Day 4 and 5 of Unigames

Well its more than a bit late now but I thought I'd pump out some observations on the Quarters, Semis and Finals

The quarter match ups were Adelaide versus Newwie, Melbourne on Monash, Mac on Flinders and USyd vs the UWA kids.

Now, I was expecting USyd, Monash, Flinders and Newwie to win their various match ups

I started out camping between the USyd/UWA game and the Mac/Flinders game. The points were rolling along fairly slowly, so I had time to bike over to the other quarters and get regular score updates. The wind was still there in all these games but much less so than any other game than the final.

UWA came out hard against USyd and managed to score an upwinder early, taking the lead 3-2. USyd broke back straight away and continues to put on the pressure. The UWA kids had partied and played their guts out the whole week and weren't able to continue firing. With the reduced wind, USyd started to play a little bit of match (aka man) defence and this was UWAs achilles heel. They confessed to me on day two that they couldn't play man and it was pretty obvious too. USyd actually worked that out and it was over for UWA. As the game got away from UWA, I started drifting to other fields...

Flinders were steadily progressing against Mac. They wouldn't go on big runs but would score a few doubles from time to time. Flinders were a few points up when I went to check on the other quarters.

I arrived to find Adelaide thrashing Newwie, 6-0....I was stunned and Newwie scored the point that I was watching, so it wasn't immediately apparent how Adelaide were achieving this rout. I had heard on the grapevine that Adelaide was having some 'internal' problems that were holding them back from playing their best but with the score rapidly going to 8-1 I was convinced that whatever it was they had sorted it out! Newwie seemed unable to work the disc consistently against the Adelaide zone and they had lost heart. Adelaide were set for glory.

Monash and Melbourne was another interesting game. Once again, the favourites Monash were behind, slowly setting themselves up for another double game point victory. The reduced wind and the return of Michelle Phillips to the field meant that Melbourne had a lot more tactical options on the field aside from huck and D. The score didn't shift much from a couple of game point difference. I returned to Flinders vs Mac.

Flinders was up but Mac was still battling hard. Joel went high for a contest and came down hard on his ankle. He injury subbed soon after and Flinders game plan had to change on the fly with the loss of their biggest thrower. Joel had 'crunched' his ankle and wasn't sure what sort of injury/problem it was but couldn't run on it. What is a frisbee tournament without Joel getting injured! Mac surely gained an extra resolve knowing they had to one less aerial and throwing threat on Flinders. I watched to see what would happen next. Flinders scored and scored again. Mac answered with one of their own but Flinders weren't slowing down and plugged another one in. Alec Deslanders and Erin Wallis plugged the throwing hole left by Joel, including a great pinpoint hammer from Erin to score. Even with the dispute about the length of the game (80 as normal or 100 minutes because it was a 'final') Mac just could not match Flinders and scores very little in the last 20 minutes of the game.

Since the other games were nearing their finish, I wandered back to the double game point that Melbourne and Monash were destined to play. I arrived and sure enough it was something like Melbourne 9 and Monash 8, game to ten. Monash, of course, score to draw even and I get that hilarious sense of dejá vu. My memory of the point is a little sketchy but after one or two trades of the Melbourne settles on to the left side line and chip their way up the field. Owen is face marking Fresise, who makes a succession of jinky, tiny cuts to no effect. Despite this, the various throwers manage to pike it over to Fresise in a variety of nail bitingly risky ways and once Melbourne are in 15 metres of the endzone, Fresisy gambles on a cross field huck to the endzone.....and scores! Game to Melbourne! The team that everyone thought would be matching up against USyd in the final had failed at the critical moment. Had the wind been the same as in the other games, I would not have been surprised to see Monash go up once again but all Fresisy needed was one clear shot and it was done.

All the other games had finished at the 80 minute mark, so I watched Flinders without Joel pump Mac for the rest of their 100 minute game.

So we ended up with Flinders vs Melbourne and USyd versus Adelaide in the respective semis.

The semis weren't that exciting to watch. The magic that Adelaide had was gone and their red visor female handler had a terrible game from the parts I saw. USyd rolled them.

Melbourne vs Flinders was much more of a contest. It was a fairly even fight but a few things swayed the balance. Tarrant Meehan was injured and stopped playing. While he wasn't the play maker for the team, his solid handling and stability was sorely missed. The other important factor was Joel had some painkillers and actually felt ok to play half way into the game. While he wasn't quite up to full steam, his presence on the field was another mental blow to the Melbourne kids and despite their best efforts, Melbourne were closed out of the game towards the end.

And that was how USyd and Flinders got to the Final on day five of AUGs...

The final has also been covered by Owen Shepherd at thinkulti.blogspot.com/2008/10/2008-uni-games-part-2-stars.html
but I'll throw in my own thoughts as well.

By now everyone should know that Flinders beat USyd in a bit of a blowout. The game was exciting to watch not because it was a tight match filled with good ultimate but because it was an underdog team coming out and beating up the unbeaten favourites. With USyd being generally unable to match the top two men and women on the Flinders team, they struggled to make worth of the other match ups on the field that they could win. A largely sluggish Joel was fairly free to get the disc when he wanted and was able to contribute defensively in the Flinders 4 person cup/pommy. After Flinders went up 6-3 and continued to take half at 8-4, USyd had lost the mental game and couldn't focus back on the task at hand. The rug had been pulled from under them and instead of thinking about standing back up they were too busy wondering where the rug had gone... Save a couple of amazing plays from Flinders and their solid offence, the 2nd half was played out rapidly and the crowd was more exciting about heckling than watching. Flinders closed the game out 15-6, a true rout.

And then it was over

The last night party was a bit scattered. I am more and more convinced that Melbourne sucks for partying. This has not always been the case. I remember the awesomeness of the 2002 nationals party circuit but its gone kids. I suppose the goldcoast is going to have to pick up the slack next year. That said, the UWA kids, Moz and Seb managed to turn shit circumstances into a sweet night of smack talk and verbal ranga bashing. A memorable night, even if some of those memories are mental scars etched into the inside of my skull.

So thats it for another year. It was so much fun that I might just do it again....




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