Just to bring another end of season thought to Britdisc. I'm sure most people would agree that this years Nationals final was a bit of an anticlimax to a good tournament. Ruined as a spectacle by the weather, the game trundled to a not inevitable, but certainly highly probable conclusion as Clapham won by scoring the sudden death point downwind. 4 points had been scored upwind - a fine effort in my opinion - compared with 22 downwind. As we hit sudden death, despite everyones best efforts, the crowd did not feel much anticipation of an exciting finish. To be fair many perhaps couldn't feel their feet either but the point remains.
What is interesting is that had this scenario occured at the World Games in Japan this year, the contest would have been settled penalty shoot out style. My understanding is that each team would have had one posession at scoring one way, then the same in the other direction, and so on until one team scored their posession and the other team didn't. Had this been the finish, then we would have had the situation where both teams would actually have to attempt to score without a turnover - i.e. not simply huck and chase downwind and it would have been potentially much more exciting. It may even have answered some of the critics who were apparently saying "gee these 2 teams aren't even very good at playing downwind". But probably not. I think this sounds a good way of settling a game should it get to sudden death and would be happy if it was made the norm in Ultimate. Anyone know how it was received in Japan or if there is any suggestion of adopting it at World level? Let me just add the hopefully obvious disclaimer that this is in no way sour grapes at having lost the final. Congratulations to Clapham on drawing 2-2 with us... Dave. Chevron.
