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 vs Tsunami Match Report

Well given that Nationals is done and dusted it seems that there is a bit more time to grab a hold of. That means more blogging. No doubt there will be numerous posts regarding Nats on the various blog sites we link to, and hopefully one or two on the HUC site, but for now I offer you a brief match report from our Div 2 BUML game.

Now as is the case with the other two Heroes BUML teams we had a number of players backing up from Nats and surprisingly none were tired/slow but rather excited to have another game, including myself with a badly strained knee that restricted me to 50% pace and an awkwardly painful limp. We were however missing Bev and Em to illness and Sam (with good results in his school's cross country today) to study. Recognising only a handful of faces in Tsunami I was not expecting the level of play that they brought. Every player on their team seemed very confident with the disc which was wonderful to see given they are a majority of beginners. Because of this they started strong and it took a while for us to get right in the game. Eventually we were hitting our strides as a team using both unders and longs effectively. Dstrel played an excellent game with dynamic handling and front of stack movement. Vanessa beat her girl every time providing easy options for the handlers, and ate up every disc - high, low, whatever. Emily S scored a brilliant goal (her first I think). Alex looked comfortable with his field presence and was getting the disc often because of this. He was also putting the force on the right side every time without having to stop and think about it! At half time we set a goal of not letting our man get free when on D and as a team we achieved this, which was my personal highlight of the game. Because we played at UQ it was a disappointingly shorter game, with the final result 11-7 to Tsunami.

One thing the shorter game did bring about was the desire for more Disc. Almost unanimously the team cried out in our post game debrief for Sunday training.

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.

Wonder Women v Moulin Rouge

Well, this was an interesting game.

Wonder Women were actually supposed to play a different team this week, but with every team except Moulin Rouge suffering from a shortage of players, the draw was mixed up so the two teams with 4-5 players each played each other, and we played Moulin Rouge.

Luckily for everyone in the league, Moulin Rouge showed amazing spirit before the game even started by giving up 3 of their players to ensure that 2 games could be played. Wonder Women only had 6 players, after our fill-in Lisa hurt herself in the drills before the game. Moulin Rouge supplied us with uber pick up Sophie and agreed to play with 6 players so that both teams could have a sub. Thank you Moulin Rouge!

I can’t actually remember much of the game, other than the fact that there were always options available for passes, and there were a lot of points with good flow down the field.

We got away to an easy lead, and at half time the score was 8-4 our way. However, the on-field play was very even, so much so that at half time Sandra thought that Moulin Rouge were winning!

However, after half time Moulin Rouge came out firing and bam, bam, bam, the score was 8-8. At this point I was pretty worried and could not believe we had turned a 4 point lead into a nail biter finish!

Luckily we stepped up under pressure, and well, I guess all I have to say is that when I picked up Adam from BPL, I was much happier than he was!

Final score 11-8 to Wonder Women! Yay for our first win!

MVP:

This week’s MVPs were chosen by Vanessa.

3 points: Sarah for an awesome end zone grab.
2 points: Sandra for “throwing.”
1 point: Lisa for keeping score on the sideline!

AyyOhh

AO tonight recorded their first win since the pools were split!! Hooray. More importantly we played some good disc. It was nice to see the under cuts working for a change and their was a breif period where it looked like the dump-swing-score was going to be the new Agent move (as opposed to the regular hammer-to-the-middle-of-the-pack-in-the-endzone which hasn't worked all season). That only lasted a point or two though and we were back to our classic form throwing risky throws (a couple of which stuck for a change, but most ended up hitting the ground).

Cougars played well too, but dropped easy grabs far too often in the early stages. Huge endzone grabs coming from Tim and Ads for them.

Shout outs for AO to Vanessa, Dan, and James. Personally I think however we are all still playing less skillfully than we are capable. Things are on the up though. (Including injuries - Starky is recovering from a twisted ankle while I did mine tonight - it's swollen up big time!)

AO 9 def. Cougars 7

Top 4 finish

Last night saw Heroes take on exQUTisTe for the 3rd place showdown. Unfortunately they did beat us quite easily in the end but we did manage to produce some good plays, in fact scoring the last 3 or so points was good to finish the season with. So quickly getting over that I am pleased to annouce the three winners of the Heroes awards for season 1 2010.
Heroes Spirit Award:  Alana Folkes
Heroes Most Improved: Vannessa Brown
Heroes MVP: Chris Brown

Well done to these threee people, they all really deserved theses acknowledgements and they were all excited to take the trophies home :P

Uncovering a Brown treasure

Lasts nights match has resonated with me and after deep reflection I've still come to a loss about where we found our little 'pop' princess. Vanessa tore up the pitch with well timed cuts that easily burnt her opponent. Then she almost knocked people over with the pace of her FOREHAND. Somewhere over the week little nesDog found a pock rocket of a forehand with perfect spin and execution. I'm pushing this girl up for big things, I reckon we found a great new target through the mid field of the stack.

And then it was a night where the Browns dominated, Chris, not to be out done by his little sister played a stella match and was right in the thick of it in just about every point Heroes made. I don't know whether it was training, a special warm up or extra coaching but these two Browns were magic on the field last night. Their efforts I felt were committed and well done all round to the both of them! (Now if only they could rub off onto their older brother... Hi Seb)

The final score was a nice 10-6 and Heroes Ultimate Frisbee Club is back on the winning trail

Great Bloody Mess

Tonight's match against Baby Chimi's saw us muck about a lot, with no discipline whatsover, at least from us old bastards who have been around long enough to know better. Vanessa became the reliable option, making the most reasonable cuts and also moving the disc on with confidence. Well done Vanessa! Her brother Chris must have been inspired, because he made some bustling cuts to the end zone, burning it up. He was also spotted warming down.. alone. What a man of commitment.

Starkey and Sean also threw some good ones, and some Carl to Laura sickening play :P saw us take the game 9-5.

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.