Let's Talk Nationals!

Continuing 'decloak week', JdR offers a no doubt ill-informed preview of the Queensland teams representing at Nationals this weekend.

Make sure you get along and support! Here's all the official info!

Firestorm Will Do It

Put simply, this is quite possibly the strongest team Queensland has sent to an Open National titles in the last decade (barring perhaps the injury to John McNaughton).

Firestorm has trained very very hard over the last several months. The loss of Myall and Colo from the original selected list to injury doesn’t seem to have dented planning, and the tweaking at Northern Regionals was followed by a solid hit out at the Brisbane-Canberra Invitational.

Much of the team are now hitting their third or fourth Nationals together – George, Julz, Stu, Nat, Pallen, aL, Andy, Jangles, Finn, Gref, Jimmy, Buzz, Mike - meaning this is the time for the group to peak.

The stars are aligned – can they deliver? We think so – a top four finish is in reach after years in 5th-10th land.

What the heck – let’s forget our heads totally and tip them with our hearts to take the title and come in 1st.

Firestorm Ignition Will Be Firing At Every Click

If the Firestorm 'A team' does well at Nationals this year, it will be in part due to the push that’s been put on by the Firestorm ‘B team’ – Firestorm Ignition - at training and in scratch matches. This is something that arguably hasn’t happened often in the past. What’s more interesting is the high morale and sense of unity in the Ignition squad, which saw them handily dispose of the more fancied Gold Coasters and Townsvillians at Regionals earlier in the year (the rivalry with Slamtown is ongoing and something to be savoured – particularly as both have drawn the same pool for Day One).

Perhaps this comes from the consistency and good humour across the squad – where most other teams have a split between their angry silverbacks and their fired up young bucks, Ignition are almost uniformly happy fellas in their 20’s (or at least, they look it). Tim Fergs and Will Mitchell will nonetheless bring some “Old Gringo”/”Effing Mongrel” to the fresh faces.

Expect Ignition also to remind opponents how their entire team will be at home making love to their wives and girlfriends every night of the tournament, while the visitors have only their cold and lonely hostel beds to look forward to.

That said, and it’s a frickin’ hard call, the lack of star-power means we’re tipping them to finish in the 13-16th bracket. The game against Slamtown on Day 1 will be vital for that. But we’ll say 13th, as the home ground advantage means they can string together two wins at the end to go home winners.

Slamtown Flatball Club - Code Orange, Papa and of course, 'ERE WE GO!

Keeping to the theme, this is THE strongest ever Ultimate team to come out of the Gold Coast area in all of recorded history. Having the tournament near to home has meant that all the very best are available and most players on the team have at least a couple of Nationals under their belts.

Many of these players work together every week in the Brisbane Premier League, and the additions of BW, Mike and Hugh covers some weaknesses in height and steadiness.

This will be the key for the SFC – can they resist the showboat urges that play so well to the chicks at home and on the beach, but which simply deliver turnovers to the highly disciplined defensive outfits they’ll meet at Nats? We shall see and a lot will depend on Bads, Stef and a few others' abilities to keep it in their pants.

SFC are also bringing several Nats-virgins with them – Mike M, Troy Z, Joel, Bienstock, Kevvy (Kev's cherry is only half popped). Hopefully each of them can get electric quickly after the two hour drive up from the Coast – the speed and ferocity of Nationals has a history of blowing the Day One chances of teams heavy on rookies.

This is particularly the case for SFC as they face recent Nats finalists Colony and Fyshwick United in their opening pool. This of course also goes for Firestorm Ignition, who’re probably even greener (and we don’t just mean ‘full of Heroes’).

While the team will be scrambling to win every contest, point and game they can – and frankly, we’re confident they’ll improve on their seeding of 15th and hopefully with Ignition get the North Region a second certain slot for 2012 - long-term observers will be interested to see if this group can demonstrate the heart to turn the gang from Australia’s sixth largest city into a regular Nationals prospect, as opposed to an occasional appearance.

If you can’t follow the noise, look for the Orange and the good looks. If things go well against Ignition and then on Day 2, should make it up above 12th. Indeed, we’ll tip them to 12th.

Betty's Black and Red

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