Spirit Winners!

The final placings in the four divisions are here:
http://wucc2006.org/FinalPlacings.pdf

Congrats to fellow Aussie teams Thong (2nd in the Open) and Chilly (3rd in the Open).

The Aussies swept the field in Spirit.

Phoenix, from Canberra, won the Women's spirit. Fear Discinsonia, from Perth, won the Master's spirit. Blokes and Sheilas, from Canberra and Sydney, won the Mixed spirit.

And... (drum roll...)
Fakulti won Spirit of the Game in the Open division.

Well done team!

Saturday night party

Kenny is enjoying the party so much he is about to explode.

James, Abra and Nans














Tex, Tom and Lisi live it up.

















Camby is an oasis of calm amidst the storm that is the party.

Friday night party

Liam, looking for the 70's
















Melissa and friend from Force Durian Gamelan Orchestra, displaying their team's party outfits














Tex, Waz, Emily and Mal

Our accommodation

The view of the motel pool. Gorgeous. We used the pool a lot.







The view from my bedroom. Not so gorgeous. We didn't use the chairs at all.

Placing games

Fakulti played Mephisto again. We won 17 - 10 ish. Too strong.

Then the final day saw us up against Clapham. Again, we didn't play pretty, and our man offence couldn't flow in the wind, while our D didn't get enough stops. A loss.

So a final placing of 6th for Fakulti - a pretty impressive result for a young team, with 2/3 of the team at their first international tournament.

Congrats to the team, and thanks to all who helped carry us this far!

Quarterfinal

So Thursday was quarterfinals day.

Fakulti vs Sub Zero.

Sub Zero, from Minneapolis, USA, have a smaller squad. They have a handful of outstanding throwers, and a lot of experience at the elite level.

We played on field Upper 1, with most of the crowd down at Lower 1, near the shade, hill and beer.

Whether it was nerves or bad luck, we started poorly. 5 straight points to Sub Zero after miscommunications and drops from us.

We opened our scoring with an assertive huck from Matt to Ant. 1 pass score.

Then it was time for us to dictate terms, now that we could start a point on D.

Bring out the Pommy Zone.

This zone slowed down their offense, allowed us to be loud and noisy on the sideline, and slowly brought us back in the game.

We traded til half, 9-4.

Time to accelerate. More pommy zone.

11-9 to Sub Zero. We were closing the gap.

But it wasn't enough. Sub Zero made errors, but we made more. Frustration.

Sub Zero prevailed 17-10, and were through to the semifinals.

The loss was disappointing, as we hadn't played well in our biggest game, and we had looked tired.

In other games, the 2 other Aussie teams prevailed, Thong over Doublewide and Chilly over Clapham.

Who is doing what? Part 2

Pete G is a fluid generator of offence, despite his painful Achilles tendon.

Rhys's forehand doesn't know if it is windy and doesn't care. He hasn't danced enough though.

Ant is scoring goals, getting blocks, is always open, marks handlers and defenders, plays deep-deep and middle-middle in our zone. He is huge.

Sam is cutting strong and long. He lurks on the wing of our zone and makes life hard for the offence there.

Spark is chasing world-class receivers and denying them the disc.

Owen still needs to fix his posture when he runs.

Waz is sending the disc where it belongs - off to the endzone.

Tex is a strong primary wing and hits the ground all the time.

Liam is a D man, and even initiated the fast break against Mephisto.

Mal has superb throwing decisions and chases cutters all day. Yeah fitness.

Who is doing what?

On fakulti's players:

Ken's storytelling has narration that would make Michael Palin proud.

Dave is implicitly suggesting to opposing players that they should not be the dump. By shutting down their cuts.

Kai is a running machine, and wishes Owen wouldn't float hucks so high.

Matt is throwing hammers, and being a true veteran.

James is putting on pivoting clinics. During games.

Goldy is catching with his fingernails, and making the sideline gasp.

Fatty is the best sideline talker, probably hasn't had any turnovers, and seems to have been to 20 Worlds before.

Tin Tin is throwing effortlessly.

Glover is the fastest man in Australian ultimate. And maybe Ultimate. But that 18 year old Colombian was pretty quick too. We need a doolio footrace...

More soon...

Entering the quarterfinals

Fakulti have attained 3 wins from 4 games in our powerpool.

We beat Chilly 17-15 after letting them make a scary late run. We toppled Mephisto 17-14 (or 17-13?). Ant is owning the air.

Yesterday we triumphed over Fire of London, leading most of the game, for the 3rd consecutive game. We were a little more tired.

Then we ran into Thong (from Sydney and Brisbane). They were fresh, having not played that day, yet. Their D was tenacious, their straight up force was ideal in the windy conditions, and the sun was hot. Thong beat us 17-10 or 17-11. We had all our 19 players playing.

Then Thong also tasted the difficulties of backing up for another game less than 2 hours later - getting walloped 17-3 by Chilly in the showcase game. Fresh legs are a critical asset here in the hot conditions.

So the quarterfinal match ups are:
Buzz Bullets (Japan) vs Mephisto (Canada)
Chilly (Aus) vs Clapham (UK)
Fakulti (Aus) vs Sub Zero (USA)
Doublewide (USA) vs Thong (Aus)

Buzz Bullets are the only undefeated team, and should we win our quarterfinal, we will meet them. And introduce them to fakultimate :)

The do or die games start now.

Internet issues

Sorry for the lack of posts

At the fields, there are 8 computers available for player use, and a wireless hotspot.

But the speed is terribly slow: 10-15 minutes for any page to load.

So I have only been able to put up one post from the $10 an hour computer at our motel.

Images

Liam is wrapped up in a jumper. We later cooked him on an open fire, and he was delicious.



The opening ceremony, from on the hill. Thousands of Ultimate players. yay!



This is the bathroom door in our apartments. As you can see, privacy is not a design feature.

Days 1 and 2

3 games down, and a bunch to go.

Yesterday we played Flippers from Japan. We were excited, and started strong in the windy conditions. 7-0 is strong, yes?

Our zone was confident, and our quick counterattacks were rewarding. The Japanese were accurate with their hucks, but I don't know why they were aiming at our deepest defender instead of their own players :) Nice catches Matty.

We traded from there, including some simple turns after half to give them 3 in a row.

Today we got up at 6am to get here for our 8:30 game. Glover wasn't even the last to arrive at our rendezvous point :)

Doublewide, from Texas, were our opponents. The score reached 6-6. And it was littered with turnovers. The wind played a factor, but not hugely, just uncharacteristic errors.

We continued in this vein to let them pull ahead 16-10. 4 late points weren't enough: 17-15 them. Sam rolled his ankle and is a maybe. Disappointing play from us really.

Colombia next. Dave had an emphatic start to the game, skying their tallest player as revenge for him skying Dave moments before. We prevailed 17-6. Revenge for Liam and Tex who played some of these guys at Junior Worlds back in August, and lost a nailbiter. Colombia like to fly. And give out wristbands.

All 3 games have been good spirited, which is really fun. We have seen a couple of fiery other matches.

Ken is storytelling in the post game cheer. His meandering deadpan tales first bemuse, then entertain our opponents.

By popular demand, I was a cameo commentator of the showcase game between Mephisto (Canada) and Clapham (UK). Hundreds of other players relaxing on the hill and in the beer garden were enjoying the match. And heckling :) And just maybe some of the commentating.

So far I have caught up with mates from Singapore, Vancouver, Germany, Italy, New Zealand. And Leeds.

Ahead: games vs Chilly, Mephisto, Thong and Fire of London, to determine who makes the quarterfinals, and in what order.

All directions lead to Perth

I've packed my bags and have got some time to kill before I have to leave, so why not post on the team blog?

I had my last exam yesterday, and with that weight off my shoulders, all my attention can be focused on this coming week. Everything else has shifted aside, the worries and stress have made way for excitement and anticipation. I haven't been to an international-level tournament before, but I bloody well am looking forward to this one - I'm sure it won't disappoint.

There'll be thousands of other players from countries I've never thought of even visiting - how cool is that? I've got friends from overseas and interstate coming to play and watch, so I can't wait to catch up with them. But most importantly, I'm looking forward to playing on that world stage - so bad...

All these months of training and lead-up tournaments have finished and it's time to put all that hard work to good use. Bring on the Flippers, bring on Double-Wide and Santa Fe, plus whoever else happens to cross our path. Because all directions lead to Perth, and once there, I'm hoping all the way to the final. YEAH FAKULTI!

Entering the the global consciousness

Fakulti is now an official term, part of the world-wide lexicon. Head over to Wikipedia and check it out.

Last days in Sydney

One more sleep until most of the team travels to Perth. So what did everyone get up too? I was fortunate enough to have time for a massage. Now feeling great! I'd love to put off packing a bit longer, but it's almost crunch time.

Here's a great photo of Kenny from a tournament earlier this year. I swear he's looking to throw a pass downfield, towards Perth. Into our future.

(Photo courtesy of David Elsey)

Who of us will cut for his throw? My guess is that he'll have at least 20 Fakulti boys to choose between. Some will be in Perth, some will be making that cut all they way from Sydney. A lucky Fakulti bloke will catch it, but we'll all have made the cut together...

That's really corny. I should just stick with the tried and true: BRING IT ON!

More musings about clubs

What is it about clubs that makes it different?

International tournaments bring together a huge variety of tactics, styles of play and attitudes. It is eye opening and you can learn a lot, along with all the fun.

Before I played clubs in hawaii I'd never seen so many fields next to one another. I think there were 36 fields in the one complex. It took 10 minutes to walk from one side to the other. UWA looks pretty big too.

Excitement can get the better of you. I played the first point in hawaii of our first game, and it went for 5 minutes. I think we ran around like headless chickens. I was excited to be there, and it took a while to settle into the structure of play.

The sideline has great impact at big tournaments. With large squads the sideline can assist the players on the field significantly. In Australia there is often a shortage of players and a need to recruit more people. There aren't many teams with large squads at nationals and the smaller competitions, so the sideline is often a second thought. There will be lots of large teams wandering the sideline at worlds and many will be vocal.

Watching games is a tough thing to do. With games spread over 22 fields it will be difficult knowing which game to watch. There is talk of an elevated viewing area in perth which could be gold for the spectators.

One obvious benefit of clubs happening in perth is that there are many australian teams playing. With any luck this will help all of our teams. In hawaii there were a large number of usa teams, but I didn't see too much cross team support. A part of this is of course due to the larger player base and unfamiliarity of players. The smaller australian player base and tighter community might help improve support for the aussie teams.

Clubs seedings are out

1 Sub Zero USA (1)
2 Doublewide USA(3)
3 Chilly AUS 1 (2)
4 BUZZ BULLETS JPN 1 (4)
5 Clapham Ultimate UK1 - EU2 (5)
6 Mephisto Canada (6)
7 Fakulti AUS 2 (7)
8 Fire of London UK2 - EU10 (8)
9 Nomadic Tribe JPN 2 (9)
10 Thong AUS 3 (10)
11 BOUHSEARS JPN 3 (11)
12 EMO UK3 (12)
13 Colombia National Open - Santa Fe COL (13)
14 ULTIMATE VIBRATION FRA (14)
15 Deathstar AUS 4 (15)
16 TIBETS JPN 4 (16)
17 Too Bad Canada (17)
18 FLIPPERS JPN 5 (19)
19 Hot Chilly AUS - 5 (18)
20 Redbacks AUS - 6 (20)
21 Magon NZ (21)
22 India IND (22)

Ranking is finalised

The two ranking tournaments are complete. The Australian Open teams that will compete at Clubs are ranked in this order:

1. Chilly
2. Fakulti
3. Thong
4. Deathstar
5. Hot Chilly
6. Redbacks

How this translates into actual seedings at the tournament, remains to be seen.

On the weekend, Fakulti defeated Deathstar (17-10), Chilly (17-8) and Thong (17-13). We then played a final against Chilly to determine 1st and 2nd seed (their win over us at the previous tournament meant we were tied on wins/losses).

Chilly lead 4-0 early and prevailed 17-10 against a hard-running Fakulti. We were missing 7 players due to injury, which seemed like a factor.

We will spend time up until Clubs getting everyone fitter and back to full health.

3 weeks to go

Actually only 19 days til the World Ultimate Club Championships kick off in Perth. Cool.

Check out the other teams in the tournament that Fakulti will play.