Key Learnings from AOUC

Adapt

About 2 weeks out from AOUC, Huy from Adelaide had to pull out for financial reasons. This left the team very short of handlers, and despite my hopes, I realised quickly that I would pretty much have to handle all weekend. All my frisbee life I have considered my self as an offensive receiver, and in recent years, an offensive receiver who can throw as well. However at ‘lower’ levels of frisbee, the experienced players always come back to handle so I have been doing that for a few years now.

I have always felt that I don’t make a good permanent handler because I am too impatient and just want to jack it. However, with the team we had at AOUC, taking into account the number of tall receivers (and the fact that I was the shortest guy on the team), I realised I had to adapt my game for the benefit of the team and handle. Being captain meant that I was able to handle with lots of confidence and take the risks that I felt needed to be taken. I made sure to look to jack it long early every game to our tall boys – to make sure that the other team knew it was a threat. This made getting open under later in the game easier. It felt very relaxed and composed with the disc, especially off a stoppage near the endzone, where I felt that my break hammers and flicks worked really well. (especially with the HoS connection to Wood)

Layout D

I got more layout D’s this weekend then I have ever in one tournament. The three main factors to this for me where:
- The occasion: at such a high level event and in the role as captain, the desire to get that disc back, especially after having turned it myself, was so great that I just wanted the D so bad that I got it.
- Marking handlers: being the shortest guy, I found myself marking handlers much more than usual and I feel there is much more chance for layout D’s closer to the disc than deep, especially on wayward swing passes and when you can poach off the swing into the cutting lane.
- Female throwers: when women have the disc and they are throwing to a guy, they tend to underestimate how much ground a guy can make up.

Feldrunner (German)

We tried using the Feldrunner as our standard offence. In the early games, we didn’t get to use it much because the other teams didn’t score a lot so we were rarely on O. It took us a while to get it right. We made it hard for ourselves with poor throws to the dot – sometimes we threw flat throws right past the defender, sometimes wobbly hammers above the dots head and sometimes we just threw it too far wide. Eventually we got on to the key point which is putting the disc into the space beside or behind the dot and trusting them to go and get it. I found that using Waz as the dot was the best, as he had the height and then the throws to be the most damaging. We also talked about using the Polish variation, where the dot cuts to the back corner and another receiver cuts in form the opposite corner to fill the space. While we never actually used this, I think it is a really good variation which can be useful.

Japan are good!

Although I was hoping to see some of the Buzz Bullets players there, it seems there were none, and none of the players had played mixed together before – it seems the team was just a combo of some open and women players.

Japan played an odd zone where they had a girl on the disc and a fence about 10 metres back which was spread wide across the field. It meant you had a lot of time with the disc, but there wasn’t a lot of space to throw it into. We probably should have used “give & go” more, but we just seemed to force it forward to our tall boys and they capitalised on any errors.

On offence they move the disc extremely quickly. Getting any stall count started at all felt like a victory! It must take a lot of work from the team to get them to a point where they can time there cuts right for such quick disc movement. It will be interesting to see if any Aussie club puts the effort in to develop such a fast game and is able to use it as effectively and consistently as the Japanese.

No Spirit Prize!

There was no spirit prize or scoring for the tournament. While this didn’t make the games seem less spirited, I would have though that WFDF would make it mandatory for all WFDF events to record Spirit scores. And I think they should develop a standard method for scoring Spirit. There has already been a fair bit of discussion about this at the following links:

http://www.ultitalk.com/index.php/topic,192.0.html

http://groups.google.com/group/aus.sport.frisbee/browse_thread/thread/13514973b1c06eb2#aec7f2b987a6519e

http://zazman.blogspot.com/2006/12/spirit-score-guidelines-proposal.html


Rules ‘Discussion’

There were two lengthy rules discussions during the 3-4 play off and the final. They were both regarding the “Play on” rule, i.e. in attempting a pass, the thrower was fouled by the marker, called foul, and then the pass was completed. The thrower therefore called “play on” and play SHOULD continue.

However the tournament rules (which by a weird series of events I helped put together) caused some confusion during the 3-4 play off (on the game winning point) which led to further confusion in the final.

The tournament rule and the relevant WFDF rules are below:

Note the key difference between WFDF and UPA rules:
1. A throw released after a pick/foul is called goes back to the thrower no matter whether it resulted in advantage to the team that called the infraction.

WFDF Rules:

18.3. If the team that called the foul or violation gains or retains possession as a result of the pass, play shall continue unhalted. Players recognizing this should call "Play on" immediately to indicate that this rule has been invoked.

The point of discussion was the section in red. This is from the standard rules used at AFDA events and is really just a note for people to be aware of. It is slightly misleading and doesn’t actually tell the whole story, however it is not a rule, just a note (in my opinion at least).

Anyway in the 3-4 game they resolved it by saying it had to come back no matter what, which caused problems when we had the same thing happen with us in the final and Japan wanted it to go back. In this case it was a long throw that gained significant ground, so sending it back to the endzone line where it was thrown from would have been a significant disadvantage for us.

I was not on the field at the time but got caught up in the debate when the Japan captain started saying that the tournament rules said it should go back (as had been decided in the previous game). I got into a discussion with the WFDF rep from Japan who was up on the main stage about what should happen, and having been involved in the tournament rules, I was certain that they didn’t specify that it had to go back. After telling my players to send it back (because the discussion had gone for too long) and then saying they should just keep the disc, it was finally resolved with us keeping the disc downfield. The outcome was right, but the process was not. In hindsight, I should have just checked that the players on the field were aware of the rules and the situation and then let them sort it out from there. That is one part I am not looking forward to seeing on the DVD!

Captaincy

Having never captained a team at a higher level than Div 2 league, I was slightly hesitant about leading Australia. However thankfully I have had some really good captains over the years (and some bad ones) which meant I had a fair idea about what I did and didn’t want to do. I was also lucky to have Waz and Rachel who helped out with warm-ups and tactics discussions so I could focus on the big picture issues. In huddles I mainly ‘let’ Waz talk in detail about our strengths/weaknesses and then would try and add just one main point for people to remember. I also tried to make sure everyone kept the focus on the fact that we were there to have fun and enjoy ourselves, as well as trying our hardest to win. I think the real test of a leader is what they do when things start going wrong, which didn’t happen too much at AOUC. In hindsight I wish I had called a timeout late in the Final to just try and compose us all, but I will just have to remember that for next time!

MVP system

They used an odd MVP system where at the end of the tournament (before the final) each captain nominated 2 men and 2 women as their best players (choosing a number 1 and a number 2). This was then compiled and given to each captain again to vote for 5 people from each gender as MVP (not in any order – just ticking boxes). This was then used to determine the MVP. I only really felt that 1 player was particularly memorable from all the teams (Derek from Philippines) so just based my votes on which teams were strong – so Japan got a vote each for their guys because their guys were good etc. This system meant that people who were valued by their team got recognition, even if they weren’t flashy or did 1 or 2 good things in a specific game, which is how normal MVP votes can be given out. I think the end result gave some good MVP’s – Derek, Waz and a Japan guy, so it could be a good system for an Aussie tournament to try and use.

AOUC 2007

Yesterday I returned from Captaining Australia to Silver at the Asia-Oceanic Ultimate Championships in Taiwan.

I also won the Longest Throw contest (84m) so am offically the Asia-Oceanic Man Distance Champion!

Attending the event were: Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Philipines and Hong Kong.

We beat everybody convincingly except Japan, who we lost to in the pool game and in the final (15-11 after being at 11 all)

I have yet to fully process what happened over the three days so this is just a brief fact/picture post.

Rachel and Mel did some great write ups for each day which can be found here:
Report: Day 1
Report: Day 2
Report: Day 3

Mixed Nats 07

As always this story is a bit late but you now what they say.

So I went to Mixed Nats with Station 59 – named after a pub which is named after a Fire Station – hence the colour scheme and the backwards writing. On paper our team was awesome. Made up of some of the best players from all the Victorian Clubs, including HoS, Chilly (it was great to actually play with these guys after all these years), Box, Honey and Ishtar. After Mixed Nats the Aussie Squad for WUGC08 was announced and everyone on the team that went for it made it – that’s 13 out of 15! You always had the feeling about that with this team though – I have never been on a team that was so strong across the board – there were NO weak players. No one ever had to call a line because the line was always awesome no matter who was on the field. But you know the other thing they say – “a team of champions does not a champion team make”. So we ended up making the Semi but coming 4th. Disappointing in the end, but – and I was about to say at least I had a good time, then I realised that would have been a lie.

Me, Liz, Mel, Seb, Baker, Wheelie, Wood, Dan, Friese

Steeph, Teegs, KP, Joy, Hussey, Karen

I have never played a weekend of Frisbee where I have been so far away from 100% healthy. I was throwing up all night the Wednesday before mixed nats and that continued all the way through to Friday. I was carbo UN-loading. Not a good way to play a tournament – no food in your stomaching and feeling like throwing up every time you run. I nearly threw up on a guy while I was marking him.

So Saturday I feel slightly better and despite trying to throw a high release flick for a score to Lubey I am playing OK. Then I get up for a big catch and bruise my right heel by landing directly on my back cleat and having no padding in my shoes at all. Sunday morning I can barely walk or pivot, but sprinting is OK. So after a few pain killers I am good to go. Then after bailing on a layout bid that was just too far away I try to protect my right foot and roll my left ankle. Yeah! Still – it’s just pain so I play on (wow I am so tough). My highlight for the weekend was a D I got on Tim Gee in the Semi in the endzone – I had quite a few good tussles with him that game which was good fun.

Then in the 3-4 play off I have a layout bid for a score that I really can’t remember – maybe because the landing was very very hard. I landed on my stomach, mainly on my left hip. I take an injury sub and catch my breath. I go back on after a few points but realise I can’t actually turn at any speed without severe pain. So I get off after that thankfully very quick point and take off my cleats – I have taken my body’s hint – no more playing this weekend! It wasn’t until the next day I realised that I couldn’t even have actually thrown a disc because it hurt so much to turn my upper body. The bruise is now nearly gone from my left hip but it really was a beauty.

Bootius won the Final over Spider Pig which was great to watch and I was pleased for them all – especially aL who had been there all the way from the 4th place to 3rd to 2nd to finally win. The crowd seemed to have fun heckling Brett and Pottsy – is it because they are so good and seem like they don’t even have to try that people enjoy heckling them? I don’t get it.

One thing I noticed over the weekend, especially when we were playing teams that had a few players who were clearly better then the others, was that for some reason we tried to force those match ups which were most even, rather than the most mismatched. For example Wollongong clearly had 2 key players – Tim Booth and Nans - my instinct would be to get whoever was being marked by them to try and keep away from the disc and let the other mismatched players – in a lot of our games this was our girls - make use of their mismatches and score easily. Because we were so even across the team this scenario seemed to arise a lot over the weekend, but we always seemed to go the hard route. We still won by going up against these good players, but is seems that it could have been much easier.

You need to identify mismatches on the field and use them to the TEAMS advantage.

Top 5 Ultimate Moments

Here are my Top 5 Ultimate Moments:

1. Bootious Maximus v Team Fisher Price - WUCC06

Playing against the eventual World Champions I had my best game ever. I felt like I could catch absolutely everything, and I was on a team that was never scared to stick it to me on the smell of an oily rag (thanks to aL Don, Brett Matzuka and Johnny Mac).

I was playing against some Furious George boys who I had some great tussles with, not all went my way, but the contest was fantastic. After the game I got an MVP prize from them.

Despite losing the game and it being poorly spirited over all, that game was the very reason I play Ultimate.

2. Moreton Bay Buggers - NUFL 1 06

I was blessed in this Tournament with the best handler line I have ever seen: aL, Pottsy, Buzz, JRay and JD.

I cut long at every opportunity and they never failed to deliver the disc.

Two highlights were:

• the Third Umpire referral where I toed the line and was called out (even by Pottsy) but a Digital camera on the sideline showed me being in
• cutting long and realising the disc was going to fall short of the endzone, so leaping, catching the disc behind me with my left hand and rolling over to land in the endzone with my right shoulder as the first point of contact

3. Bootius Maximus v Point of Entry - Mixed Nats 05

Another of those games where things just clicked. I caught every contested grab that came my way, some over much larger opponents. The key highlight was in the next game against Point of Entry when Gak came and marked me straight away.

4. Heads of State v Chilly - NUFL 2 07

The last game of NUFL. HoS had lost 3 close games and Chilly were without a win either. Dan Rule, Owen Shepherd, Chris Warris and Max Wheeler were all out injured, as were half of the other players. Despite letting them come back to Universe point we managed to take our first NUFL win against our home town rivals. Priceless.

5. UQ Lovers v Mac Uni - Uni Games 05

Another game cutting long and dominating, but this time it wasn't Gak who came to stop me it was Matt Dowle. Pot-ay-toe - Pot-ar-toe.

NUFL 2 07

Finally I have gotten round to a post about NUFL 2.

Apart from the state of the fields this was a great weekend.

HoS really put up a strong showing, going down in tight games to Barefoot (after leading at half time), Sublime and Firestorm and got a Universe point win against Chilly!!!

HoS improved with every game, despite losing players along the way (including Hobbit who didn't play at all and Owen), and finally managed to eak out a win, although we tried our best to let Chilly back in after leading all game.

The win against Chilly was amazing, we were playing with very few fit players, and just managed to grind it out. Watching the Team score the winning goal was an amazing mix of relief and excitement - easily a moment that figures in my Top 5 Ultimate Moments.

HoS showed they clearly deserve to be at the NUFL stage and hopefully can do even better next year.



These pictures are of my rank backhand that got D'd but was macked back to Barr-e to get the layout grab.


An amazing catch by JD

Photos courtesy of John Greenfield

NUFL 1 07

August 19 & 20 was the first NUFL for 2007

It was the first NUFL for Heads of State.

Unfortunatley we hadn't trained hard enough as a team before the event and we paid the price, with a 0-3 win/loss record.

Personally I felt I had an OK weekend, with some nice catches and a few nice throws. Despite being "D-moted" to D for the weekend, I still think there is a lot of room for improvement for me in my man on man D and that will be a focus for me in NUFL 2.





Sunday the weather really turned against us. It rained a lot (see pic below). So much so that the games got called off and we only got to play the one game against Firestorm. This was a great game. I didn't feel as nervous as I had the first time I played against my old temmates of Firestorm at Nationals and felt that I was able to make an impact on the game, both on and off the field. Having reaffirmed how I like to play wing deep (see previous post) made more me confident to yell at the HoS boys on the field and I think it made a difference.

(Layout contest with aL, Brett and Friesy)

It was a see sawing game with Firestorm taking a 4-0 lead before we came back to 4-5. I felt like a lot of the time I could predict what Firestorm were going to do, which I tried to communicate to the team. But I guess it's no real suprise that when they are under pressure they will Huck it to big Mike Neild, although Sweet As did a great job of defending him all game.

I had two fun exchanges with J-Ray: First he was on the mark and I was up field after a stoppage - Jas yelled at my defender that I was just going to run long, which I promptly did and got the disc. The other time he was trapped on the right sideline just outside the endzone and I KNEW he wanted the hammer so I screamed "No Hammer, No Hammer", so much so that Jas had no choice but...to throw the hammer!

In the end Firestorm ground it out, with half their sideline having retreated to the shelter away from the cold and the rain, but I think the HoS boys earnt a lot of respect.

Bring on NUFL 2!!!

National Training Camp 07

The Road to Canada 08 started in Sydney the other weekend (21-22 July)

80 of the top Open Ultimate players from across the country gathered to learn and play hard.

The weekend was split into two different days - day one was about drills and skills and day two was about playing games.

I was able to take some nice grabs during the drills, but I got caught out during one game on day 1 trying to milk the disc into the endzone. It always seems so tempting to try and just wait that extra second and make that big hop into the endzone - but it is NEVER worth it when you DROP IT in the process!!! You need to make catching it the number 1 priority.

One drill in particular was quite useful: Chris Warris (Hobbit) had us do this dump cut which starts 45d behind the thrower on the OPEN side. The dump cuts forward slightly then jags across behind the thrower to get an easy dump throw which leaves him free on the break side. It worked quite well in the drill, but I haven't had a chance to use it in a game yet.

Day two was a great experience. Every got to play with all these great players who some had never had the chance to play with before. I really enjoyed playing with the Dowles and Johnno Holmes - who I also had the pleasure of playing with a bit during my stint working in Canberra.

My long game was going really well all day which was nice, something which John Greenfield also mentioned to me - which was even nicer - him being a selector and all!

Two of the most memorable moments reinforced to me that good ultimate players all pretty much think a like. This was obvious to me from two times where eye contact with players who I have never really played with was enough to convey exactly what I wanted and what they wanted.

The first example was when I had the disc on the left hand side of the field 15 metres from the endzone. I was walking the disc back in because I had left the field after having caught it and then thrown it from OB - so the disc had come back to me. As walked up to the line I keep my eyes on Gav from Barefoot who was at the back of the stack and once he was looking at me I simply nodded my head a bit to the right. As soon as the disc was checked in he cut to the back right where my hammer sailed into his hands with ease. I don't recall that I have ever actually spoken to Gav in my life before that, but that one bit of non verbal communication was enough for us to know exactly what the plan was.

The same thing happened a few points latter when Adam Mortimer had the disc on the left sideline and I was left on the wing in a horizontal stack. He just looked at me and I looked back then as soon as the disc was checked in I faked in for a split second then turned and the disc was already floating into the empty space behind me. Perfect

The weekend also reinforced to me how I like to play Wing Deep in a Zone O. Despite hearing lots of people on the weekend call wing deeps to cut in towards the disc I have never been a big fan of this. For me the wing deep is most effective when they split the deep deep and don't cut in. This allows them to fill the space on the weak side for a nice cross field hammer. It also lets them drag back the wing D to allow the poppers space to move. I had one memorable point where Sacha H was playing wing D and I just kept dragging him back into no mans land between me and the poppers as Ant Dowle and the other popper just ran around throwing back and force, moving the disc forward with ease. Sacha couldn't commit to them because then they would have any ease throw to me - so he was just left the back peddling with me. I didn't even touch the disc but I am confident that my actions help effect the goal. The key is thinking about what you hate when you are on D in a zone. I hate when the wings split the deep deep and rarely spread the field out - so that's what I do when I am on O. The worst thing I think you can do on O as a wing deep is to cut toward a defender! If you are unmarked, why would you cut towards a defender to try and get the disc??

All in all it was a great weekend and I hope to get to do it again sometime.

Key learnings:

• Dump cut to the break side behind the thrower
• Don't milk goals
• Make eye contact with the thrower/receiver
• Stretch the field out as a Wing Deep

Don't Stop!!!

At Heads Of State training today I was reminded TWICE of a valuable lesson:

Don't Stop!!!

On O a big huck went up to a player on my team and I was about 10 metres away and just stopped and watched. He almost caught it but ended up tipping it over the top - where I could have been had I NOT STOPPED!

On D a big huck went uo that I thought was going to be a goal so I stopped. He wasn't in and my man had kept running and got an easy open goal.

Lesson: The Point AIN'T OVER 'TILL IT'S OVER!!

Best Ultimate Fireup Footage

This is an awesome highlights package care of a Waterford student.

Great for firing you up before a big game.

Two higlights for me:

The Greatest at 2 min is amazing

The layout at 3:20 is an awesome contested layout

Time Outs

So WFDF came out with new rules late last year: new rules

The new rules are in a much better format and clarify some good points.

However in my opinion they have left the most annoying rule in there.

Rule 14.1.8. says that it is a Turnover if you call a Timeout when there are none remaining. I believe this rule goes against the Spirit of the Game and is too extreme.

There is NO WAY that a team should be penalised because they can't count!

I propose that 14.1.8. be removed and that the following rule be inserted:

19.5. If the thrower calls a Team Time Out when their team has no
remaining Team Time Outs then no Time Out shall be taken and play shall
be resumed as soon as possible. All players on the field must return to
the location they were in when the Time Out call was made and remain
there until play restarts. The marker shall add two (2) seconds to the
stall count before restarting play with a check (if the additional two
(2) seconds result in the stall count coming in on Stalling 11 or 12
then a Stall Violation has occurred as per 14.1.7.).

I think this is a much more appropriate way to address this issue.

Ultimate: This Things I Believe

I love Ultimate

I love reading about Ultimate

So I am going to try and write about Ultimate

We'll see how it goes.