Disc Doctors Battle SE TeamsMatch Report
In the fashion of disc-doctors' (dD) attempt to dominate the sports pages, another match report is brought to you for perusal, even if it only gets read by those of you at home sat on the bog!
Last week dD took a timely trip to Falmer (Brighton) to take on two teams in a match-day hosted by University of Sussex's own team, Mohawks.
First a bit of background work: In the run-up to the regional play-offs in 6 weeks time it had been taken upon the South East teams to go head-to-head against as many teams in as many matches as possible in order to feasibly seed 30+ teams that would be competing for a place in the nationals. Does that make sense?? Basically this means that various teams would play each other to see where they ranked (roughly) in the region to ensure that they got a fair fight at the actual regional tournament. And so the 'ladder system' was born. This means that teams gained points (and thus rank) not only by playing matches but also for going against teams better than them on their home ground even if they lost! Genius. Another reason is to increase the profile of student ultimate (as it's called by those playing Ultimate Frisbee) in the SE region (which lacks good student teams despite having the best open Mens team nationally) so that active teams are rewarded accordingly. Proudly, dD's own Kris Wong (star mid-receiver) played a vital role in devising the ladder system.
Enough of that technical babble: so dD showed up with 10 players (7 + 3 rolling subs) in Brighton suited and booted who were as follows: Emmanuel 'I can't catch but still President!' Bennett, Neville 'Captain Canadian' Dubash, Chris 'Those big red balls cost £120!' Rowlands, Ian 'Munky' Ballantyne, Jee 'small but cool' Kwan, George 'Gordan' Brownbridge, Laurie 'I always get the girl' Fischer, Stas 'CTAC' Parpantel, Nathan 'I'm the best' Muir and yours truly. Although this wasn't the entire 1st team, as scheduled, dD were ready to take on the regions best and worst. In total 6 teams showed up to play 2 matches each and pick up some well-earned rank points: Under Cover Lovers (UCL) Mohawks (Sussex Uni), Brunel (that's it, that's their name..), Holloway Hammers, Surrey Scorpions and dD. Our first match was against Brunel:
dD vs Brunel 1-11
Having convinced us of their ability at indoor regionals last term both teams wanted to prove their outdoor worth for the first time on the field. With their full 1st team, Brunel lined up ready to take on dD and, unperturbed, we threw a 'zone' play (imagine a wall of 3 players marking the player with possession of the disc) as a defensive tactic for the first point. As it turned out their main receiver and 'hucker' managed to break this with huge throws up either side of the pitch to a skilful high jumping receiver managing to beat any of our deep defenders: quite annoying really. Then, to make matters worse, they threw their own defensive play which comprised of 1 player trying to cut out any open-side passes (a.k.a a 'poach') merely by guarding close open space usually left clear for 'cutters'. Brunel continued to dominate the match with precision and skill despite Mannys' committed 'lay-out' (equivalent to a diving header with your hands to catch the disc) to deny Brunel one of the points. Just when we had got used to breaking their defence with some great passes and expert flow to allow Stas to score, Brunel took the match comfortably. I guess we didn't 'suck it up' enough, dammit!
dD vs Under Cover Lovers (UCL) 11-2
Down but not out, Nevilles' (ye old Club Captain) words of wisdom ensured lessons were learnt and the next game was to be a whole different story. Unfortunately UCL could only field 6 players (short by 1) and so were outnumbered for the duration of the match but that didn't stop them scoring on us. With myself and Chris leading from the back with some good flow and up-field passes to the mid player receivers (Manny and Munky), dD took quick charge of the game. Due to being outnumbered UCL could only try clever formations sacrificing players into a zone-type play but dD has practiced against much of this in the preceding weeks and easily broke this with impressive points from Manny, Stas and George. Despite long-field hucks and end-zone hammers by 'Easy' (UCL) dD proved their merit by taking the game well within the 40 minute time limit.
Hope most of that made sense folks and if it didn't why not come along to a practice sometime? Practices are nearby in Hyde Park next to the tennis courts; just look out for the flying discs! All levels of ability are welcome, with no previous experience necessary and you could make the first team in less than a year!*
Keep it real y'all.
Ps. Track dD's route to regionals here in the coming 6 weeks...
(*requires lots of hard work!!!!)
Written by Jaidip H Patel
|
