Barramundis Found Unusually Far South

Last weekend, top ultimate players from around Australia put their cleats in their hand luggage and flew to training camps for our national representative teams. The vast green fields of Deakin took a break from Touch Football to host the Barramundis, Australia's national mixed ultimate team, as they prepare for the World Ultimate and Guts Championships in Vancouver in August of this year. These training weekends provide a chance for our top teams to build team structures and tactics and give players a chance to learn everyone else's names. This can be made difficult by the size of the teams (national teams often have 20 players or more) and the complexity of people's names (Peter Blakely, for example, is called "Tex". Why? Brett Middleton = "Sweet As". Again, why? Al Don's name only has five letters, so while his name is easy to learn, he often struggles to remember others').

After a whole day spent learning names and dietary requirements (Al Don, for example, won't eat anything with more than five letters in its name), the Barramundis matched up against some local punching bags for a chance to try their structures against some unsuspecting opponents. The ACT pick-ups, affectionately called "Team Crush" played a fluid unstructured style which worked well against the Mundis' zone but faltered against man, and the Mundi's offense (especially late in the game) moved the disc faster than Crush were willing to run. After a close first half, the Mundis ran away in the second half to win 17-10. Canberran Mundis Max Wheeler, Adam Mortimer, Vickie Saye, Lucy Stevenson and Laina Hall clearly lamented missing the chance to play for a strong local pickup team, but will no doubt take solace in their role in helping their team to victory and in the opportunity they have to represent Australia later this year. Huy Vu from Adelaide will also be drawing solace from that fact after confidently asserting that local defensive mongoose Asher Gentle "totally can't get near" Peter "Tex" Blakely just moments AFTER Asher got a run-through layout block on the Fakulti receiver. Whoops! Asher's block was just one of a number of memorable moments among Vickie Saye's layout for a contested goal, Lucy Stevenson's forehand huck to score and several as yet unconfirmed sightings of Australia's most technologically advanced clipboard.

Congratulations also to Leon Smith and Damien Jaccoud (who are playing with the Taipans in the Master's Division), Keah Molomby and Helen Osmond (who play for the Firetails in the Women's Division) and Jonothan Holmes (who plays for the Dingo's in the Open Division) for being selected for Australia's highest honour (no, it's not the Australian of the Year). We at the CUB secret underground facility wish all our reps on the nationals teams all the best in their preparation for Worlds.