Day Two of Australian University Games

I have come down to Melbourne to watch University Games and I will be detailing some of my thoughts on the games I see here on the blog.

For the first game there was a moderate up/down field wind, which dictated the play across all the fields. Zone was the choice of defence here. All teams were playing some variety of the four person cup, with two wings and a deep. The three games that I was keeping track off in the first time slot were ANU vs Deakin, USyd vs UWA and La Trobe vs Macquarie.

The ANU vs Deakin game was a tough struggle. ANU were still missing Rose Phelan from a concussion earnt yesterday, apparently inflicted by her teammate Ryan Ickert. Deakin had only nine squad members but were much more happy to take risky long shots that would gain yards even if they were not caught. This proved to be the major factor in them taking the lead at the start and middle game. The ANU have really sought out a possession focused strategy but in the wind and at a university level tournament, 5-15 passes which end in a turnover is not as good as 3-5 that land 40 yards further away. Some costly errors near the ANU's upwind endzone meant easy scores for Deakin and although ANU fought back towards the end of the game, Deakin staved them off to win by three. As expected James Kingsmill, Mica Hartley and Brett Massey were ANU's play makers in this game.

UWA vs USyd was also wing effected. UWA went up early in the game, taking some breaks off poor executions from the USyd team. USyd certainly rallied greatly and when I came back to check on the game they had shut UWA out of the game with the final result of 13-5 to USyd.

Macquarie versus La Troba was another tight game. Macquarie was in the lead from the beginning of the game and Neil Roxburgh was taking some great layout Ds. unfortunately Neil's time on the field came to an end when Ian Macdonald from La Troba hit Neil's knee after an upfield flick lifted up over a female La Troba player's outstretched arm and listed towards the middle of the field. Ian 'Macca' Macdonald and Neil made bids for the disc from opposite directions with Macca's mouth and Neil's knee being the points of contact Neil is likely to be out for sometime, possibly with an ACL injury. At that stage of the game Mac was two point up and after the loss of Neil, La Troba grappled back to evens. Point trading continued until time-cap. It was 12 all, scorer of the next point takes all. La Troba were pulling to Macquarie. Everyone was set for a huge point.....and then Macquarie worked it down the field in about five or six passes to score effectively unopposed. 13-12 to Mac.

The next time slot was largely uneventful for the fields I was near.

At lunch, the initial pools were broken up and split into two 'power' pools and one bottom pool. This meant that there would generally be less blow out 15 to not much matches and more tough games. ANU scored wins against RMIT and Griffith in the Bottom pool and I watched some of the results from the various power pool games that were running at the time.

Macquarie and Newcastle were duking it out to the northern end of my roaming range, USyd and La Trobe in the middle and UWA and Monash to the south. Mac seemed to take control of their game and maintained their lead until the end of the game. On the other hand, the other two games were much more interesting fights with the underdogs in both, UWA and La Troba, coming out to early leads. Both of these underdog teams had more athletic and bigger receivers and they generally pumped their long game hard, playing zone if it did not come off. Both teams took their respective halves 8-7 (La Trobe) and 8-5 (UWA). However USyd and Monash continued to fight to regain control of the game. USyd achieved this straight away, breaking down La Trobe's big huck plays and working the disc much more solidly. The turned this into a comfortable 15-12 end game score.

The UWA vs Monash game was a different story. UWA had the big hucks to the big boys but they also scored several times through their under-cutters and women in the second half. Their women were much more effective for them than Monash's or the comparative La Trobe girls and their building up of their lead in the second half demonstrated that. On the other side of the disc, Monash was struggling against UWA's zone and uncharacteristic errors from senior Monash players and some badly timed drops from a few of their girls kept the UWA kids on the offense. Time cap was nearing and UWA was up by three points, 13-10. Monash fires up and attempts a rally. They score for make it 13-11, within the two points they need to keep the game alive if time cap goes. UWA take a timeout, which burns up the last few seconds of regular time and its game to 14. Monash need to score three times to win and UWA only once. UWA receives the pull and scrambles hard to make ground. They manage to make two shots into the endzone, one wild and the other only faulted by the receiver tripping up as they tried to make the catch. After some more turn overs from both sides, Monash grins out a score. 13-12. Monash pulls again to UWA but this point lacks the tension of the last, with only a few turn overs before Monash plugs another goal. 13-13, double game point. UWA received the pull again, working the disc up and down the field. There are turnovers falling over themselves to be born unto the frisbee field as both teams struggle to search for the killing blow that will finish the game in their favour. A UWA huck goes wild into their attacking endzone, Josh Cukierman picks up the disc and plays from the endzone line but makes a simple dump error and overshoots Sebastian Barr, resulting in a turn right in front of the endzone. Surely this must be the death knell for Monash! But no! Instead of going for the kill and moving fast to set up the score, UWA lets Monash set up defence in good time AND on top of that sets up a horizontal in the endzone. Such a huge tactical error is only justly rewarded with a scrappy set of cuts and a desperate stall nine throw out the back of the endzone. Seemingly aware of the shame that they have brought upon their WA brethern, the UWA kids promptly wilt away while the Monash team revels in their second chance at not sucking and within five passes the game is over, with Andrew "Mozza" Moroney taking a gently floating disc in the endzone to end the game in Monash's favour. A great comeback from the Monash team. Moz was a solid achiever for the Monash kids with Twiggy and James Eley (playing on a ruptured ACL!!!!) being the heavy hitters for UWA.

In the last round I saw USyd vs Melbourne and UWA vs Newcastle play. It was about this time that after spending the first half of the day having people tell me I was a green and gold selector, I figured out after a chat with one of the captains that that was actually highly unlikely. I later confirmed this with others. I don't know if I was even put up for voting but as I was not here in Melbourne on Sunday when it all happened. Sigh, another bureaucratic flight of fancy. Melbourne and USyd slugged it out in a real upwind/downwind battle, trading till a USyd 8-7 half. Chris Friese then stopped cutting deep for Melbourne and that proved to be the death of their offence. Melbourne's less experienced cutters got on the end of several decent hucks but misread them all. Melbourne did not score again and USyd won 13-7. USyd have a very even team, with heavy firepower provided by the loose cannon of Pete Liddicoat. However Max Halden and Carlo Seeto have so far not set a foot wrong, consistently maintaining possessive of the disc, getting blocks and scores without error. Another notable loss to Melbourne was the niggling knee injury that took Michelle Phillips out of the game. She has now missed several games to the complaint and will only play a limited role in Melbourne's tournament. The other game saw Newcastle University roll a drained UWA.

So that basically wraps up my scattered recollections of the day. I really need a big hat, a bike and some paper to note things down if I am going to ensure more accuracy in my reporting, so I plan on doing those things tomorrow.