Heroes ladies at nationals!!

Back row L-R Jo, Brianna, Carla, Robyn, Alana, Monica, Annie, Vanessa, Aurelie.
Front row L-R Laura, Izzy, Adilia, Justine, Chantelle, Bron
Lying in front - Sylvia



A number of the Heroes ladies represented Queensland as part of “Red Betty” the development team from Queensland's ladies' ultimate club, Black Betty. For the majority of these ladies, it was their first Nationals and the first time they had played a high level, multiple day tournament.

Red Betty, being a developmental team, were seeded second to bottom. Unfortunately, the bottom team pulled out of the competition a few weeks before. Red Betty were therefore seeded 15^th out of 15 teams.

One way of summarising Red Betty's results is to say that we held our seeded place, which is what a lot of teams aspire to do...

But to simply say that Red Betty came last is to discredit the hard work and development of the ladies that occurred over the weekend.

Above all else, I think the ladies walked away with an understanding of what high level ultimate really is. In Brisbane, unless you play these national level tournaments, there is just no high level ladies ultimate available to watch or play. Watching the ladies final, the Heroes ladies were able to appreciate that ladies ultimate is fast, it is aggressive (in the sense that the women attack the disc, do not give up and get fired up) and it is skilful. I hope that all the ladies implement this in to their league games (you have to play like it is high level ultimate to be able to create high level ultimate).

Heroes were represented by Jo Ashdown, Brianna Fyfe, myself (Robyn Dowley), Alana Folkes, Vanessa Brown, Adilia Murabito, and Chantelle Smith (apologies if I have left anyone off the list).

Even though only one week has passed since Nationals finished, the games and individual player's performances have honestly become a bit of a blur to me.

Some that I can remember:

• All of the ladies keeping on running and not giving up, despite being tired.

• Alana having sticky fingers and scoring a few points from wayward discs in the end zone!

• Jo running and running – in the cup, going long, cutting to the right places when needed. Jo also has brilliant forehands which she pulls out to use occasionally. Jo you should force your way into the handling line on Discheads on occasion to build your confidence in your throws. They are there, you just need to know it!

• Bri's constantly improving handling skills – I honestly think you are already a great handler, you just need to find that confidence! Bri was also another reliable cutter who bailed me out of a high stall count on more than a few occasions. Bri was also really great at keeping the spirit levels of the whole team up, especially me when I had a bit of a breakdown on day 2.

• Chantelle is another great receiver. She is quick and is fast developing a sense of field awareness. With a bit more experience she will be an unstoppable receiver.

• Vanessa came into the team at a very late stage, as we needed players desperately and she was kind enough to volunteer herself. This put her at a bit of a disadvantage as she did not have the build up of skills that the other ladies had acquired through the few months of regular training. However, she still managed to slot right into the team, picking up the few plays that we had and playing them efficiently. I also remember being on the sideline with Vanessa for a few points with Vanessa constantly calling to the on-field ladies, helping them with where they should be, calling out when their player was getting free in a zone etc. This was really encouraging to see as it is a very difficult task to get the players engaged in sideline play in ladies ultimate.

• Adilia being her usual steady handler self. It was great to have another experienced, steady handler in the team.

I look forward to being able to see the continued development of these ladies, particularly through WUFL. And given the new skills these ladies have gained, I am pretty sure defending champions Wonder Women will have a fantastic season!

Thankyou to all of the players in Red Betty. It was a pleasure to captain you all!

AO Play Less Risky vs Frisky

Brief match report from Monday nights game:

Although there were 7 Agents at Annerley for start time (the 6.45 kickoff is hard for many to make) we began play with only 6 on the field as Adilia conducted her official whistle blowing duties. Frisky played 5/2 m/f at the beginning as that's all they had and we mixed it up a bit once Cola arrived from the GC playing 4/3 and 5/2 as people needed the sub.

The early stages of this game were tight. 9 consecutive points took place with both teams trading 1 for 1. Not happy to just trade points to the end, the Agents found some Orange Power and kicked things up a notch. The middle to end periods of the game saw us keep good control of the disc, execute some effective long throws and run tight tight tight D. My highlight was seeing (I think it was) Vanessa use the dump swing (which scored) where traditionally we would have rushed it down the sideline to our demise. As a team we finally seem to be a bit more patient with the disc, which I couldn't be happier about. Shout outs to both Robyn and Alana who continuously got free of their man (in the unisex sense of the word) particularly when making long cuts. From memory both were rewarded with goals for their efforts. Frisky Time played well too and (even when we were scoring point after point) remained calm and confident in their abilities, the result of which was some beautiful Ultimate. Final score 13-5.

The thing for AO to work on for the final series will be generating the flow of hard under cuts by knowing whose turn it is to cut and clearing out faster when you don't receive it. We are hitting our stride at the business end of the season, and will be looking to take out the pool b flag if this form continues.

AO VS MY

One of the perks of playing in the b pool of BUML div 2 is getting to play against such enjoyable teams as Mellow Yellow. Monday night proved no exception to the oft spoken truth of MY's good spirit.

AO was missing Steph (Europe) and Cam (gone AWOL?), with James playing at 50% having an end of season cold. Relatively recent additions Robyn and Cola have slotted into the team quite well however and have helped provide some handling confidence as well as up field flair. The other usual suspects (read some older AO match reports if you don't know who they are) brought their A game too, and instead of having one or two moments of individual brilliance like we normally do, we had moment after moment of fluid play.

The early stages of the game saw us trade points pretty evenly until MY called a time out after we scored two in a row. We knew they'd be coming hard at us after this so we lifted our game too and scored the majority of points in this middle section of play. They proceeded to get a few back and we traded a couple more points to close out the game at a tight 10-8. Although it was inconsequential to the result, one shining moment of 'glory' came after last possession was called by Adilia (doing her BUML duties) - MY pull the disc, AO are talking up the safe play options to keep control and score as they are running to position, and James (probably thinking about how safe he's going to play it) in receiving said pulled disc drops it cold. Some laugh. Some groan. All consequently shake hands.

And after the dissapointment of an unfitting end had faded, what we were left with was the memory of fun, hard fought ultimate. MY's new players had improved heaps since our last match up. For me though, it was most pleasing to see AO finally gelling as a team, reading each other well and playing disc with some wonderfully seamless flow. The challenge now is to string wins together and get on top of this b pool!