Dear Berrydisc, sorry Britdisc ;-) On the seedings debate: I do understand and sympathise with Dan’s frustrations of being seeded below where they expected – I’m sure everyone has been on the receiving end of a curious seeding decision in the past at different tournaments and felt equally aggrieved. On this occasion Kent received the benefit (and managed to validate that decision by finishing 11th), whereas we are regularly underseeded at tournaments as we are still an unknown entity. I must admit I have been frustrated by what seemed like arbitrary changes in seeding and entry allowances in the past. I think part of the issue comes from slow/lack of information. If it was possible for information to be more proactively provided, I’m sure much of the frustrations about lateness of schedules, how and why seedings are altered etc might be minimised. I don’t have a clear-cut opinion on whether common sense/pragmatism should be favoured over stricter rules without knowing more about what we stand to lose. Comparing Ultimate to other sports where stricter rules are in place doesn’t seem to help as it is difficult to find a fair analogy since Ultimate is so unique. Since Ultimate permits discussion and interpretation of rules on field, perhaps it follows that doing the same off the field in Schedule discussions, isn’t entirely incongruous with the spirit of Ultimate. Much of the Seeding issues we’re discussing stem from Peer Pooling. Si Hill made a very good point to me when we discussed this on Friday (and is hinted at by Benji), namely that UK Ultimate as a whole has benefitted considerably from having Peer Pooling on Tours, so that teams consistently get competitive matches. I don’t think many would disagree about this. The question is to what extent does peer pooling require accurate seedings to create a competitive and enjoyable tournament? Would one or two clear anomalies really ruin the Ultimate for certain teams? Possibly. Would stricter rules about dropping out/returning to Tour, force teams to make more efforts to find players so they don’t drop out/forfeit games? Probably not: Kent couldn’t help our injuries, and believe me when I tell you we tried really hard to get more women. Should we have been given special considerations? Possibly not. But oddly Kent justified the seeding decision with its finishing position (of course that isn’t to say that Galahs wouldn’t have done the same thing if they’d been given the shot). It’s a tricky debate, no?! And if you throw into the mix about whether Nationals should be a Peer-Pooling or an open format you have a whole new can of worms. I suppose one alternative might be to replace part of the Peer Pooling system with a Swiss Draw format as a way of maintaining competitiveness but allowing more seeding freedom. However my limited experience of this is that it’s unwieldy (particularly for the size of tournaments the UKUA runs) and usually creates chaos (no one ever knows where, when or who they’re supposed to be playing). There is certainly a debate relating to what Paul Holden describes as “Tour [being] a series of linked events where your performance in each is supposed to directly affect your opportunities in the following event” which seems to get to the core of the issue. On the one hand I believe the UKUA has attempted to do this to the best of their abilities/judgement. Given that our sport and our league are still in its early days, and that both increasing participation and quality of competition are going to be the key to developing teams, players and Ultimate in general, I think we’re on the right track. Were we to be playing for monetary prizes, or there were hundreds of teams and only a small percentage were qualifying for the National Tour league (rather than most of the teams in the country as is the case), then it would be different. Indeed if the sport continues to expand I believe a tightening of rules is inevitable and necessary. But I for one would not want to go to a tournament and have to miss games because other teams didn’t turn up, or having missed a Tour for whatever reason was forced to start from the bottom seed when we’re clearly going to finish far higher, just for the sake of rigidity. I do side with our friends at Galahs that teams should not be given an unexplained advantage, as we were, for issues which were not the fault of other teams (namely, player shortage/injury), but in this instance it wasn’t my call. Perhaps a clearer guide of Allowances could be produced to clarify? Consistency is important and I think the UKUA as a whole has certainly been attempting to do that, with this incident being a small blip. What is certain is that we will always have these debates for as long as we don’t adhere strongly to rules – maybe it’s a fair price to pay? My main complaint is I wish the Tours hadn’t been reduced this year. I just can’t get enough of competitive Ultimate! Thanks go to Si, Benji and Felix and the rest of the UKUA committees as always. Opinions here being mine and not necessarily representative of the views of my hard working team… Whippet Kent UFC President
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