Hey Hey Hey everyone. This week it lands in my comfortable lap to drop a dear diary" on you all so here goes.
Firstly the thing I have really noticed is the development and building of relationships with other players in the club. Players who have only been together a few weeks are now starting to work like a well oiled machine and we are starting to see people move into possible roles in the lead up to Nationals on our fine campaign.
And its getting me excited like a fat man before a caramel pie. As a returning player it's fantastic to see the philosophy Firestorm started with really flourishing. Spawning from 3 Nationals rookies last year (if my alcohol addled brain accounts correctly) to about 18 now? (for new players to Aus Nationals). I think i'm finding comfort in that
because I know my hazing is over and if Chris can afford it to the new players yours will come ;) .Game specifically i noted the resurgence of our tried and true "Horozontal Stack" formation and "Hard Under" marks forcing long deep options for us to bring down or if on "D" easy swats out of the air and shutting down the easy %100 throws the opposition wants. This proved quite effective last year with our throwers easily clearing the stack and giving the receivers plenty of room to operate into the endzone.
Like all machines of war we are going to need maintenance and regular fine tuning if we are going to adapt to different combat situations. This poor attempt at an analogy is squarely aimed at getting yourself ready for the weather. Last Saturday we all felt the heat and as aL put it "you know it's hot when not even water on your face shocks you". He hit the nail on the head. A big shock for me playing in just daytime conditions last year was the giant ball of celestial fire and gamma rays demanding that my body do this thing called sweating (apparently it's the in thing to do now to keep cool under the sun). Unlike playing at night where it's rather easy to keep cool daytime frizbee is a bit of a shock. I'd easily recommend getting out during the day and try to do some exercise and just get used to it a little, no doubt a few extra of these weekend sessions and regionals will help but it's something to keep in mind.
Now. Thats enough garbage spewing from me. If I add anymore word blocks to this I can start building a house.
Ud4lyF Will
After the floods of the past few weeks we were finally able to get back out and play some Ultimate, although we had been relegated to the 'dark' pitch at the northern end of the field.
Spirits were high to be able to play again but maybe suffered from a lack of direction in trying to work out how to play 3-4 offence. People were unsure how to make the deep cuts in a horizontal stack and how to time them off one another. No offence to Al, quite often what is in your head isn't the same as what ends up happening on the pitch!! And in many ways we need to be able to learn to adapt to a non-perfect cutting pattern.
Saturday mornings games showed how tough it could really be in the midday heat, especially to a pommey like me who would normally be playing in 4 degree winter league now rather than 40 degree heat. The experience was definitely worth it as some of the plays from squads we're starting to look pretty sweet. And the Zippo team kept dumping and recycling the disc which in the end found holes in the Jetstream D. I'm well up for running around in the midday sun to get used that sort of temperature and if anyone wants to join in some running/drilling let me know (I'll be living in Paddington from Saturday).
We have got some very athletic players in the squad, both experienced and newbies who are all willing to bust a gut for the team. It's going to be good to see over the next 9 weeks how we develop from a group of individuals to a team of players who know when to make that hard cut yourself and when to let someone else take it and set up your own continuation cut so when can get some unstoppable flow going.
Stu
Always remember, if you have Phil on your team, he has only one role on the team - that of playa.
Mike: MBB: Messy and MBB: Slippery. I can't work out how much of this is blind pride and how much is calculated judgment. I'm backing some Buggers success because the teams have been good in the past. We have also been good at incorporating new players into the teams. I feel like there is a bit of that going on with all the teams this league - adding new players - and we have good systems for doing that. I also feel like the Buggers club has developed good systems for dealing with the Frisbee Dojo and the Rawhide teams.
Steve: I believe sporting commentators typically use the cliche "it's too early to tell" at times like this, but they clearly haven't been watching enough BPL action.
The University of Queensland has been central to the story of Brisbane Ultimate since year dot, with Brisbane's first Leagues being run by the club at the St Lucia Campus. UQ has sent teams to Halibut and the Australian University Games from the mid '90's onwards. With the growth of the Brisbane open scene, 2004 saw UQ enter the Premiership in 2004.
After winning the first season in 2007, the UQ Ultimate Lovers split for the last season into two squads - UQ Lovers and UQ Passion.
Squad List - Passion
Co-Captains: John McNaughton and Julian Sacre
New Players: Dan Young, John McNaughton, Dean Vlahaki, Aaron Webber.
Returning Players: Will Churchill, Tom Daley, Bart Edgar, Geoff Grundy, Nathan Litzow, Ben Lucas.
Squad List - Lovers*
Captain: Al Don
New Players: Brock Cunliffe, Will Larkin, Bruce Wells.
Returning Players: Peter Allan, Chris Cunliffe, Rohan Ferris, AJ Joshi, Robert Lowe, Geoff Spurling, Erhart Stockhausen, Piers Truter Tristan Bec, Piers Truter.
Departing players: Brett Matzuka, Jonathan Potts, Chris Burwell, Chris Garrick, Dan Wiechec, Jason Stritter.
Other stats and trivia:
- UQ has won the most Spirit Prizes in the history of the Premier division.
- UQ have come second in grand finals more than anyone – four (Winter 2004, Winter 2005, Spring 2006 and Winter 2007).
- UQ are the slackest at providing information to the Brisbane Ultimate Blog's 2008 BPL Preview. Maybe they're busy with their new website (see top right), or starting the new season of the UQ League ... so I can't blame them too much!
*(most of the Lover squad is guesswork by ye blogger due to limited info - apologies for any errors)
Captain: Shawn Robb*
New players: Stuart Austin (Import from UK). Andrew Badman (of Byron Bay) may be making guest appearances.
Returning players: Sam Challis, Tim Ferguson, Sean Flanagan, James 'Grannie' Gransull, Jon Good, Stewart McGlashan, Nate Peterson, Beth Rougier, Tony Ross*, Joel Smith*.
*Shawn, Tony and Joel are expected to miss large parts of this season, due to planned surgery, or impending fatherhood.
Departing players: Huddy Fuller (moved to Tasmania), Dustin Czok (taking a break).
Other Stats and Trivia:
-Rawhide is the newest team in the BPL, now entering their third season.
-Rawhide Best and Fairest for 2007 was Jon Good.
-Rawhide Player's Player Award for 2007 was James 'Grannie' Gransull.
-Rawhide Rookie of the Year 2007 was Sam Challis.
-Rawhide feel a close affinity for the movie, 'The Blues Brothers'. Plays are often named after things from the movie.
-Several Rawhide players featured in the dual Premiership team Whippet Good.
-Graphic designer Sam Challis created the famous 'happy cow' logo.
The Moreton Bay Buggers name has been synonymous with Brisbane Ultimate for several years. The Buggers were originally a Brisbane all-star team that played at Nationals up to 2005, then a distinct Club for Nationals 2006 and BPL since then. In late 2007, the Buggers fielded two teams in the BPL, the Crusty Buggers and the Fresh Buggers.
Bugger Me! Some of the 2007 Bugs.
Dojo Mojo is the latest incarnation in the great tradition of the Cobra Kai Frisbee Dojo, which stretches nearly as far back as the game of Ultimate itself.
Dojo Mojo won the Div 2 "Plate" trophy at Nationals 2004.
Dojo Mojo won Northern Regionals 2006, and came 7th at Nationals 2006.
Dojo Mojo is the only frisbee team in the known world with its own team flag. This, along with the Dojo Mojo headbands, wristbands, caps, shirts and future items which remain secret at present, has eared Dojo Mojo the title of "Best Merchandised Team in Brisbane Ultimate Frisbee History".
It is the widely held view* that Dojo Mojo is the best-looking team in the southern hemisphere at the very least (we don't like to brag). Stefan's popularity with the ladies may have something to do with this.
It is no coincidence that there are seven players on the Dojo line in Ultimate, and there were seven samurai in Akira Kurosawa's great film "The Seven Samurai".
All Dojo Mojo plays are named after the wise sayings of Mr Miyagi.
Jack White once said that red, white and black is the most powerful colour combination in the world.
*Editor's note: I think this is a little unsubstantiated ;)
Will: To put it simply, Brett Matzuka took an ok, run of the mill, your moderately attractive sibling kind of thing ... and ate it whole. And in that Hawaiian digestive system of his he cooked up awesome and gave birth to a gold deity. Now we the second generation are shining that golden goddess to gleam gleefully in her gorgeous garland of greatness before we unleash her all over Brisbane (Think Angelina Jolie from Beowulf but without the whole demonic thing going for her). Frankly, I think we do it pretty freakin well. Each week I chat to people who say that they look forward to Wednesday League just to play at UQ. I think it’s the structure of how we run it that makes it more than just playing, we get everybody intermingled and meeting eachother before we even break out into games.The great training has continued under the wise eye of Space Needle and Cosmic Cheese Burger. This week saw me spending most of my time recovering for misc. injuries and has given me time to reflect on Nationals past, previous and future. Looking around at training on Tuesday night gave me a chance to see what potential some of the young Fireys have and how some of the older blokes are holding up.
For the younger blokes. My first Nationals was back in '06 when I was approached by Mike and Rueben to come play for a team called the Moreton Bay Buggers. Being a young fit guy I agreed to play. At this stage I hadn't touched BPL and had never played men’s ultimate. Regionals came along and was a bit of a shock to see all the boys in full flight.
Then came Nationals. Not being able to throw a forehand I wasn’t much use to the team other than on defence and to catch discs in the end zone. This didn’t seem to worry the boys who quite regularly put me on the field and told me to bust long. We had a few wins a few losses but the optimism never died.
Then came Chilly... with the old boys falling apart and a smallish squad I was able to up my 5 points per game on field to nearly the whole game on field. This was when I really saw what I was up against. This Melbourne team, despised by all, was just way to good all over the field and saw us going down 15-5 but that isn’t what I dwell on when I think about the game. The thrill of a challenge when your being smacked around to see what you can do.
So for many of you this will be your first nationals. What to expect is hard running and absolute commitment for the team and nothing less.
For the old boys. Yes jangles is injured again and yes it is the same ankle as last year and yes it is about the same time as last year. But did it affect me at Nationals last year? No.
The team we took to Nationals last year was a ragtag bunch of boys who came together to silence some of our critics and strike some fear into hearts. We showed at NUFL that Firestorm can match it with the best and I believe that this year could bring some more surprises.
My goals for this year
-Not Break
-getting both teams up into the top 10 so we can have 2 slots for next year.
-Keep Wetnose fully clothed all Mationals (still don’t know how to do this)
Tuesday's training, in truly muggy conditions, saw the introduction of some defensive drills as well as the addition of some defensive roles to drills we have been doing in past weeks. As someone whose throws often suffer from the pressure of being closely marked I was glad for the opportunity to focus on this during the three man marking drill. And it was interesting, as Andy mentioned on the night, that if you paid attention to the man you were marking, often you could pick a pattern to their fakes and dekes.
I think the combination of adding defensive roles to the short and long cutting drill as well as the humid conditions left some of us, including myself, a bit slow on the uptake during the exercise, but I felt that the work rate remained high. We finished off with a couple of games as per usual and I thought that you could really see the penny dropping with some of the newbies like myself in terms of cutting sharply, intensely, and in the right direction. Overall, as I've found every other session, I thought Tuesday was another solid constructive step forward for everyone’s and particularly my game.
Thursday was another great night of pain and gain. To tell the truth I am disappointed that I only made two Thursdays considering the wonders they do for your fitness and no doubt for your ultimate level of performance when the going gets tough on the field. The level of chatter and encouragement around the circuit was awesome. There is nothing better than a helpful word from a team mate when you know you still have four stations left and you feel like someone's taken a blow torch to your quads.
I was pretty dubious about how exactly I was going to even break a run in the game following the circuits but it IS amazing (reference: Andy in the last training report) how the body laps up punishment, resets, and is ready to go again. This was shown by the great energy levels exhibited by all during the game, and by no one more so than Beej, who seemed to be everywhere all at once D'ing discs and laying out in the end zone - incredible. And I also remember George drawing on his reserve tank to make a blistering long cut into the end zone for the point. After the session I had that great feeling of knowing how much good you just did your body by pushing it to the limit and getting through it.
Thanks for another great week of training lads.
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