Sprint into Summer HAT

CHECK OUT SOME PHOTOS!! http://www.flickr.com/photos/tjm_22/sets/

The SPRING INTO SUMMER ONE DAY HAT tournament was held at Yeronga Australian Football Club on Sunday October 29th. It was a partly overcast, partly sunny day, with a little bit of wind, luckily not quite as hot as the previous day! 45 people signed up, divided into 4 teams and played 4 x 1 hour games. There were many stunning grabs, windy hucks, butt-blocks and plain hard running. All teams improved as they learned eachother's names and star signs and how they like to play together throughout the day.
After the final game where Teams 1 and 2 faced off, local team Bootius Maximus put on a 'showcase' game which was observed by some and heckled by more. The day wrapped up with a few ales at the club house with some greasy finger food and $2 felt hats to finish off a spring day, and preparing everyone for summer.

I'll put a summary of the results from the day here.

HAT WINNERS - Team 1
Maylin Chuah
Heather Mailander
Maria Isosaari
Russell Johnson
Stephen Hjelm
Dustin Czok
Rodney Weatherhead
Robert Lowe
Andrew Reiland
Brett Matzuka
Claire Tunningley

SPIRIT WINNERS - Team 2 & 4
Team 2 - Tegan Don, Elisa Miller, Peta McNaugton, Lucy Barkley, Rueben Berg, Leon McIntyre, Matthew Morrison, Hamish Millard, Daniel Blacklock, Jacob Randall, Jon Good.
Team 4 - Jenny Beard, Kirstin Millard, Stephanie Levasseur, Janet Nutley, Alistair Don, Daniel Lipin, Scott Massey, Luke Allen-Ankins, Chirs Finney, Andrew Badman.

MVPs
Tegan Don
Matthew Morrison

The team that didn't win anything but did well in their own right, team 3 consisted of.. Rena, Molly, Bree, Lauren (hot hot hot grabs and blocks girls!), two mcnaughtons, James Larkin, Nate Peterson, Huddy, Nat Litzow and Dan Packman.

Despite the stolen bag incident, personally I had a fabulous day!!!!!! and hope that all those who participated enjoyed themselves as well.

HAT TOURNIES ARE AWESOME!!!!!!! LET'S HAVE THEM MORE OFTEN BRISBANE!!!!!!!!!

YUFL Intermediate Season 2 awards

The second season of YUFL Intermediate league was long and cold and sparse in parts but it wrapped up nicely with an awesome final and end of season party on September 1st where awards were given out to the following teams and individuals.

League Winners : QUTIES (reigning champs!)
Runners Up : Disponics

Spirit Winners : Red Pepper

Most Improved Players as selected by each team
UQ1 - Bart Edgar
Bermuda Triangle - Kelly Foran
UQ2 - Kerri Mackenroth
Mellow Yellow - David Campbell
Red Pepper - Belinda Phillips

Most Valuable Players as selected by each team
F.T.Jollies - Kate Bayne
QUTIES - Alex Chadwick
Disponics - Adam Pretorius

And special thanks to all the captains
Jill Q, Brett Matzuka, Dan Blacklock, SaraCargill, Jon Good, AdiliaMurabito/DustinCzok, Tim Marchbank, and Karen Roche.

Well done everybody!!

Halibut 2006

Last weekend saw the return of Halibut, Queensland’s Premier Mixed Tournament, to Brisbane, after a few years down at the Gold Coast.

The weather was perfect all weekend, though a little windy on the first morning. Twelve teams made it to this year’s tournament, with teams from Perth, Adelaide, New South Wales and Canberra, making the trip north. In attendance were 3 teams who will be representing Australia at the World Ultimate Club Championships in Perth in the Mixed Division: Blokes & Sheila’s (ACT), Sublime (WA) and tournament hosts Bootius Maximus (QLD).

Games between those three teams were very close, with Sublime and Booty deadlocked in a draw, but the real powerhouse team for the weekend were the undefeated Bender, whose line up comprised 7 current/ex Australian representatives! (Tom & Anna Rogacki, Jonathon Potts, Chris Burwell, Piers Truter, Sandra Poon, Mat Ryan)

Bender led throughout the final versus Booty, and despite a late charge by Booty, were able to comfortably take it out 15-11. A highlight from the final was Jonathon Potts bringing down a huge grab amongst a big pack - having caught the disc with his broken arm (which was in a cast and wrapped in bubble wrap)!!

The return of the tournament to Brisbane also saw the return of State of Origin, although this year it was QLD versus The Universe! QLD, lead by Mike Neild, had a few first time players (James Larkin, Russell Johnson, Chris Cunliffe, Andy Lankowski and Brett Matzuka) as well as the old faithful crew. Unfortunately The Universe was without Tom Rogacki, but still boasted a strong line-up (JD, Piers, Adam Mortimer), and were able to take the early lead 6-3. A time-out was called and QLD clawed back to take the half 8-6. Some extra fresh legs made the difference for QLD as they continued their good work after half time to take it out 15-8.

Final Placings:
1 Bender (15-11 in Final)
2 Booty
3 B&S
4 Sublime
5 Shoot to Kill
6 Da Frizz
7 Lizards (Plate Winner)
8 Bond
9 Lovers
10 Gumby Magic
11 weaty Yeti's
12 Freeze

Spirit: Shoot to Kill

Female MVP: Lauren O'Conner (Armidale Freeze)
Male MVP: Jon Good (Lizards)

State of Origin: QLD (15 - 8)

Active Sportz was pleased to be in attendance at the Halibut tournament and congratulate the winners, Bender.

Please note that Active Sportz is the distributor for the GAIA in Australia and New Zealand so if you need any GAIA apparel for WWUCC06 or you local team please contact www.activesportz.com.au or sales@activesportz.com.au

Big thanks go to the Tournament Directors; Tegan Don and Ren Kuwahata, for another well run and fun QLD tournament!

Let the Halibut Tomfoolery, I Mean Trashtalk, Begin

Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, bruthahs 'n' sistahs.

J-Dog here, His Stone Cold Baadness, The Original Gangsta, The Mack Daddy, The Freaky Gangbanga. Firin' up the ride for the Fish and gettin' large.

And I got somethin' to say to all y'all baeioutches out there: Keep yo' uncle***in' **** offa my Halibut Trophyea, or I'll **** your sorry *** up wit' a quickness. And I don't want to see y'all comin' around, puttin' your feet on it, neither. Or puttin' your ********* disc golf disc on it and leaving them ****ed-up rings all upside the wood and shit.

'Cause I got my fly bro Dustin on my squad. Check it - he the dope handler and my stoopid-fresh f'teen-goal scorin' machine.

I swear, if I see any of y'all within three feet of our endzone, our gal Karen Jay-Z'll put a Lee Van Cleef on your baeioutch ****. Gettit?

We'll just be trying to keep it real, know what I'm sayin'? I wanna stop the baggelling before it starts, specially wi't dem Townsville-side punks. I could say nothin' and wait in the shadows like some uncle****in' ninja, and when some punk-ass Truter come along and start readin' my "Attitude Is A Little Thing That Makes A Big Difference" Successories shirt, I could jump out and knock the sucka's teeth the **** out. 'Cause that would be my right. A man's gotta protect what's his, right?

You wanna know what I's and my team's is like? Take what happened just last week at tho BPL. Phat Matty Boev, this li'l ****-*** ho from de Lovers posse, be runnin' his *** around the pitch, layin' out wit' a goddamn smiley face. I'm like, "Whus this smiley-face **** y'all be puttin' on my pitch?" And he's like, "Man I love spirit of the game yup!"

Now, de friends of Buzz and Flan (the Cripps) don't take ***** from nobody, and I sure as hell don't take none from some university student, so I picks up my disc and do some crazy kung-fu ***** on his. "Flag yo' ******-**-***** outta ******* * ** here."

And that's what you'll be gettin' at the Halibut. An' big props to our main ladies Tegan and Rena for sortin' all the TD ****.

J-Dog out. And to all my homies in the Can and the bruthahs kickin' it down and comin' up from Syd (I thinkin' of yo, Nadine-honey), keep ya heads up. Peace.

*yes, I'm being silly

AU is Out Once Again

Hi readers,

The latest issue of Australian Ultimate went in the mail last week, and hopefully it will be up on the afda.com website asap (go to news, then newsletters to find it). Or you can email me and I'll send you a .pdf

Comments as always are welcome, either here or via email, or even in person. I think the Mythbusting article came off pretty well, and the Nats reports weren't bad. We gave a fair bit of space over to World Clubs volunteer recruitment because its pretty important to the success of the event (and the AFDA's future).

It seemed a little odd but I didn't have time at the moment, but it surprised me how few issues were sent out to Queenslanders. Possibly someone in QUDA isn't keeping the AFDA database up to date with fees paid etc (if you haven't had a fee payment noted against your afda number in the last six months then you drop off the postal list). It could also be that lots of Queenslanders have opted not to get a mailed copy. Anyway, remind me to ask someone.

Anyway, enjoy.

jdr

Bugs Rise To The Surface

Last night saw the end of Ultimate Lovers 4 game winning streak - with the Buggers coming away with a 2 point win in the Brisbane Premier League (BPL).

Last time the two teams met the Lovers came out on top, but it seems that more game time has been of great benefit to the newer up and coming members of the Bugs team. Plus they were bolstered by the return of one Mr Jason Ray - who unfortunately didn't complete the game after injuring his ankle in the process of pulling the disc at the start of the final point!

The Bugs got ahead early and Lovers were always struggling to get back into the game. But Lovers fought back hard and scores came back to level late in the game - only for a goal saving block from Scott Massey to allow the Bugs to get back enough of a lead before the final siren.

It was great to see such a high quality game in the Brisbane Domestic scene - let's keep it coming!

The win for Bugs should be a warning to all other teams that while they may not have the most experienced list, the young guns are coming along and the Bugs are a force to be reckoned with.

Don't discount the Lovers yet though - the team will be bolstered next week with the return of aL Don - and their youth and exuberance will see them bounce back with gusto!

YUFL Intermediate awards

It's about a month late but I figured it would be nice to have it up here anyway... for the record.
In wrapping up the first installment of Intermediate league this year, on April 29th, awards were given out to the following people at the end of season party.

League Winners : QUTIES
Runners Up : Bermuda Triangle

Spirit Winners : UQ

Most Improved Players as selected by each team
UQ - Carla Ziser
QUTIES - Liam Wetnose
Bermuda Triangle - Karen Roche
Disponics - Bruce Webster
TeamB - Cam Tarbottom/Rodney Weatherhead
Sultry special award of Most Incredible Player - Jenny Beard

And special thanks to all the captains
Jill Q, Sandra Poon, Dan Blacklock, SaraCargill/MikeNield, GeoffSpurling/JohnMc/Leon, Tim Marchbank

Well done everybody!!

Women’s future

Thought I might put up there my interpretation of some collective thoughts…

WUFL has been a success since it started two seasons ago. We have managed to recruit and nurture some very new and exciting women in Qld!
Another massive recruitment avenue for both men and women alike have been the university leagues, namely QUT and UQ. The semester is more than halfway gone and it is showing great potential, attracting a pool of YOUNG & FIT talent!!

The more “senior” members of the women’s ultimate community in Qld are very keen to support anything that will encourage this group of new ladies transition into intermediate and experienced level competition. Good solid players are needed to strengthen the core of the female generation in Qld ultimate.

Many of the WUFL players and uni league players have rapidly mastered the basic rules and skills and are at a stage where they are encouraged to play in tournaments and other leagues which are more challenging for them. However, the unescapable fact that men are generally more fit, fast and aggressive than women, the mixed environment can be too tough a challenge for many ladies. We need an alternative avenue where women are encouraged to learn, grow and improve their skills...

Regardless of whether you are beginner, intermediate, experienced or vetran, all Qld women need a good shake up and boost!!

After some discussion, there’s been a general air of agreement that the best way forward for now is probably to have a regular and structured women’s training session under instruction of a good coach. This way players of all levels will be able to participate as a player (not as a mentor) and focus on training, polish up on skills, discuss about tactics and set plays, build on teamwork, etc.

A potential coach has already been sourced, and Tuesday or Thursday has been raised as the possible nights for training. Fields are being investigated in Toowong and Mt Gravatt…
LET’S DO IT LADIES!!

BUGS at NUFL 2

This weekend was the second and last National Ultimate Frisbee League for 2006. Eight men’s teams and 5 women’s teams from across Australia took part with Queensland being represented by the Moreton Bay Bugs (Men) and Sultry (Women).

The Bugs went into the weekend seeded 4th and although they had a reduced squad in terms of size, several key players returned to the line up:

Alistair Don
Brett Matzuka
James Larkin
Jason Ray
Jonathan Potts
Justin McMahon
Leon McIntyre
Mike Neild
Phil Stocks
Rueben Berg
Timothy Ferguson
Hamish Pope (Townsville)
Matt Anscomb (Townsville)
Matt Petrie (Free Agent)
Lenny Thong (Free Agent)
John Damiani (Free Agent)

After easily accounting for Chili B, the Bugs faced 5 seeded Deathstar. Last NUFL the game went right down to the wire and this one followed suite. It was a tight contest all game and at 14 all (after soft cap) Jason Ray threw a ‘perfect’ hammer across field to myself which I then put in front of Mike Neild for the winning score! (I will leave it up to someone else to comment on the nature of JRay’s ‘perfect’ hammer).

Next up was Number 1 seed Fakulti. Buoyed from their earlier victory the Bugs came out hard and thanks to some impressive juggling skills from Mike Neild and amazing feats of height from the two shorter boys (Brett and JD) the Bugs came away with a 15-10 victory.

Our undefeated run left us at the top of our pool and secured a “feature game” Sunday afternoon against Chili A.

Early Sunday morning we came out and hoped to continue our unbeaten run for the weekend against Southside.

Hmmm.

Somehow Southside seem to have the hoodoo over the Bugs as they have beaten us for the last few years and that trend unfortunately showed no sign of abating. Southside ran out easy winners with us managing to give them most of the points for the game on a platter.

We regrouped and reasserted ourselves against Fakulti B (15-6) in preparation for the ‘big one’.

At 3:00 the siren sounded loud and clear to announce the start of the final Men’s game for the weekend – Bugs vs Chili A. The Bugs got off to an early lead with several quick points, but as expected Chili started clawing their way back. It was a tough, tight, intense contest with several heated foul discussions and some beautiful pieces of play from both sides, all watched on by an ever growing crowd. Chili took the half but the Bugs kept fighting. Unfortunately the Bugs lost 3 key players early in the half – Brett due to injury and JD and Lenny to flights back to Perth. But the Bugs struggled on and at 11 all it was a game to 13. After several attempts to score from both teams (and some major reworking to JRay’s nose thanks to a stray cleat – YES it really was an accident) Chili prevailed and won 13 -11.

It was an amazing weekend with significant contribution for every player on the team, but the stand out was Mike Neild who again showed that he is among the elite of Australian Ultimate with some superb leaps and catches.

Due to the closeness of the competition it is not yet know where the Bugs finally placed but they can be happy with the fact that they did achieve their goal of defeating a top 3 team.

If anyone else has any comments on the weekend – please feel free to post them here.

DOJO MOJO Win Northern Australian Ultimate Championships 2006

This weekend was the Northern Australian Ultimate Championships 2006.

Five teams attended the 2 day tournament:

Moreton Bay Bugs
Dojo Mojo
'74 Flood
No Panda
Nice Shoes, Wanna Huck?

After dealing with Asbestos related delay's and field reloctions things went quite smoothly.

Results went according to seed on Day 1, apart from a huge win for Dojo Mojo against the Bugs (15-11). This win guarenteed Dojo Mojo a spot in the final. The aftermath of the game also saw a significantly stupid action from yours truley: I attempeted to layout through a 1.2 metre high tower of empty pizza boxes and landed on my shoulder causing me to sprain the joint :-(

Dojo's win also threw a spanner in the works for the draw as the first 2 games of Sunday morning were a double act: Bugs v Flood and No Panda v Nice Shoes.. then just add water and repeat! The games went according to seed both times but the second edition of the Panda/Shoes games was a tightly fought contest with Panda winning 11-9.

The pinnacle of the weekend was the final - a battle (or really pizza box) scarred Bugs vs a well rested Dojo Mojo.

It was a high quality game from beginning to end. After a few "breaks of serve" for each team, Dojo took the half 8-7. Dojo came out hard after the half and skipped away by a few points. After soft cap the Bugs tried to wrench back the difference but weren't able to and Dojo won 15-12.

Final Placings:

1: Dojo Mojo
2: Moreton Bay Bugs
3: '74 Flood
4: No Panda
5: Nice Shoes, Wanna Huck?

The Spirit prize was also tightly fought, but '74 Flood went away with the prize. Most Valuable Player for the Tournament was Mike Neild from the Bugs.

Thanks go out to all the assitants and helpers from the weeked, especially to co-TD Rena Kuwahata.

End of the Whippet Run

Brisbane Ultimate Disc
Last night at Brisbane Premier League, Whippet Good's record (?) 16 game streak ended, following a perfect first half from UQ Lovers that left the men-in-hutch down 8-1.

The Whippets were able to match things better in the second, but couldn't overcome the defecit, leaving the final score 15-9.

The UQ Lovers credited their win to their awesome fitness regime, having played their first three games of the 2006 season with only six players. However, the return of several players to the squad as lectures kick off next week was certainly a factor.

But as said, the Whippets faced probably the best first half they've seen in a long time - nothing hit the ground for the students, while the old fellas seemed to throw away chance after chance, despite plenty of their trademark patient offence.

Still, the end of the Whippet Good run had to happen sooner or later, after a fantastic run stretching from the beginning of last season. The 13 games at the end of 2005 and the three starting 2006 seem likely to be a record, with a draw and several one and two point wins included.

Can Whippet be Good and regroup? Will the start of lectures bring a heap more Love, or hinder it with the demands of assignments and pretty girls? We'll see.

Bugs at NUFL 1

This weekend saw the first National Ultimate Frisbee League event of 2006. 6 Mens teams took part including; Chilli A & B, Southside, Fakulti, Deathstar and Brisbane's own Moreton Bay Bugs.

The Bugs had a mixed bag on it's team - a bunch of experienced players and a whole bunch of people who hadn't played NUFL before:

Team:
Jason de Rooy
Chris Palazzi
Daniel Langen
Justin McMahon
Keith Cameron-Smith
Jonathan Potts
Jason Ray
Rueben Berg
Matt Anscomb
James Larkin
Daniel Blacklock
Phil Stocks
Mat Ryan
Hamish Pope
Chris Burwell
John Damiani (free agent)
Lenny Thong (free agent)
Matthew Petrie (free agent)

The highlight of the weekend was the first game in which we beat 4th seeded Deathstar (we were seeded 5th). Beforehand we thought we had a good shot at beating Deathstar, but given that it was our first game and many of the team had never played together, it was going to be a tuff ask for the first game of the weekend. Somehow we managed to pull it all together and beat them by 1 point in 'extra time'. The rest of the games for the weekend for us went according to seeding, but we had the satisfaction of preventing Chilli A from getting to the final by denying them the bonus point they would have gotten had they beaten us by 10 points or more.

It was great to see all the new players competing at this new level and I think the experience was something they can all learn from. Overall the signs are good for the next NUFL in March when a few key players will be returning to the team, mainly big Mike Nield.

Another highlight of the weekend (for me at least) was one of the first ever third umpire referrals. I caught a Jason Ray huck right near the edge of the endzone and had toed the line and fallen out of the field afterwards. No one was really sure if I was in or not and it was therefore initially called out (especialy by Pottsy!). Then a cameraman who had been standing right on the line said that it was actually in. We went and had a look at the digital display and sure enough there it was, disc in the hand and foot on the ground and behind the line - GOAL!



After such a great weekend I am now considering not going to the last of my 3 U2 concerts to come to NUFL 2 - now that's saying something!

More info on the weekend should be avaliable here soon: http://nufl.com.au/event_index.php?event_id=1

Another Issue of Australian Ultimate in the Mail

Morning readers,

I've been busy as buggery with many different things the last few days, so please forgive me for a short post. While not strictly related to Brisbane Ultimate, I figured I'd note that the January 2006 issue of Australian Ultimate (aka the AFDA Newsletter) went into the mail on Friday/Saturday/Sunday (and sorry, a few people won't see their's in the mail until tomorrow, as I ran out of stamps and time). As you may imagine, its always a pleasant feeling to get it all done and out the door - this for the 14th time for me!

In a response to an earlier post, mighty Matt Ryan reckoned that 85-90% ofAU newsletters went in the bin pretty quickly after being received. Quite possibly this is true. Some readers may think this implies that the newsletter is maybe not worth doing, and certainly people have suggested that to me at different times and for different reasons. My short response is usually that there's plenty of value in people physically getting something in the mail from the national assocation and its generally been left at that. There are plenty of other people who tell me its great and thank me and the AFDA for it. But like any reflective person I still occasionally question the value of the exercise.

A quick encounter from a game on the weekend (the game itself is a topic for another post) reminded me of this value though. A fella from Byron whom I'd not met before made a real point of thanking me for the newsletter. I'll paraphrase what he added (and hope he won't mind) - something like "It's been my only real connection to Ultimate outside my local game" and "It's inspired me to come up to Brisbane and join this club and get to World Clubs."

Well, that made me feel good!

jdr

ps comments on AU always welcome.

Double the Posting Power!

Rueben in his wisdom has invited me to also post here at the Brisbane Ultimate Disc Blog.

So lets start with some questions that have been plaguing me.

1. What is the origin of the name "Dojo Mojo"?
2. How quickly should I do something about the Brisbane Indoor Air-Con Ultimate Hat?
3. What percentage of the copies of Australian Ultimate that I mail out end up in the bin a week later?
4. Can Whippet Good continue their undefeated run in the coming BPL season?
5. Is it going to stop being hot any time soon?

If you have answers to any of these questions, let me know.

Yahoogroups

So Jason de Rooy made a comment on the first post about Yahoogroups that I thought deserved it's own post:

"Could we do everyone a favour a cull the number of yahoogroups covering Brisbane Ultimate? As most of the existing yahoogroups are quite well behaved and generally have only the LDs posting info, I can't see why we can't just use the one big one.

It took me ages as a newcomer to town (and one who probably had a reasonable idea anyway) to find out all the places I had to go for information.

I think we just need:
1. Qld-Ultimate@yahoogroups(for those major national/ statewide announcements)
2. Brisbane-Ultimate@yahoogroups(for all players in Brisbane - to replace the various League lists)
3. Brisbane-Elite-Ultimate@yahoogroups(for players interested in training and regular tournament play in one form or another)

Various clubs and teams continue to have their own lists."

To which Pottsy added:

"I'm with JdR here. As a newcomer with probably the highest likelihood of being able to find my way around in Brisbane (having grown up here, played here for my first 4 years, played again for a year in 2000, know pretty much all the important people), I found it extremely difficult to find out what is going on.

The calendar on the quda website is good, but it is difficult to find out anything more specific about those events - like who's in charge and how to contact them. At least I found it hard. And how is one supposed to know about all of the stupid email lists one is supposed to join? I've joined a handful now, but I suspect that there are more out there.

Would be great if the email lists were simply hierarchical:
Australia
State
Local

I think Brisbane can manage with one list at the moment and all of the league-specific info can just go out on that. Agree with Jason's naming, although I would make them all lower case as they are email addresses."

What do I (Rueben) think?

I can understand that there are a lot of groups and that it can be confusing to understand which ones to be apart of and what they are for. But I think that is best solved by having a clear description somewhere (on the QUDA webpage?) about what all the groups are and how to join them etc...

I know that when the YUFL Beginner League was running earlier last year John was sending out information to the BUDA list. For those people who weren't playing in that league that got really annoying really quickly and since then John set up a group just for that league which I think works much better.

Looking at the lists I am currently on (that are purely QLD based) I have:
BUDA-Ultimate@yahoogroups.com
Nationals2006_QLD@yahoogroups.com
mixed_booty@yahoogroups.com
dog-cup@yahoogroups.com
qld-ultimate@yahoogroups.com
qld-worlds@yahoogroups.com
YUFL_intermediate@yahoogroups.com.au

while that is a lot, I can see there being an advantage in each League (ie. BPL (dogcup) YUFL etc) having it's own list - so that only people who were playing that league get that league information. The worlds and nationals list could be combined but then you have to consider that the worlds list was for guys and girls and the nationals list was set up just for guys, so again, people would be getting things they didn't need. But possibly a more broad elite "mens" list could be established that is long term to enable people to communicate with those players who are interested in Interstate competition, which also has its own female counterpart (in think they are actually a few 'women only' list going around at the moment anyway).

I think the best thing to do would be to make sure that all the lists are on display somewhere and are clear about what they are for - AND ALSO that all people who are on any list are also on the BUDA list - that way we can stop all this cross posting - if you want to contact everyone in Brisbane, you only have to use the BUDA list. But that may be more difficult then it would seem.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

Top 10 Brisbane Men

Who are the Top 10 Brisbane Men ever to have played the great game we call Ultimate Disc? ("Brisbane Men" refers to players who learnt how to play the game here in sunny Brisbane. )

I have only been around in Brisbane for a few years so don't claim to be able to make an authoritive list, but I have put together my own version of the top 10 based on players I have seen play (in no particular order).

Roger Bralow (I'm not sure if he is actually a Brisbanite though)
Chris "Buzz" Burwell
Giles Deshon
aL Don
Sean Flanagan
Mike Nield
Jonathon "Pottsy" Potts
Jason Ray
Mat Ryan
Anthony "Sol" Solomon

Who have I missed? Who is in your Top 10?

Note: I have not worried about positions exactly, just who was the best - so if you think Brisbane has had 10 great handlers and no good longs - then that would be your top 10.

Brisbane Premier League - Preview

Another year, another Brisbane Premier League (or MAL or DogCup - whatever takes your fancy).

Thanks to the hard work of Dandy Andy Lankowski the BPL kicks of on February 2nd (Groundhog Day for those who didn't know).

This year there are four teams again:

Reigning Premiers "Whippet Good", captained by Sean Flanagan

Runners up "Dojo Mojo", captained by Steve Cameron

UQ's "Ultimate Lovers", captained by Matthew Boevink

New team "Moreton Bay Buggers", captained by myself, Rueben Berg

This year sees a bit of a shake up of the teams. Big City, champions earlier in 2005 are no more and have been replaced by the "Moreton Bay Buggers". The Buggers team have a long history of Ultimate in Brisbane - the Bugs have been the premier QLD team at Nationals for the last 6 years and will this year also be competing in the National Ultimate Frisbee League (NUFL). Although the make-up of the team is not the same as the team which will compete at NUFL and Nationals, they will still be a force to be reckoned with. The line up includes: Mike Nield, Jonathon Potts, Mat Ryan and Jason Ray. In my unbiased opinion, I think they will romp it in :-)

Ultimate Lovers have been bolstered this year with the star signing of Al Don, who has left Dojo Mojo, and the continuation of John McNaughton's contract (some might say the loss of Rueben Berg has also bolstered them, but those people are cruel!). Along with the batch of up and coming players and international ring-ins, the Lovers will always push any team to their limit.

Dojo Mojo should have a fairly similar line up to last year but the loss of Al Don will hurt them. They may be inspired though by their desire to take part in Nationals this year.

Whippet Good will be picking up some players from Big City and also those players keen on playing for the QLD Masters team at the World Ultimate Club Championships to be held in Perth later this year. Never underestimate those wily old blokes!

That's all for now, hope to have some scores and game summaries up after the season kicks off.

Brisbane Ultimate Disc Blog

Hello All,

I have decided to start a Blog for Brisbane Ultimate Disc.

This blog is to enable the people of Brisbane to discuss all things to do with Ultimate Disc, such as:

- Results from the Brisbane Premier League

- Rule discussions

- Playing Tips and Strategies

- The top 10 Brisbane Players of all time

Unlike the yahoogroup which is more about disseminating information, this Blog is for conversation and debate - to help the Brisbane Ultimate Disc community grow and prosper.

Please feel free to post your comments, and if you would like to make a contribution, email me and let me know!