KCL Thrown Ultimate

I never know how to start these reports off – so we’ll start with the team. For women we had:
Me
Jess
Jackie
Milly

And our men consisted of:
Nick
Dan
Tim
Alex
Ben
Ian

Game 1 v Skunks
Our first game of the day with a slightly different team than usual, and, unfortunately as so often happens with the first game of the tournament, it didn’t go nearly as well as it could have done. The skunks were a well drilled, well practiced team, and we had trouble competing with their quick style of play first thing on a Saturday afternoon. Although they took an early lead, Dan and Ben picked our team up about halfway through the game with some great throws and amazing cuts up the line. We were getting the d’s,but having trouble converting. Highlights of the game – Dan skied their big guy and Tim had all our points. We upped our offense, but 18 minutes wasn’t long enough for us to bring it back.
Final Score: 3-8 to Skunks

Game 2 v Liverpool Boogie Nights
After watching Boogie Nights warm up we knew we could beat this team. With that in mind, we started the game with full confidence, immediately taking it to them. Our handlers worked the disc with pinpoint precision, and our cutters were getting free every time. Our d was excellent, with Nick getting the first point block of the tournament.
Final Score: 11-1 to Thrown

Game 3 v Brunel
The game started well, with Thrown going 2-0 up. Unfortunately, Brunel scored the next two points quickly, making the score 2-all. What this game taught us was that we tended to panic when we were losing, even by only a point or two, something which plagued us for the rest of the weekend. Dan, Jackie and Tim were trying to keep us together, playing out of their skins, but we couldn’t keep up with Brunel in the end.
Final Score: 8-5 to Brunel

Game 4 v Aye Aye
Coming out of the defeat to Brunel, everyone wanted the win against Aye Aye. With a couple of scores early in the game, including a push-pass assist by Dan (much to my initial horror), and an amazing point-block/score bookend by Milly, our confidence was up and we were playing well together. Overall an amazing performance.
Final Score: 5-3 to Thrown

Game 5 v Dundee Shooting Stars
Although the game ended in a loss for us, everyone on the team played hard. We initially had a tough time coping with their quick handler cuts up the line, although by the end of the game they were having trouble getting free. After they went 3 points up, they played zone against us, which we began to break through well, although, again, the 18 minute games really worked against us. Tim had an amazing run through d late in the game, which really spurred us on, and Nick, Jess, and Ben really worked their zone by the end of the game. Unfortunately, time went before we had a chance to come back, but we showed some real promise and confidence by the end.
Final Score: 4-8 to Dundee

Saturday Night-
We went back for a curry at the same place we went to at Open Indoor Nationals, hung out for a bit, and then headed up to the army barracks for the party. It started out quite quietly, with us and dD hanging out and enjoying the cheap drinks, and ended with a roaring chorus of ‘American Pie,’ not something I’ve ever encountered at a frisbee tournament. The DJ had rather eclectic taste (as Jess accurately predicted, Beach Boys and Kenny Loggins), with some S club 7 and B*witched thrown in for good measure. Highlights included Finnish’s dancing and the pictures which will be posted on facebook.

Sunday Afternoon
We had our last pool game as the first game of the day, which would be the deciding factor of whether we ended up 4th or 5th in our pool.

Game 6 v Warwick Bears 2
Warwick managed to get 2 teams into nationals, something we were very aware of, and I was slightly nervous about. Our goal for the weekend was to make the top half, and we would only be able to do that if we came 4th in our pool. The first point of this game was possibly the best point we played all weekend. We were getting the turnovers, but couldn’t manage to catch the disc in the endzone. After 2 or 3 attempts, we finally managed it, making the first score ours and pumping us up for the rest of the game. Bears ran a tight mirror straight off the pull, which dampened our confidence a bit, but with Tim on their big man, forcing him under all the time, we again managed to take the point, making it 1-all. Their three scores were all long discs, which we managed to curb by the end of the game. Tim had his first ever successful foot block, and Ben his first score in a tournament. Ian was making really great endzone cuts and Jackie was poaching
perfectly in the lane, stopping any long discs. Definately the best game of the tournament.
Final Score: 5-3 to Thrown

Beating Bears put us in a good position, but we came bottom of a 3-way tie anyway, making us 5th in our pool and putting us in the 17-23 bracket.

Game 7 v Mythago
After our incredible win over bears, this game was quite a let down. Our team had previously shown a lot more potential than we showed in this one, and although Jackie and Alex played as well as I’ve seen them, and did their best to hold everything together (making Mythago players the only people playing well on the pitch), the game ended in a crushing defeat, putting us at 23rd seed.
Final Score: 2-8? to Mythago

Game 8 v Aye Aye
Now that we were in the lower half of the bracket, we had to play Aye Aye again. I personally was slightly nervous about this game, as Thrown has a habit of crushing teams we previously lost badly to, and I didn’t want it to happen to us. Thankfully, the team pulled itself out of the slump after the Mythago game, with amazing efforts from everyone. Ian’s cuts really stood out in this game, as did Jess’ and Ben’s handling. Although Aye Aye took the first two points, we rallied together and took it back.

Game 9 v Chichester
No one really knew what to expect from Chichester, as their style of play can be pretty erratic. We took the first couple of points, with Dan and Ben’s defense on their main handler really standing out, but we eventually started letting out the breaks which allowed Chichester to bring the score to 6-all. The buzzer went with Chichester gaining posession, and ending in sudden death.
Final Score: 6-7 to Chichester

And a final surprise of the weekend – we won spirit! Hopefully I wasn’t the only one slightly dissappointed with an absence of vodka as a prize, it would have come in handy on the way home.

Although we didn’t do very well according to the seeding (starting at 3rd and ending up 22nd – ouch), I am very proud of the way the team played when we played well, as well as our ability to pick ourselves up from tough losses. Everyone had moments of brilliance, and being able to watch everyone’s progression over the weekend was good to see. Well done everyone.

And just because that was the last tournament of the year for some of us, I expect to see everyone at practice on Wednesday. And I have sweatbands for Milly and Jess.

im still buzzing from the highs of yesterday
not to mention aching all over (leading to a pretty poor performance
at winter league today…)
anyway,
this is probably one of my favourite parts of the tournament: the
match report…
so i hope you guys read it

GROUP STAGES

last year we sent down a beginner team to mixed indoor regionals
and this is where dan and louis in particular really started to
flourish (and i got my ankles injured…)
this is relevant because it explains why chichester 2 were seeded
above us
we were fortunate i guess that we werent stuck in a group with two
other first teams…

after struggling to get to the venue on time we were fortunate to
ease into the tournament with a second team.

vs CHI 2 (chichester)

not much to say about this match to be honest. this was a team full
of beginners. they threw away a lot and tried a lot of low percentage
throws probably in desperation. new to the team this year were jess,
jackie, millie and alex so it was great to see them integrate so
well. millie was scoring at will, alex and jackie were creating some
great flow and jess was the definition of reliable as a handler.
great start to the day without being tested too much.
final score 11 – 0

vs MOHAWKS 1 (sussex)

we have had little to no indoor practice this year so were not very
good at indoor throws, indoor zones or iso etc. mohawks are at the
other end of that spectrum and we really got taught a lesson in this
match. they had a great iso and quickly went 4 or 5 up. after the
match harry suggested that i should have taken a time out and he was
definitely right. our heads were down and though we got a consolation
point, mohawks were in complete control. the one positive to take
from this game was our efforts against their zone. we were cool and
composed and they didnt dare try it again.
final score 1 – 9

vs SCORPOIONS 2 (surrey)

after the last match this was quite nice to regain our confidence.
surrey 1 are very well drilled and i was worried about the second
team causing us some problems. for whatever reason that didnt turn
out to be the case. our offence and defence was back to its aggresive
best. a really nice and well spirited team finished our group games.
final score 11 – 1

the group results meant that we came second to mohawks 1 in our group
and took 7th seed, which is absolutely fine for us.

(SECOND TEAM MENTION

having played two 2nd teams and cheered on thrown 2 i have to say i
was massively impressed by how our beginners did. nick and the other
experienced players did an incredible job at getting the best out of
our freshers and getting them so involved. harry and i have tried
really hard to emphasise the importance of dumping at practices and
its so good to see proof that you guys listen. unlike chi 2 who threw
away recklessly at high stalls and scorpions 2 who kept getting
stalled out, thrown 2 rarely threw away. but ill leave the more in
depth match reporting to nick. needless to say it was great to watch
them play some great ultimate. thrown 1 could learn a thing or two
about dumping and swinging… )

QUARTER FINAL
7th seed vs 2nd seed
vs SCORPIONS 1 (surrey)

weve started to have some really heated matches with the scorpions in
recent times. (at outdoor div2 nationals and at indoor regionals) and
this turned out to be no different. pugh has drilled this team
incredibly well and i reckon many people would have considered them
to be favourites. our matches have meant though that we now know more
of what to expect from this team and after our loss to mohawks we
wanted to prove ourselves. id learnt from indoor nationals last
november not to be too fancy with tactics but rather to stick to what
we know – simple stack offence and hard defence.

thrown took the lead but surrey werent far behind. there were several
flash points to this match. dan was doing the most incredible job of
marking out pugh. there were several calls made in this match,
mostly, if i remember correctly by pugh. this used to get into our
heads before but not in this match. dan wasnt phased by the strip
call (and nor was i after he questioned the validity of my awesome
layout grab…) and if anything he seemed to be winding himself up…
at 4-4 we went into sudden death. we were on offence so the pressure
was on us to convert. i threw away a stupid hammer but our d which
had been phenomenal got us the disc back. this time i found louis in
the end zone with a much simpler sidearm cut.

final score 5 – 4
(took 2nd seed)

this result guaranteed us top 8 i think and made it difficult for us
to drop out of qualification.

SEMI FINAL
2nd seed vs 3rd seed
vs DISC DOCTORS 1 (imperial)

dd had been awesome at indoor open regionals and nationals and i
reckon thats to do with their good tactical awareness. they have an
effective zone and a great iso so i was quite worried to be honest.
we talked about iso defence and considered our female advantage.
unlike the previous match which we won through sheer effort and
aggression this would be more of a tactical encounter.

we started on offence and opted for 3 girls on the line. dd used a
zone and we worked the disc up between all of us really nicely:
confident and composed. when we got to the endzone we were all a bit
clueless, but it was great to see all of us trying different ideas.
jackie and i tried to jump it in a few times, jess was constantly
looking for some break throws to spilt the zone and tim and kaleigh
were stretching the defence. in the end i reluctantly threw a blade
to tim who was towering over rosie. (i know he was expecting that
much earlier) our d was sharp and i think we took quite a comfortable
lead. the score was 4 – 2 at some point but i never felt like our
lead was in the bag at all. finally dd used their dreaded iso on
magnet… we put in place our d and though it didnt work perfectly at
first we were much improved compared to the mohawks game. louis even
managed to get a huge high d on magnet and the subsequent zones meant
that dd couldnt catch up. bit of a tactical error on their part i
feel but a win against dd is always sweet.

final score 5 – 3?
(kept 2nd seed)

this guaranteed us qualification and the 2nd seed and put us in the
grand final against mohawks…

GRAND FINAL
2nd seed vs 1st seed
vs MOHAWKS 1 (sussex) again

all day we had been talking about playing good ultimate and trusting
that the results would follow. we had qualified for nationals and
were happy with that. we wanted to redeem ourselves more than
actually take the 1st spot i think. after our powerful win vs surrey
and our tactical win vs imperial we had given ourselves the perfect
lessons to combat mohawks the second time round.
we had a massively intimidating crowd watching us from above,
including a rawkus mohawk contingent. thanks to the thrown 2 team
then for cheering us on, and for ham as well, who had made the trip
down to support us. we had kept our heads in our previous matches but
with the entire southeast watching this was different.

we actually took the lead in this match which really helped calm my
nerves. mohawks pulled out their iso early which made sense on their
part. much like against dd it took us a little while to truly shut it
down. but we did so convincingly, which meant that they had to
abandon that tactic. 4-2 down at least we could play them on our
terms of stack offence and defence. unlike many of the teams at the
tournament we didnt rely on one person, we had great cuts and throws
from everyone. i think i threw away the most to be honest so
apologies for that. i remember harry threw a really nice curving
backhand to kaleigh after a series of beautiful give and go passes.
everyone upped their game. millie had only really made herself known
in the endzone in previous games but got involved in the final, which
is great. we had a couple of chances to bring it level, the best of
which came to alex, who had made another great run towards the
endzone and managed to sky a mohawk with ease. unfortunately mohawks
called a foul and so the contested call was sent back. the buzzer
went during this point, which for the final meant that we had to
finish the point and play to a one point cap… jess was dominant.
she had been throwing some great discs for everyone and sent yet
another one towards harry who sprinted to the endzone to catch the
disc high and crash through the hall doors. again mohawks called a
foul but after a lot of discussion the point stood, meaning another
sudden death situation. with mohawks on o though, we needed to force
a turnover. we did just that. we moved the disc with some crisp
passing and jackie pulled out a great hammer cross pitch towards the
endzone. im sure everyone saw this in slow motion. i expected to see
tim on the receiving end, but was shocked to see dan instead… his
defender was caught out of position and dan actually went for the
disc high with one hand.

the crowd erupted as we thrown won its first ever tournament and
finished seumir champions…

well played everyone. we all earned and deserved that trophy
which is why i cant really think of an mvp or bag winner…

anyway,
sorry for the length of the report
thanks for reading this far
i really cant tell you how proud i am of the team and the club this
weekend.

i really enjoyed watching the second team play and watch everyone
improve.

the season isnt over though. keep coming to practices so that we can
carry this momentum to climax the university season in style.

see you guys wednesday.

adnan
thrown first team captain 08/09

so last weekend was the very first time thrown had competed in
university indoor nationals

the team to go down in history was as follows…

adnan (c)
harry
kaleigh
tim
dan
louis
john
nick
kyle

i had a great weekend
so my reminiscing tournament report might get a little long.
well worth the read though (i hope)

FRIDAY NIGHT

the train journey was long
but two hours of group therapy and a slight distraction of sudoku
meant that the time flew right by… (im not being sarcastic)

unfortunately, we lost nick to his brother, and split the remaining 8
of us into 2 taxis. my taxi got to the pub without any trouble, but
harrys taxi managed to get dropped off in the middle of nowhere…
about 20 mins walk away… lol.

despite us arriving at the pub at close to 10, we were actually the
first team to arrive… we were introduced to the infamous
unicoordinator chef and after a few drinks we retired to our hosts
house.

i had a good nights sleep actually, despite harrys gas and the late
night return of unknowing housmates…

SATURDAY

our venue for the weekend was the velodrome.
it was an incredible venue with a central area for two pitches
surrounded by the cycle track.

GROUP GAMES

thrown had a tough group. (university names for those of you too cool…)
mythago (bristol)
duf (durham)
skunks (southampton)
thrown

but we were up for the challenge

vs DUF

never played duf before but the only thing i did know about them was
that at outdoor nationals last year, coming from one of the stronger
regions, they had their first team in div1 and their second team in
div2…
i had this great idea of 3-2 formation. it was awesome. genuinely
awesome. unfortunately we had never practiced it before, so it fell
apart quite quickly… our offence didnt work at all and our d wasnt
really up to scratch quite yet. we recovered a couple of points when
we reverted to stack but by then it was too late
our sluggish start to the day, coupled by my tactical error meant that
we started the day with a disappointing loss against a team i am
confident we could beat.
FINAL SCORE 2 – 6?

vs MYTHAGO

for the rest of the tournament we forgot about my inspired 3-2
formation and stuck to stack. undaunted by mythagos seeding we came
out hard. we had underperformed in our last match and everyone wanted
to prove themselves. we took a 2 point lead thanks to some great
upfield cutting and our d was strong enough to fend off a fight back.
mythago favoured the iso offence but tim marked out the giant gb
junior most of the time and we forced a lot of turnovers with pressure
on the handlers.
our offence wasnt particulalry spectacular but it was our hard work on
defence which won the game for us.
one of our best performances of the tournament, all credit to both
teams, as this was a very well spirited match.
FINALS SCORE 7 – 5?

vs SKUNKS

skunks had beaten the other two teams and so toppped the group,
looking as strong as ever. from what i could tell they hadnt lost any
of their experienced players, and had in fact picked up at least one
ex-player (presumably on a masters)
johns maths told us that, based on the other results in the group, if
we lost to skunks we would be in a three way tie with the duf and
mythago. to top the tie we had to score just 6 points… (i was having
flashbacks of indoor regionals last year when we got relegated to the
bottom half of the division when we got caught in such a tie…)

experience taught me that shouldnt be our team talk though…
we had improved so much in the last game, we wanted to win.

skunks had quite a few plays up their sleeves.
they used mirror quite a lot and tried iso every now and again. our
defence was more than up for the challenge though. focussed througout
none of their points were easy. our offence was the same as ever:
quick but a little unorganised. john was especially sharp with his up
the line handler cuts. we were more than a match for skunks. we even
had a dropped blade in the endzone in the dying seconds of the match.
FINAL SCORE 6 – 6

another awesome performance by the team.
we came second in what i would say was the toughest group there.

CROSSOVER

unfortunatley we had no time to celebrate our awesomeness.
we were put straight into a crossover with a team from sterling, scotland

vs BLAZE

this was a really good team, with a handler sporting as much bad
stubble as i was. again our d was epic. blaze had a really nice give
and go style of play, with handlers moving up the pitch in quick
movements. definitely something we could learn from. louis really came
into his own here. with some excellent cutting. we spread the defence
and this was as close to slick offence as we came. harry threw a
really nice outside-in backhand that fell into louis arms in the
endzone. if that wasnt good enough, kaleigh decided to join in with
the assisting. desperate for my first point of the tournament i made
an up the line cut only to recieve a fake from kaleigh. cursing at
her, i watched her throw a break backhand instead. ‘idiot’ i thought,
until i saw louis lay out for the score… this was louis and kaleighs
match for sure. no surprise i guess that it was the ex and current
fitness coach that shone in the second of the back to back games…

this was another well spirited, competitive game. both teams favoured
working the disc up, but unfortunately for us, the buzzer went whilst
they were on offence. blaze won in sudden death, but really this could
have gone either way.
FINAL SCORE 6 – 7

i never enjoy losing, but we had played some really nice ultimate.
everyone was involved. our sideline was great. so despite the result
relegating us to the bottom half we could be proud of our efforts thus far

vs COBRAS

chichester were without one of their main handlers – skellie. theyd
looked weak at regionals, flattered by a lazy brunel team in their
group, and they looked pretty poor in manchester as well.
tough game to motivate ourselves for… this was a walkover…
unfortunately that wasnt the case at all. chichester came out hard and scored
a few quick points. taking the lead, they were smart enough to put a
zone on us and slow down our offence. i started to panic a lot…
chicester were throwing some crazy discs, and somehow they were
bringing them down… the bastards…
john, dan and nick decided to step up to the challenge. patiently
working their way through the zone they managed to bring it back
level. nick even managed to recover two stray discs, one from a point
block and the other… i dont even know… back in the lead they had
to be more aggresive and try to force turnovers with man. we ate them
up and cruised to victory. guaranteeing us top half of the bottom
half…
FINAL SCORE 7 – 4

SATURDAY NIGHT

after some team bonding in the showers… we explored asda, before
heading back to our hosts place to dump our stuff. we were sharing the
house with blt (bath) that evening. they seemed nice enough, but their
captain wouldnt stop asking me if ‘i was going to get it down
tonight?’. what does that mean?!

we decided to go out for a team meal somewhere along manchesters curry
mile. we got harrased in the street by some restaurant person but
managed to secure unlimited poppadums, a starter, main, rice/naan and
coffee for just £8 per person. thats not bad at all…
another round of group therapy meant we spent the best part of 3 hours
in the restaurant together.
i really loved it

when we got to the techno baa-bar, venue for the party, we were
treated to some finnish dance moves. the party wasnt going anywhere,
so we retired to the house at around 12. watched some brass eye and
went to sleep.

SUNDAY

first match was against far flung. another scottish team. hadnt seen
any of these guys play before so had no idea what we were up against.
all we knew was that if we won this we would be in the plate final.
the potential to get some bling from nationals…

vs FAR FLUNG

cant remember much of this game to be honest except for how it ended.
it was a sloppy match. we werent playing as well as we were
yesterday and they were equally sluggish. in what turned out to be the
penultimate point of the game john went for a disc only to crumple to
the floor. i watched from a distance before kaleigh suggested i should
go help. so with my vast medical knowledge i asked if he was
alright… carried off the pitch, john could only watch as we played our
sudden death point.
in such a situation, what you really want is a consistent player on
the pitch, but with john injured we had to do with what we had left…
we showed real character and scored in the high pressure situation.
taking us to the plate final.
FINAL SCORE 7 – 6

A&E

turns out john wasnt just pretending… hed done some real damage to
his ankle. john and i were kindly taken to a&e by chef’s girlfriend.
branded as ‘urgent’ we were in and out in just a few hours.
just in time for me to make a rematch with mythago…

PLATE FINAL
vs MYTHAGO

mythago were pumped for this match. we werent. we couldnt get our
heads in the game, and without john we maybe felt defeated before the
match even started… mythago took the lead and put on a zone. we
worked it up nicely but our lack of indoor practice meant we couldnt
get through their 4 on the line. dan was probably most effective
against the 4 on the line. tough to be a handler with just one years
experience, he was solid in front of their line and behind it as well.
i threw away a lot in this game. kyle layed out in epic fashion to
save one of my errors but that wasnt enough. in the last point of the
game, their captain layed
out from the middle of the cup to intercept a shoulder level disc…
deserved winners, mythago took the plate.
FINAL SCORE 2 – 6

dissapointing end to the tournament, but rather than dwell on the
results i thought i would focus on our play, commitment and attitude.
i had a great time playing this weekend, and was proud to captain the
thrown team. everyone played their very best and we all worked hard on
d. we were spirited and intense. exactly how a university team should
be.

with the exception of one player, weve all learnt to play at kings:
weve been nurtured by the thrown system. and this club has produced an
excellent team that should make kings proud. we can not only compete
at this level but we can win. we need to turn up to more practices and
match our athleticism with drills and tactics.
dD came 3rd because they were smart. their zone knew exactly what they
were doing. and we should learn from that example.

we did so well this weekend.
we can do better.

schneider award (MVP)
tim – tough to decide. everyone was awesome.
great on d and tireless on offence. the reason i voted for him was for
his attitude. tim wanted the win.

the bag (BEST DEFENSIVE EFFORTS)
we didnt do this for some reason. we really should have…
so ill decide this title
harry – we all worked hard on d. even us handlers… but harry gets
this prize for his amazing d in the last match. running pitch length
to intercept a hammer which would otherwise have been an easy score
for mythago. even when the match was arguably already lost, harry
leads by example.

favourite group therapy questions
to kaleigh – “who would you lend your breasts out to for one month”
to louis – “who would be your love guru”
to dan “who would have the biggest entourage of people if they became
popstars”

favourite quotes
harry – “just needed to clear some space” (following a banzai to see
how long it would take harry to make reference to his bowel movements
when returning from the toilets) (3secs)

awesome weekend

well done if you read it this far

adnan

Friday Night
We started off Friday night with me, Jess, and Milly on the (extremely packed) train, with Caz joining us in Cardiff. Once in Cardiff we sat in the pub until they kicked us out. We learned several things that night, that April needs a phone or risks getting lost again for 2 hours in the dark streets of Cardiff (but she eventually found us), Jackie has an odd-sock phobia, and that our host, Barry, was at Burla this year and that my tan lines have reached minor celebrity status within UK ultimate.

Saturday
We didn’t start until 11:30 on Saturday, so that gave us time to Pick up Rosie, Haley, and dD Jess and work off the hangover.

v Uriel (Exeter)
Uriel’s play consisted almost solely of an iso play, which, once we realised what it was, was handled really well by Rosie on defese, shutting down all the under cuts. our D was excellent, but our O wasn’t quite together, making the points extremely long and tiring. We played well, and had we played Uriel later in the day we could have given a much better game.
Final Score: 4-4

v Squaws (Sussex)
Coming up against a well drilled team was our biggest challenge of the day. Our game really improved, with dD Jess and Haley getting better all the time, but we were still having real trouble stringing together an offense, particularly against the Squaw’s zone. We continued to force the turnovers but couldn’t manage to convert. We saw some excellent D by April and amazing cuts by Jackie.
Final Score: 13-4 to Squaws

v UCL
Our final game of a very short day, we faced our open rivals, UCL. We were pretty evenly matched, but our offense really picked up with the arrival of Thrown Jess, who brought some much needed long throws and, more importantly, confidance. Rosie and Milly rocked the strike to the corner with Jackie churning it up in the middle, and Jess put up the huck all day. dD Jess and Jaley ran their defenders around until they couldn’t keep up. We pulled ahead in the end due to fantastic play by everyone.
Final Score: 9-7 to Kingperial

Saturday night saw us going out for incredibly cheap curry and then out to the party until some ridiculous hour because we thought we couldn’t work our way to 6th seed after finishing the day at 12th. As it turned out, we were wrong.

Sunday
Unfortunately we lost dD Jess Sunday morning to Imperial Musical Theatre (funny enough in itself, sorry Jess), who played incredibly hard on Saturday. Therefore, with a team of 8, we faced 5 possible games on Sunday.

v Squink Squank Squnk
This game was against the pickup team, so we used it as practice. We worked out an iso on Jackie with Haley and April making cuts in the endzone, but unfortunately the zone we tried was not working out so well. It was great as a warm up and still managed to pump everyone up for the games ahead.
Final Score: 11-3 to Kingperial

v Siren (Surrey)
We knew from the open season that Surrey’s women would be tough. Fortunately for us it was their first game and by this time we were amped to play. Our defense was so good we didn’t have to play it for more than 2 or 3 passes, and the offense was flowing like we practiced together. Rosie had some amazing strikes and Caroline some great breaks.
Final Score: 11-0 to Kingperial

v Sublime (Portsmouth)
We were facing a team where we knew all the throws would be solid, something we hadn’t quite come up against that day. However, our D, as always, was amazing. Hayley, April, and Caz worked amazingly hard covering all the upfield cuts, forcing the handlers to dump backwards into their own endzone and eventually forcing the turn. Our offense continued to improve, with the cutters working the disc up the pitch amongst each other without any help from the handlers.
Final Score: 12-2 to Kingperial

v UCl
A grudge match from Saturday. They’d lost before but were gunning for victory, and now they had a sub. However, we were pumped. No one was broken the whole game, Rosie got some amazing positioning D’s, and April got a huge run-though D against a girl who had to be 15 inches taller than she was. Our offense was unstoppable, with Jackie and I homeboy-ing it up the pitch to hit Hayley and Caz in the end zone. Everything looked effortless. UCL did pull ahead at one point, but we forced the turns purely by hard work and everyone playing together.
Final Score: 10-8 to Kingperial

After an intense game against UCL we found ourselves in the final game for 6th place and a spot at Nationals.

FINAL v Cardiff Angels
The final saw Kingperial slightly worried, as the Angels had an enormous sideline of very loud (and slightly obnoxious) men, including our host. However, we took the first point in the same style as we’d been playing all day, and then on the second point immediately shut down any chance of their iso on the first throw. We continued to D and convert, forcing the Angels to abandon any structure they had. After one incredibly long and important point (with Rosie, Jess, Hayley, April, and Milly playing their hearts out on both offense and defense) we found ourselves with a 4 point lead. And it was smooth sailing from there. The Angels’ sideline got quieter and quieter as we pulled farther and farther ahead.
Final Score: 14-3 to Kingperial

In addition to earning ourselves a place at Nationals, I want to impress on everyone how happy and proud I am of the way our team played together. I mentioned the cool stuff people did because that’s how match reports work, but Kingperial, as a team, worked seamlessly together, and that is the real reason we did so well. Not once did anyone have to be told to sprint every cut or work hard on defense, everyone played their part to perfection, and I couldn’t be happier. So well done team, and bring on Nationals!
Kaleigh
x

Match 1: v Mohawks 1 (2-9)

We won the 1st point! But then they came back and scored quite a few..
So, after a terrible pep talk from me, Adnan came to the rescue by giving advice and pointers to help keep the Mohawks at bay. his ‘house’ zone was really useful as they ripped through our man d, and with the zone we slowed them down a lot. Our chasers were great (Jess, William and Milly – I think), forcing the handlers to throw some crappy discs into the endzone for our deeps (Taddie and Ian?) to d.
I think 2-9 against Mohawks is pretty good (they were 2nd seeds).

Match 2: v Kent 1 (3-8)

We used our zone here again (and for the rest of the day, because it was working so well). I think Jess got a great d off one of the handlers, right near the endzone for us to score.
Kent ran us pretty hard, and managed to break our zone a few times for easy scores that we really should have been able to stop;
I really can’t remember much of this game, but again, I think 3-8 is not bad, maybe we could have scored more if we had started to throw hammers (by the end of the day there were hammers galore!).

Match 3: v Scorpions 2 (1-6)

Theoretically we had placed this match in the ‘easier’ slot with DD3; this was a mistake, they really showed us!
Scorpions were not afraid to throw hammers into the endzone, and with just one man there to defend they soon racked up the points. This meant that we changed our zone to a ‘dice’, with one man midfield (usually da Beast) and two in/near the endzone (usually Ian/Taddie/Ed) our deeps were great once they got used to the zone, going for every disc, and getting quite a few! Again our chasers (Jess/William/Milly) were amazing, really stalling the handlers, and making them throw mistakes.
I am afraid I’ve forgotten who scored our only point…but well done!
As you can tell our defence was amazing all day, but our offence needed some work.

Match 4: v UCL 1 (1-6)

This game was really good, we got the same score as the previous match, but against much tougher opponents. (ucl were seeded 7th). Our dice zone was tighter and more effective now that it had been practised, and Jess got some amazing d’s while chasing!
UCL were a pretty tall team, and used this to their advantage in the endzones, d-ing us and being well clear of our defence when scoring, nevertheless, we gave them a run for their money, and they had to throw some pretty cheeky discs to score.

Match 5 (last of group matches): v DD3 (5-3)

We went into this game a bit down after losing all the other matches, but also we were quietly confident we could win this one.
We started quite messily, our offence was sometimes not as good as when playing against the tougher teams- we seemed to adapt to DDs messy defence, when really we shouldn’t.
Our defence was still effective, DD3 had had little experience of playing against a zone, and they turned over a lot. Da Beast and Ed got quite a few d’s midfield for us to have a chance to score with one of my crazy hammers (if only we’d taught beginners how to catch lefty hammers…)
This was a good spirited match, quite nice to have an ‘easier’ game after playing four really hard ones.

Match 6: v HU 1 (4-6)

This was the first of our seeded matches, a chance for us to keep seeding or indeed go up! (no chance we were going to go down!)
HU were originally seeded 10th, but had managed to go down to 16th place. So we thought we could really win this if we tried.
The first point was with an all male line up, it lasted ages and was, I have to admit, a bit messy and needed a woman on the pitch! So we (Milly Jess and I) decided one of us would be on pitch at all times! This may seem odd to the men, but it did have a calming effect on play! We could definitely have won this match if we started this tactic at the beginning!

Match 7: v Chichester 2 (5-3)

This was quite an even match, the points were rather long, and our offence was, again, a bit messy sometimes, but had improved on the earlier matches. We had started to use our long threats of Ian and Ed, with one of them catching my crazy hammers, and then some nifty endzone plays to score. Sometimes they didn’t quite pull it off, but invariably that would be due to my hard-to-read lefty hammer.
We got quite a few ds all over the pitch, from our chasers, mids and deeps.

Match 8 (last one!): v Mohawks 2 (9-3)

I had thought that this would be tough, so had tried to really encourage our team to play hard and beat Mohawks. We did!
We stuck to our tried and trusted housey-dicey zone, which made Mohawks turn over a lot, we also got some great ds from Milly, William and Jess on chase duty. Jon da Beast had some great midfield ds as well.
Our offence had improved greatly, with me throwing hammers to the endzone, and Jess being an excellent handler near the endzone – so patient with the disc! Milly had a couple of points from some excellent cuts, as did the boys – great work from all of them (Ian, Taddie, William, Ed).

We kept our seeding of 17th (out of 24), winning 3 of our 8 matches.
A day well done!

Caz

weve never been much of an indoor team but this year we thought we
might have the quality and depth to do something.
despite our poor performance in last years indoor regionals we somehow
found ourselves somehow in 6th seed position. and fortunately for us
the timetable meant we started at midday on both days…

DAY 1 GROUP GAMES

vs READING DRAGONS
not much to say really… they were clearly a new team and by their
own admission they didnt expect to win many games. our offence wasnt
really troubled at all so we secored a good number of points. our
defence was a little lazy and maybe we didnt give them enough respect,
so we conceeded 3 sloppy points.
final score 9-3?

vs MOHAWKS 3
an all girls team, this was great experience for them before women indoor
regionals. not to be underestimated they finished fairly comfortably
mid table. unfortunately for them, despite their solid disc skills,
and a few breaks of the mark they couldnt compete with our height or
speed.
final score 12-0?

vs ROEHAMPTON 1
again a fairly inexperienced team we rolled on much like in our
previous matches. defence was good enough for this team and offence
got the job done.
final score 15-1?

vs UCL 2
wasnt sure what to expect from this team to be honest. they had a big
squad with a lot of beginners which is great to see. it was the first time we
came across 4 on the line and to be honest we really struggled. they
didnt have the quality to punish us but really we should have heeded
the warning for the next match…
final score 12-4?

vs SCORPIONS 1
3rd seed and looking very good, we knew that scorpions would be a tough
match. we also knew it would be a heated encounter, especially after
outdoor nationals last year… our offence had devastated every other
team we faced but scorpions recognised what we were doing early and
shut us down with some clam style man d. when we finally adapted with
our 3 2 offence as opposed to stack we still had trouble with their 4
on line. try as we might we could only score 3 or so points… their
offence wasnt particularly spectacular but the reason they scored and
we didnt was because of their endzone play. well placed blades and
awesome end zone cuts ripped us apart. scorpions were the better team
and rightly took top spot in the group and eventually go on to 1st spot.
final score 3-7?

i think we were disappointed by that last game. we really thought we
could give it a better go, but perhaps it was the lack of competition
before that match, meaning we couldnt reach the right intensity. in
the end we held our seed in the group and had a crossover match to
keep 6th seed and guarantee top 8.

CROSSOVER
vs ESSEX DEMONS
we played these guys last year so knew a little bit about them…
nevertheless we didnt expect them to come at us with such intensity.
they really took the game to us and hit us with a zone. thanks to some
decent hammers and a really tall guy they traded points with us for a
while. maybe 3-3 but after that we pulled ourselevs together. their
zone became ineffective and we were scoring freely. pressure on the
hammers and tall guy meant that their offence was shut down quite
comfortably in the end. i think they started to lose their heads and
after that it we pulled away for another comfortable win
final score 12-5?

DAY 2 TRIPLE ELIMINATION

seed6 vs seed7
vs UCL 1
first match of the day was against another london university, who
would probably have had as little indoor practice as us… this was
definitely a match we could have won so we went into it fired up and
ready to play hard.
the first point was epic. we had some great ds and kept forcing them
to turnover, but for whatever reason we couldnt convert. after a
draining first point we must have lost some composure, everyone was
throwing away and dropping the disc. it was embarrasing. i dont think
a single one of us had a good game.
their offence and defence was average really. i think john was the one
to note that ucl didnt get one d, we turned over for them…
really dissapointing start to the day, meaning we dropped down to 7th,
outside qualification…
the less said the better.

seed 7 vs seed 8
vs SUBLIME 2
its never fun playing a sublime team… and this was a very strong
second team who were responsible for dropping brunel out the top 8…
we were still throwing away unfortunately but our d was a lot better.
we had finally switched on, meaning that sublime werent as freely able
to score as they had against their previous opponents. i cant remember
how the match went point for point but we found ourselves in a sudden
death situation…
tim was getting free for the under cut all day and recieved a disc
from dan. then with a sweet side arm he sent it up the line to assist
my run into the endzone.
final score 7 – 6

after i had a bit of a strop we now found ourselves back in the 6 v 7
game against UCL 1 again. this was our time for revenge. we didnt have
to just win it, we had to prove that we were the better team.
we had to get our heads in the game.

seed 7 vs seed 6 (for qualification spot)
vs UCL 1
the first point was epic once again. we forced the tunrovers but
coulndt convert yet again… from the sideline my heart was racing.
twice we had discs intercepted in their endzone, preventing our score.
eventually harry managed to recieve a disc up the line and toe-d his
foot just about in to score the first point of the game. the sideline
erupted as we took the lead and went back on d. this time our forcing
was superb. our man d was honest and we made it difficult for them to
move the disc. ed english got a few stall outs right on their endzone
pinning them back constantly. unlike ucl we were moving the disc
freely. nick and dan were using all the space on the pitch to dump and
swing and ran the ucl d ragged.
we found ourselves 3-0 up in no time.
constantly on d we didnt give them an inch. louis knocked down some of
their long throws and immediately ran long himself to get the quick
score. john was equally on form at the back bringing down discs and
starting off the pass and move plays.
9-0 up we were still as intense as we were in the first point of the
game. the sideline support was awesome. even when we conceeded their
first point we were determined to stop any sort of comeback. kyle
brought down a scoober in the middle of the pitch and assisted tims
end zone cut in one of the easiest looking points of the match.
squashing all hope of a ucl comeback.
final score a massively satisfying 14 – 1

awesome.
if we played with that intensity against ucl the first time and maybe
even surrey, who knows where we could have come.

thrown goes on to compete in div2 nationals for the first time in its
short history in just a couple of weeks.

final standings from the tournament

1st Surrey Scorpions 1
2nd Sussex Mohawks 1
3rd Portsmouth Sublime 1

4th Imperial Disc Doctors 1
5th Chichester Cobras 1
6th Kings College Thrown 1

7th UCL 1
8th Sublime 2

9th UCL 2 (Plate)
10th Essex Disc Devils
11th Brunel
12th Scorpions 2

13th Royal Holloway HU? 1
14th Kent Touch This
15th Reading Dragons (Ppirit)
16th Sussex Squaws
17th Thrown 2
18th Chichester 2
19th Disc Doctors 2
20th Mohawks 2

21st Disc Doctors 3 (Spoon)
22nd HU? 2
23rd Roehampton 1
24th Scorpions 3

great result for thrown 2 as well.
you guys were looking great by the end of the day.
look forward to a match report soon…

cool.

(so im writing this from my office in the iop… love it…)

anyway
last night, thanks to harry and kaleigh, we were fortunate enough to
be able to play iceni, who are the top womens team in the country, in a
friendly match at battersea park. they won this years womens tour and
are travelling to paris at the end of the month to play in euros.
so theyre good. very good.

playing in a floodlit stadium was pretty cool. and whilst the weather
wasnt ideal, with heavy rain throughout, we were at least fortunate
there was no wind.

after a quick warm up and team talk we began the match.

we began on offence and passed it up the pitch quite nicly but
unfortunately turned over a little too easily, possibly due to not
being sharp enough. after a few breaks of force, iceni punished us and
drew first blood.
0-1…

after that we picked ourselves up and tightened up our force.
harry threw the first huck of the match, almost immediately off the
pull, just for tim to pluck it out the air and assist kyles endzone cut.
back level we stopped the breaks and started forcing turnovers and finding
ourselves 3-1 up

iceni went on to claw a few points back and bought it back level with
some great flow.
3-3

man d was working very well. people were running hard and our force
improved infinitely.
president nick in particular, with the unenviable task of marking
rowan, stopped a lot of breaks which really helped us stunt their flow.

with a 2 point lead at 5-3 we came up against a zone d for the first time…
we werent expecting it and to be honest i didnt even recognise which
type of zone it was, so we turned over in our own half and conceeded.

the next time we came across zone, jess and american nick helped out
at the back. we had some really decent dumping and swinging. jess
managed a great grab after i threw a rubbish disc at her and nick gave
us some really good width with his swing cuts. solid handling at the
back meant that it was only a matter of time before we broke through.

this was probably my favourite point of the match, as jon da beast
worked hard with second cut off the crash, busting the zone wide open,
for us to score a devastatingly slick point.

we didnt face a zone after that too much which was disappointing.
when we did we managed to get around it and score down the line.

we must have traded a few points after that, but whatever happened we
went into the half with an 8-5 lead.

we talked about our own zone and hit them hard with brownie zone and
junk zone in the second half.
jackie worked really hard as the junk force and we managed to contain
them quite effectively. they threw a couple of hammers and everynow
and again they worked it through. but i think the fact that we kept
alternating our zones really messed them up.

up against man d again, louis second cuts formed the basis of our flow.
we started to dump and swing, nicely spreading play.
and we started to have options all over the pitch.
alex was running really hard with long cuts and short cuts, getting
free and making it an easy throw everytime for the handler.

o was starting to look good in pieces, but it was our d which was most
impressive throughout.
taddie worked tirelessly and blocked off a lot of alena’s open cuts
forcing the handlers to go backwards again and again.

having worked so hard throughout the match, we started to earn our own luck.
mythago jon managed to layout and grab a score quite spectacularly.

final score was something like 15-8?

great result and really promising for the rest of the season.
especially with so many new players
and with so much of the returning first team being a little rusty since the
summer break.

dr j has been emphaising dumping and thats definitely an area id like
us to excel. offence in general just needs a little more structure.
well work on that in practices
defence was awesome. we need to go through zone soon.
perfect the brownie, junk and arrowhead.

awesome

like harry said please turn up to these.
a lot of effort goes into organising practices
its all done for you guys so make use of it.

adnan

So here it is a full tournament report from plymouth beginners.

N.B. From this point on the following freshers shall be referred to as:

Hannah : The NOID (Winner of THE BAG)
James : Choker
Sora : Miss Swiss
William : Captain Asian (MVP)

Friday 17th.
Having had a few phone calls and frantic emails we finally decided to catch the
6:03 train to plymouth from paddington. After meeting everyone at the station
and collecting some free food (in the way of a raw potato and a free krispy
kreme) It dawned on us that we were one short. with 10 minutes untill train left
we received a text from Cpt. Asian explaining he had fallen asleep and may be a
little bit late. We watched our train pull off into the distance and disgruntle
waited for Cpt. Asian to arrrive. Turns out that the next train wasn’t for
another hour so we only had one choice. PERUDO!!! After a very laboured few
rounds explaining the rules and half a game we got on the train to find not one
free unreserved seat. We marked out territory where we could, stealing seats and
camping in the aisle and passed the time with some ridiculous group therapies
(which seriously shocked those we shared the train with) and even more perudo. I
also gave a thrilling captains pep talk and explanation of some advanced rules
and tactics that had fellow travelers enthralled. We arrive at the station at
10:30 to be met by Afro Peat (guess where he gets his name from), Greg Simon and
George the bitch (she is in fact a female dog). We dump our stuff and head into
town for some takeaway before confiding ourselves to our rooms and getting a
good nights kip at around about 1am.

Saturday 18th.
Our first day, our first games. fortunately games don’t start untill 10:40 for
us so we have plenty of time to do a warm up and a forcing drill. We get into
our kit to find that Choker had no t shirts and the NOID hadn’t brought a green
top. hmmmmmmm. Fortunately El Presidente Ward rocks up with an old thrown top
and by handing over the t-shirt i planned to wear home to choker we are all set.

Uriel 3 (The Angry Werewolves):
Here we go, first game of the tournament and it’s the people we will be sharing
our house with later that night. They were a fairly big team with two complete
lines so they came at us hard. We Settled in for a battle of points trading upto
2-2. Everyone was running really hard, possibly too hard, when fatigue got the
better of us. There stack got tighter and ours got sloppier and they took two
points against us. We pinched another point but they took a final two. Everyone
ran hard and worked well but in they end there play was a little bit more
refined then ours and we end up behind.
FINAL SCORE Thrown 3 – Angry Werewolves 6

Picnic 2 (Pirelli’s Players):
Not to be disheartened we entered out second pool game, this time against two of
the experienced players who hosted us. This was a tough team who eventually came
3rd overall from the entire weekend. They had good long cuts and some very
active experienced players. Miss Swiss and Cpt. Asian were both putting in very
dependable firstcuts and we looked really promising. they took the early lead
but we brought it back to 2-1. The last point you could really tell they felt
pressured. Some strong forcing by all was forcing the experienced players to put
up very risky discs and it looked like we could bring it back. Unfortunately a
bit of panicking in the when were on O lead to us never quite completing a point
and we were eventually beaten by the clock. A shame as I felt if the game had
lasted longer we could have had it. Though spirits were high after the game and
during a cool based on eating brioche as fast as possible (during which we first
encountered Cpt. Asian’s excuse of “but i’m a small asian kid” which would
become a recurring theme throughout the tournament) both teams shook off the
incredible tension that had filled the last two points of a game which really
could have gone either way.
FINAL SCORE Thrown 1 – Pirelli’s Players 3

Jesters:
We were going to be moved to a bigger pitch for this game and Taddie, Nick and I
all tried to encourage the team to cut long, whilest we chowed down on some
pasties nick had brought us from his local bakery. The Jesters didn’t start
strong and we took advantage of that. We got our first point with some beautiful
up the line flow. they came back hard and really put the D on us only to match
us with a very similar style of O to how we played. The points went back and
forth and the NOID really started to shine as a very dependable first cut. We
started to put more long discs up and it was working for us, Choker also gained
more confidence and started to pick up the disc to handle. Just after they took
a point against us to put them in the lead at 4-3 a call from the sideline came
of one minute. The match stepped up at least three notches in intensity and as
neither team who was on the pitch really new the score other then to say it was
close hammers and hucks became the staples. some great long cuts by Choker and
Cpt. Asian looked to get that last point but the frantic atmosphere on both
teams meant neither managed to complete their long discs. The game went and we
all slid off the pitch (I was honestly that sweaty) for the speeches. The Jester
captain and I both agreed that it really could have gone either way and it was a
ridiculously close game. Nick finally got to play Ninja which he had been
hounding us for all morning and predictably he won.
FINAL SCORE Thrown 3 – Jesters 4

Disco 1:
We entered this game with plans to use our long threat a lot more and at the
same time continue to work hard on our first cut. This game started off with two
mammoth points, exhausting our team which continued to run hard the entire time,
it was ridiculous. We caught up later in the game and had some great first cuts
from both Miss Swiss and the NOID who even look for the swing, a skill which
helped us out a lot. The Ward family turned up to cheer us on, and inspired Nick
who with true skill and grace put a beautiful Hammer into the far corner of the
endzone that curled around the defender for a fantastic point. We evened up the
score to 2-2 but unfortunately the intensity of the game had worn us down which
allowed discos to take a last minute game winning point.
FINAL SCORE Thrown 2 – Disco (one) 3

Ugly Ducklings:
This was a BIG team, not in quantity but in size. They also wore green which
meant nick got to play in a white button up shirt. There experienced had some
really good hammers and hucks and so our D was really put under pressure.
Fortunately we stood strong with the NOID putting on an incredible force; Miss
Swiss and Choker marking out their men tirelessly; and Cpt. Asian pulling off
run through Ds all over the place. We realised our long game was never going to
work against them so we used our undercuts to great affect. Unfortunately the
pure persistence of their long threat got through our D by sheer quantity of
discs. Though the team lost this one, they should be really proud of their D, it
was ridiculously strong.
FINAL SCORE Thrown 4 – Ugly Ducklings 5

Saturday evening:
After some shopping for the THE BAG, THE BAG, THE BAG; we hit the weatherspoons
for some dinner and drinks. We played hands on the bushes for what seemed like
hours with some ridiculously speedy rounds. we also took a couple of stabs at 20
+ 1 which lead to some ridiculous rules as well as the interesting fact game.
After we were all full up we headed to the party. It was in an incredibly packed
little bar that was pretty dingy. However drinks were cheap and strong, and once
every one was a bit loosened up (and Cpt. Asian and Choker took a go on matilda
the “two-person-naked-mannequin-beer-bong-with-breasts-for-mouth-pieces”) we
busted out some frisbee dances. we even got a couple of dance offs going between
Cpt. Asian and Taddie. We decided to hit the SU and queued for ages, but
fortunately Taddie hit us with his “ill flow” to give us all some personalised
raps to pass the time, don’t worry i’ll get Miss Swiss to show you the videos
some time. After failing to get into the SU as the NOID had no ID (clever huh)
we tried out our party venue form last year the fresher and professor. We
managed to sneak the NOID but they wouldn’t take Taddie’s ID….. to be fair I
wouldn’t let him into my pub either. We headed back to the first and got some
real dance offs going with Cpt. Asian and Taddie taking on Afro Peat and a
couple of other freshers from other teams not worthy of a mention. We headed
home and crammed 6 players into a room the size of a double bed. Despite Choker
singing softly like a man possessed whilest trying to strangle Miss Swiss in her
sleep we managed to rest up for the next day.

Sunday
Air Badgers 2:
Whilest we were nursing hangovers and had slept on a hard floor all night the
air badgers (a team of 12 yr olds) had gone home and had their mummys tuck them
and kiss them goodnight. We entered the game incredibly cocky. We put up swill
with height because we knew would pull it down off them. Unfortunately their
experienced players are amazing (having played from the age of 12 and now 19,
they came 4th at club indoor nationals this year) would pull this crap down and
could pick out any of their own players. Some sloppy D by us (you try keeping
track of a kid half your height with a hangover) and the fact that they were
fast and really knew how to cut deep meant the game went to sudden death with us
eventually taking the final point. surprisingly the kids weren’t interested in
doing a cool.
FINAL SCORE Thrown 6 – Air Badgers (two) 5

Metro Magic:
This was a tough game, this guys play hard and are tall (much like the other
swansea team Ugly Ducklings). Like the Ugly Ducklings they had some tall deeps
and great hucks but unlike the Ugly Ducklings they also had a great short game.
They played hard, really hard and so did we. This was my favourite game of the
weekend purely because of the intensity both teams played with. Despite everyone
cutting incredibly strongly and the NOID and Cpt. Asian both pulling off some
really impressive Ds, we got trashed. After the game I had to make special
mention of how well spirited this team had been, in the proper sense of playing
hard despite how the game was going (most teams would have got lazy once they
took such a heavy lead over us) and the fairness of their calls. I hope that our
beginners learn a thing or two from these guys in terms of the attitude you
should be playing with.
FINAL SCORE Thrown 2 – Metro Magic 8

Air Badgers 3:
Our final game and we approached it with determination not to have the same
close call as last time. We were in the big hall once again and both teams
instantly put up the longs. This allowed the air badgers to get an early point
through us not sticking to a men, but having learnt from before everyone quickly
rectified this with Choker in particular swatting just about everything out of
the air and putting up a lot of long discs himself. we also used our beautiful
dump swing (which several teams had commented on before hand) to get around them
quickly for the breakside score when we were close to end zone.
FINAL SCORE Thrown 6 – Air Badgers (three) 1

Final Standings:
1. Surrey Scorpions 1 – MVP: T-Bo (I have no idea how to spell this,
sorry)
2. Cowie’s Chiefs (Picnic 1)
3. Pirelli’s Playas (Picnic 2)
4. Mythago 2 – Spirit Winners
5. Jesters
6. Uriel 2
7. Uriel 3
8. Uriel 1
9. Ugly Ducklings
10. Surrey Scorpions 2
11. Reading Dragons
12. Wootton’s Wonderers (Picnic 3)
13. Metro Magic – Plate Winners
14. Mythago 1
15. THROWN <——
16. AirBadgers 3
17. Disco 2
18. Disco 1
19. AirBadgers 2
20. Shrink 2 Fit (Picnic 4)
21. Reading Snogard
22. AirBadgers 1 – Spoon Winners
23. Puriel

The guys did extremely well and improved so much, with real improvements in D
long cuts and dump swinging. Almost every captain said they felt the game could
have gone both ways which shows how close we came for a lot of our games. This
was such a fun tournament and I was so proud of the team and I know they enjoyed
it as much as I did.

Hope to see you all at Lufbra
Dan

Thrown A Match Report

Beginners:
Sora
Hannah
James
Ian
with cameo appearances by:
William
Sanna

Experienced:
Taddie
Tim
John
Me

Pickup
Our daring freshmen played a whole extra game against Farnborough with the (not very much) help of a bunch of crazy french aeronautic engineers and two quite chubby englishmen (cranfield, btw). Overall a good game, our pickup team did win, and we learned that Cranfield were really not very good. They didn’t give our freshmen a huge opportunity to do much as they spent most of the time doing nothing. Interesting though.

Kent 2 (10-6)
We really picked it up in this one. The defense was hot with Sora getting in the way of one of their men, and we saw some great Ian/James action with huge sidearm hucks and great grabs. There was also a cameo by William at one point, Kent being much easier to score on than Tim, apparently. The stack was looking really good and the d was definately better than thrown1. Kent played well, but we played better.

LSE
We went into this game feeling full of confidence after winning against Kent, but we knew we were up against a totally different team. John and I managed to instill in everyone the desperate need to beat LSE (maybe not the best tactic), and we managed to keep our composure and seal another victory. Everyone stepped up their defense in this game, making it really tough for their more experienced handlers to throw anything except to eachother. We also saw some great action on offense, with our cutters moving the disc amongst each other all the way up the pitch. There were loads of sidearm hucks again and scores from both Hannah and Ian.

Cranfield
After playing with these guys in the pickup game, we knew they were lazy poachy bastards. Unfortunately we had to work really hard to move the disc around. After a couple of rather frantic points, however, we realised we needed to play an expert short game rather than huck against 6-ft tall men. Hannah and James worked the disc expertly amongst each other while Sora and Ian moved the defense around in the back, creating enough space for us to steam several points ahead, securing the win.

UCL
We made it to the final against UCL, and unfortunately the combo of height and exhaustion finally took its toll on the iron man freshmen. We lost Sora early on to a hip injury, and had an excellent sub in by both Sanna and William. Unfortunately UCL took the lead early on, but once we stopped hucking the disc away we began playing an exhausting, though effective, short game, gaining us points by the minute. Had we started on time or played for 10 more minutes, we may have taken the lead. Excellent play by everyone towards the end of the game.

Although we lost in the final, it was the only loss of an amazing day. Everyone played better and better as the day went on. There was real improvement on defense, especially from Hannah and Sora who were often matched up against men twice their size. The offense looked amazing, by the end of the day the handlers were barely needed, the disc was advancing up the pitch without our help. We also managed to keep Ian from deserting us for badminton. Overall, good day. Thanks a ton to all our new players and from all the help from Thrown.

Kaleigh

So here it is, after a long wait, the much sought after kcl beginners match
report.

So Thrown 1/Thrown dan played 4 games and consisted of:

Beginners:
Eileen (sp?)
Jenny
Sam
Sanna
William

Experienced:
Myself
Casbo
Ed English
Jess
Jon Da Beast

Surrey Scorpions:
A game of many firsts, first game of the day, first game i had captained and
most importantly our beginners first game against another team. So after a hasty
warm up and leading pass drill as well as some very frantic words from myself we
came across our first opponents. Surrey came out incredibly strong, which threw
us at first. We all felt a little daunted to start against a team who were
clearly very organised. That didn’t put us off however. After falling behind
early in the game we stepped up our game and started to trade points. Surrey
looked a little threatened to see us suddenly pull ourselves together and step
up to their game. At such an early stage in the day both Sam and William showed
promise with some strong undercuts, however with pew handling and some beginners
with no fear of going long Surrey kept us at arms length. However despite the
final score line I was proud to see how strongly my team had done against such a
strong team (evident by the fact that they went on to win this weekends Plymouth
Indoor tournament). The team left the game a bit stunned in part due to
experience of their first game and in part because nobody had explained to them
about cools before.
FINAL SCORE: Thrown 3 – Surrey Scorpions 7

HU?:
Looking slightly phased by our earlier defeat we walked over to our next match.
Despite attempts at encouragement our team entered the game with trepidation,
despite this however some excellent flow and cuts from the entire team, with
some fantastic first cuts from Jenny and some incredibly intelligent second cuts
from Sanna we were quick to take the first two points. having put HU? under
pressure we suddenly looked far more relaxed and ready to really play the game.
It was at this point that HU? really brought themselves together and pulled
together to give us a bit more challenge. However the entire team managed to
spread the opponents across the field giving us a lot of room to work with. This
allowed us Jenny and Eileen to continue to give us constant undercuts swiftly
followed up by both Sanna and Sam making some beautiful cuts upfield and William
provided a constant, if not mildly hyperactive, deep threat. This allowed for
some beautiful up the line flow as well as one frankly gorgeous cross pitch
hammer score (sorry couldn’t resist). To the surprise of at least one member of
the team (she knows who she is) we left the pitch the winners and with a lot of
promise for our future games.
FINAL SCORE Thrown 5 – Holloway Ultimate 3

Kent Touch This 1:
Kent our a strong team but having seen our thrown doppelgangers beat Kent 2 and
having come fresh from the battlefield with the smell of victory on our green
tops we felt confident playing this very large Kent team. We started the game
with the very same flow and strong cuts that we had put up against HU?. However
Kent consistently looked long a lot meaning that a lot of our good work would be
done by a huck deep back towards our own endzone. However not perturbed the team
continue to pick up the disc and battle it up field again and again. Sam showed
some real understanding of the swing role and looked to put a disc back upfield
to William and Eileen to allow us to gain ground. However some panicking when we
got close to the endzone caused a few too many turnovers. Not to worry though
for Sanna proved an invaluable D, plucking discs out of the may much to the
dismay of any who had the misfortune to be marked by her. Our strong D forced
Kent to throw more and more long discs. Which quickly tired our Iron Man team
which eventually became our downfall. However despite the final score both teams
agreed it was an incredibly close game.
FINAL SCORE Thrown 2 – Kent Touch This (one) 8

RUF:
Finally we come across another Iron Man team, but it’s our last game of the day.
We enter the game feeling tired yet hopeful. Little did our guys know this would
be a ridiculously mammoth game. The entire game last ONLY THREE POINTS. The
first point not being scored untill past halfway through the game. However The
day had got to our team and the trading of pitch position was really getting to
our team. Eileen continued to give us consistent undercuts as an option but we
were no longer cutting long or cutting as hard as earlier in the day. But
despite this our D really went up a level. Jenny started to put on some real
pressure with her forces and William traded all the energy he had put into going
long earlier in the day into grabbing every run through D he could. After an
injury to a RUF beginner it was established that each team would have an extra
experienced player on the field. However having the ability to sub was a little
too late and we ended this epic game the wrong side of a close scoreline.
FINAL SCORE Thrown 1 – RUF 2

We ended the day 12th but it was an incredibly good day and considering our
guys were Iron Man (and not the tallest team in the world) we ran incredibly
hard and did very well. The entire team should be very proud of how they did and
thanks also go out to those experienced players that helped (sorry to not
mention you in the match report).

……. now back to my stem cell essay

Dan