before Reece called the TO. Reece, Gio and Finn calmed their troops down and they went on to win the match 15-11. It seems like DTF raced away with the win after half but they really did have to earn it. Well done Heroes! Solid improvement throughout the day.

Saturday night saw us have an enjoyable time at the party, with Gav showing off his personal talent of an iron gut, before we retired to our backpackers. I fell asleep to the sounds of Hugh and the rest of the Townsville crew chatting loudly. Then also awoke many times during the night to the same group having numerous chats, obviously strategising for how to beat Heroes come Sunday afternoon. How they can play a whole day on little to no sleep also amazes me.

Sunday morning saw a tired Heroes finish off their pool games against Fun Police (all stars) and Bondage (GC team). Eventual tournament and party talent winners Fun Police were a classy mix of home grown and interstate talent. They raced to 8-0 before we scored 3 in a row. Final score of 15-3. Bondage played hard, really hard. Harder than we were used to and it showed with us getting a bit flustered at critical stages of the match. This is a match we could have won. Bondage played savage girls for the entire day and did extremely well to run out a tough fought match. Skill errors and some decision making when close to the end zone cost us a number of points. The final score was 13-9 Bondage.

For the cross over match we played QUTies and had a really enjoyable game against them. Heroes club BUML players Craig and Starkey did really well. Unfortunately, the relative inexperience of the QUT side had the Heroes triumph with a score of 13-6. The last game of the day and the weekend saw us fairly evenly matched against Taste my Rainbow (Townsvillains). If not for their late name change it would have been a classic Heroes vs Villains showdown. The intensity and closeness of the match did not disappoint with TMR clawing away at the end to take the game 10-9.

Heroes had a great weekend on the whole. Although a few of the results weren't in our favour we played well as a team and there are definite signs that we can and will improve on our skills and structure. Having the killer instinct to put teams away and to play a complete game of ultimate will be our aim for the rest of the season.

Sorry for the long recap but I felt it important to provide an in depth reflection of Heroes Halibut 2011. Go Heroes!