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.