The first final to be played was in the Junior Women's division, between GB and Sweden. A notable mention has to go to #4 Johanna Szcyglowska, who was a pivotal player both in this team as well as the U17 GB Open squad. Maybe in three years she'll be ripping up the Uni Ultimate scene. GB had beaten Sweden twice already about 17-6, but the Swedish team had in turn beaten GB2 to 1 or 2 points, so they knew how to win games, and stepped it up for the final on the show pitch to make it a thrilling sudden death battle, #20 Abbie Dutton standing out as GB's main scorer, with captain #12 Amie Channon using the experience she's gained from Chichester Uni and Brighton Mixed teams to lead the offence to GB's first Gold - despite her final disc into the endzone being a bit shakey, Abbie (I think) pulled out an awesome grab over two defenders and then got completely bundled by the entire jubliant GBJW squad. Lots of promising play and great work by the coaches, but definitely a division which can improve dramatically over the next few years.
Next was the U17 division, and leading up to it GB appeared be be on their way to their second gold. Josh Kyme, #8, had been leading the offensive charge of this team all weekend, pulling out anything and everything that was needed to score the points - commanding the homeboy, solid hucking, or lateral swinging of the disc where he appeared to be on the end of every third pass, he truely had an awesome tournament and will be a player to look out for in coming years, with his technique already characteristic of top level Tour handlers. Sam Green #10 also had a great tournament with dozens of money discs to the endzone and working well with Josh on the nippy handler moves. U17 #3 Matthew Codd stood out as the main receiver, bringing down plenty of high discs with solid reads, once this one learns to layout he'll have the potential to be unstoppable. Overall the U17 division was the most impressive of the tournament, it would be an insult to the GB U17 squad to use phrases like "they know what they are doing" and "they play real ultimate", though those are what naturally spring to mind when you start watching. After that you simply enjoy watching the top quality ultimate - the only reminder of their age being the disproportionate size of the disc. Unfortunately things didn't seem to quite click in the final as they had been all tournament, and the Finns took the Gold home, leaving GB with a well deserved Silver and promises of great things to come. Props to Andy Vaughan for the great work he must have put in to create such a talented and self-sustaining team. Masters was next, though I don't feel I can comment too much due to only seeing a few snippets of games throughout the weekend. GB looked very strong in their warmups but not flawless on the pitch, Merrick was a big playmaker as expected, everybody was surprised to see Lars in this division and he promptly nipped around all over the place making a big difference. Also interesting to note Adam Batchelor was the only GB Master not to catch a score all week - draw your own conclusions... Mixed final up next - the GB squad had been a great team throughout the tournament, relaxed and confident, with a great atmosphere surrounding them and some awesome skills as accompaniment. Issy Burke took a game to get into it but didn't look back, leaving defender after defender eating her dust she quickly established herself as the top female scorer. Tara and Wilks showed solid play and perfect layout form to get the team psyched, DJ, Jaimie Cross and ever-calm Rob Whitehouse presented a constant threat with the disc and with Dav, Gash, Kathy Walker, Josh Wardle. Milla and plenty of others cutting deep, it was simply a matter of working those start-game nerves out of the system before opening up the real depth of the squad and pulling away from almost everybody they faced. The defeat to the Czech team earlier in the tournament gave them a kick up the arse, so for the final they came out strong and didn't look like they were going to stop, until right near the end, when the points just stopped coming, and a Czech comeback got everybody a bit worried, especially when their star player pulled off an amazing layout callahan goal off the first pass, taking advantage of JJ's hesitation to catch the pull, and one defender's abliity to stop the easy first pass and force a fake & pass up the field. GB of course regained composure and put it away soon afterwards, earning the third GB Gold of the tournament. The GB Mixed team with wise words from Beardy O'Kane showed exemplary spirit throughout the tournament, and with a great combination of young and old players, and a diverse set of facial hair styles, were always a pleasure to watch. First final of the Saturday and it was GB against Germany in the Junior division. Germany had shown the tournament what they had during their showgame early in the tournament, where they would work smoothly up the field and then rip out crossfield hammers for scores, point after point. In the group stages, GB had seen this and wisely chosen to force backhand the whole way, making a comeback at the end to win in sudden death, Sion Regan #9 cutting from the front of the stack and plucking a disc from above a German defender for the final point. Thoughout the week, the GB Juniors showed much skill and determination, but their lack of respect for opponents calls was very apparent from the start. Their coach would pace up and down infront of the GB sideline, protesting loudly about opponents calls, often loud enough for the players from both teams on the field to hear, not worried about getting directly involved in the outcome of discussions without his opinion being asked (and not simply regarding rules queries), and inevitably having a great influence on how his players would then approach the rest of the game. For many years the GBJ team has had a cocky, arrogant reputation, which could largely be put down to testosterone and victories, but in the alternative voice's eyes the coach this year has certainly not helped the situation. The alternative voice also did not volunteer to put a huge amount of time and effort into coaching the promising youth of UK Ultimate this year, so how much can it really criticise those that did? GB had lost to Austria in their first game, going 10-1 down at one point but coming back to a respectable 15-9 loss. They faced Austria again in the semi final in a game ridden with calls and disagreements, at 5-5 a double-turnover was called on a caught+dropped layout D, prompting a 15-20 minute stoppage, and none other than Adam Batchelor stepped in as a representative of the Rules Group to line the teams up and give a speech about, I'm to understand, how everybody wants to win, nobody is trying to cheat, and at the end of the day there will still be terrorism in the world. The game continued, though not much improved, and at 15-10 to GB, game to 16, I'm to understand a disc was put into the endzone for a GB player who did well to toe the disc in as he ran to the side of the endzone, was promptly clattered by an Austrian defender, and retaliated to what he felt was deliberate contact with at least a shove back. Both teams and coaches obviously got involved in arguing and holding people back and the like, the game was abandoned as Austria refused to play on, apparently forfeiting the game. All accounts suggest both teams were out of order with verbal abuse on the pitch throughout this game, the coaches didn't help calm situations, the Austrian coach at one point entering a GBJ circle to declare "I have one thing to say to you, Great Britain. Shame on you. Shame on you.". Afterwards the GB squad unfortunately didn't seem to have learned anything, continuing to put down the Austrians, claiming they didn't know simple things such as pivotting being allowed in the travel rules, and holding a very one-sided view of it all, right up until the point they heard they had been disqualified down to 4th position. This broke them - all the hard work put in by the coach and the undeniably talented players, suddenly lost... did they have time to ask themselves Why? More importantly, did they find a hint of the answer before they found out their appeal was upheld? They were to continue their semi from 10-10 at 8am the next day, the Austrians apparently refused to play them again and so GBJ progressed to the final against Germany. The performance the next day would suggest they were on their way to an answer, but not there yet. After a few points and one too many call-less collisions, it became apparent that GB were trying very hard to not make any calls, and not contest any calls made against them. I believe the entire first half of the game may have proceeded like this, though frustration got the better of them as the zone-on-zone match continued to go Germany's way, and the occasional hat-spike at a contest crept back in, climaxing in the coach apparently instantly cutting a player on the sideline from the squad after he let his views be known on a particular call (one has to wonder how this incident compares to the coach's sideline behaviour previously in the tournament). On the whole, GB looked exhausted and deflated from the emotional run-up to the game, and though you could still see their skills shining through occasionally, the formidable German zone shut GB's confidence down, at one point forcing them right to the back of their own endzone for a block along the back line which would've had to be toed in for a callahan. Both Germany and GB have great junior squads, but the alternative voice believes GBJ were taught a valuable lesson this week, and hopes they have the tenacity to learn from it and move forward as a stronger team next year. The women's final that followed was exhaustively uninspiring. An early injury to Gemma Taylor took out a great GB arm, but the loss was down to more than that. GB Women were unquestionably a pleasure to watch throughout the week, taking advantage of turnovers to quickly work the disc up the pitch and score point after point, regularly looking unstoppable with their dynamic five upfield offence (set up like the 5 on dice), shutting down teams with layout D's, destroying them with hucks, it looked really, really good. Right up until the final. Maybe more could have been made of the young blood in the last game - there were too many tired handler mistakes and not enough of Jools hucking to Sophie Watson for instance, but Ultimate is never quite that simple. Something just didn't click, it seemed like the team were somehow being dragged down to a lower level and then some, like they were very tired - I guess it was just unfortunate it happened in the final. At all other points throughout the weekend GBW were on form and firing, well drilled and dynamic, flexible and expansive, striking fear into the opponents by invariably going into the second half stronger than their opponents could imagine and completely taking games away from them. Sally Fraser, Sue, the Gemmas, Francesca, Maria, Aura, Sophie Watson, the list could go on, all seemed to have great tournaments and GBW can be proud of their Silver, gold going to the quality Finnish team, though with the knowledge that on another day the result could have been very different. I hope they continue to unleash their potential in Vancouver, and with the fantastic coaching of Anja I'm sure the kinks will be ironed out in time to bring their A game to the Americans, Canadians and the Japanese. So, onto the GB v Sweden Open Final everybody had been looking forward to all week. Right from the start of the tournament, Si Moore's GB Open team were worth getting excited about. Instantly gelling players from six of the top Tour teams, they demolished their opponents early on so that when Italy took six points from them in their second game, it almost felt like a loss. That's when you realised the awesome potential of this squad, the sheer raw power, finesse and ability, and they did not disappoint. After storming through group stages with strong performances against the Swiss and Russians, they took apart France in their Quarter after a close and heated start, scoring point after point including a Keith Hodgson greatest to Britney, who then made the 1 yard pass for the score - Keith then pulled the next disc, intercepted the second pass and threw for the score, and two points later got a callahan... all whilst the excellently performing Irish gave Sweden a run for their money on the next pitch over. Their semi against the Swiss (with Nas) was an amazing spectacle, as when the scores were close GB began yelling "you have to fly!" from the sideline on D - and fly they did, every Swiss pass was caught 30cm infront of a 5ft high GB star layout, until Colonel came up with the big layout block on the sideline infront of the crowd. The momentum shifted to GB and they powered through to the final. Both teams seemed somewhat muted for the first part of the grand final - taking jabs at each other from behind raised guards it felt like, until one GB offence point flowed so smoothly and made it look so easy that they became even more hungry to dominate on defence. The rest is a blur of chanting and cheering, aside from the occasional awesome Wigsy layout, right up until sudden death. The alternative voice didn't think it was a particularly badly spirited game - sure, there were calls, but spirit is about more than not calling and not contesting voilations. For sudden death a GB line including Beavan, Rodders, Stu Mitchell, Wigsy and Brummie pulled to Sweden, contained them for a few passes, then Wigsy springs in for a Callahan attempt, the disc hits the floor and there's a discussion about whether the O player had clap caught Wigsy's hand, or if he'd caught the disc and got Wigsy's hand between his arms before the disc was knocked out... Jen is on the sideline and Si Hill is trying to get Nicklas to look at the photo but the Swedes are refusing, insisting they know it was a strip. Disc goes back, and as soon as it's checked in a big huck goes up to Wesley, Beavan and Brummie arrive for the D and I think Beavan causes contact at the top of their jumps, the disc hits the floor but within a few seconds it's clear it's an uncontested foul and the Swedes will have the disc just outside the endzone... It's checked in and the GB D sets up before the quick score is possible, forcing Sweden to pass it around and soon the turnover comes (can't remember how). One pass to Brummie and he turns, puts the disc up for Rodders but there's been a miscommunication and Rodders is coming under instead... no bid on the disc as it lands in the Swedish endzone and it looks for a minute like GB are flustered, but the Swedish offence advances and once again faulters outside the GB endzone line (a simple throwaway I believe). GB work it up steady till they are outside the Swedish endzone, an errant pass sees Wigsy sprinting and laying out to catch the disc only a couple of meters from the front endzone cone - Nicklas apparently calls the disc down from the sideline which prompts an brief outburst, but a couple of hugs later and it's Wigsy's disc, he can't force it into the zone so dumps back to Stu Mitchell, Rodders makes a cut from the centre of the endzone stack, he's free but is there space for the disc... yes... Stu puts it in and all Rodders needs to do is catch it without jumping out, which of course he does, the crowd goes wild, and GB are crowned champions of Europe, earning 4 Golds, 3 Silvers and a bronze. The Alternative Voice of UK Ultimate __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed
