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.