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)
And now over to Dan:
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.
What we really need of course, is some team training photos! *hint hint* We can only keep slapping up Starscream shots instead of Dan for so long ...
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