Headed up to London yesterday morning far too early... and the pitches were frozen. Could have had another hour in bed...
Thundering Herd sent 3 triallist teams with an attempt of equal splits across the three and captains attempting to evaluate talent to help with team selection. I was put on the second team of three which meant our first game was against Bear Cavalry, the team that last year completed the double-double (winning tour and nationals for the second year in a row) by winning every tour event.
Game 1: Herd 2 Lose to Bear Cav (6-2)
We took the first point by playing some pretty good vert stack offense. They then started to pull away. With games shortened the score didn't have time to get too run up, but the talent level on Bear Cav was a step above ours. On top of this, with the bear cavalry team essentially being an alumni team, they've all played together for years and years, whereas I had only met some of our players that morning.
Having said all that, we kept getting turns on defense, and employed some tactical defensive changes in order to stop their first look on offense. I got four blocks in one point against my receiver going deep, most of which I set up because I knew the handlers were looking for the shot and I knew I could take my guy in the air. Unfortunately, the bears were also pretty good on defense and kept turning us back, and eventually took the point on a huck when my guy was under. A good performance to start the day though.
Game 2: Herd 2 lose to Scarecrew (11-3)
This game was pretty shambolic. After such a good performance against the bears defensively, we were a little far from our men at times and scarecrew got lucky on a couple of throws that, had we been tight, would have been blocks. On offense, we carried on making the mistakes from the previous games that had kept us on the back foot. Based on the performance, scarecrew were worthy winners, but based on the individual matchups it should not have been that big a points gap.
This performance meant that we bottomed our group of three and went into a round robin with the other two teams that bottomed their group.
Game 3: Herd 2 win vs Shiny Happy Meeple (?-?)
This team was pretty talented on both the men and women front so it was pretty surprising to see them in the bottom bracket. It was a hard fought game and their short give and go strategy was pretty effective. Luckily we kept managing to put the points in and took the game, but it was still pretty tough.
Game 4: Herd 2 lose vs Herd 3 (7-6)
Everyone in this game knew that this was a chance to impress the selection committee. I started a bit iffy but got a shoulder height point saving layout catch block (possibly one of the best defensive plays I've made in a while) and another layout block when it had got to sudden death.
We started the game down and let them score deep too easily. But we kept grinding and after starting starting the game 3-1 down, took the half 6-5. The other team scored and made it sudden death in the shortened game. I streaked deep and there was a throw that was just a little too far for me. The other herd team got the disc moving and I got my second layout block. Unfortunately, we made another offensive mistake and allowed them to take the win.
It's hard playing days like this. It's obviously beneficial from a talent evaluation point of view, but it's tough to play with players who are quite obviously a step beneath me. I see no more than half of our team making the first team for herd.
This day also proved an interesting look at the possible outlook for the mixed season this year.
Notable observations include:
- The creation of Mappa Tassi (sp?) an allstar mixed team with players from clapham, fire and Ka-pow on the guys side and iceni and other great female players on the womens side. They could definitely challenge Bear Cavalry's recent dominance (I don't know whether they met at all during the day), but probably won't be going to Euros as their players probably will be prioritising their open and women's teams.
- Bristol looked strong early on and went undefeated in their group. Their women will be a strong asset coming off their first (I think) trip to Euros.
- Herd seem to be losing their Iceni contingent of women this year, which will be a disappointing and big loss for us as a club. We look to have other talented players coming through but this may be a huge blow with some going to Mappa Tassi and another going to Goats of Destiny (also looking strong this year).
I also played with Ultimate gloves from Lookfly this weekend. I've been looking for a good pair of gloves for ultimate since that one awful rainy, cold training with Kapow when I couldn't catch anything and couldn't dry my hands on my jersey because that was soaking as well. The conditions didn't necessitate gloves (no rain, wasn't too cold) but I decided to trial them in fair weather to get a feel for them before I trial them in bad weather. They were certainly sticky on catches, but I don't think there were any situations when they enabled me to make a catch that otherwise I wouldn't have made. They were fairly warm, but as I already mentioned it wasn't a truly cold day. The only other area I would mention is throwing. I don't think it hindered any of my throws at all. I threw away, but I think that may be a case of not throwing enough at the moment, which will hopefully get better once the trials and trainings start getting more frequent.
Overall, in fair weather, they didn't seem to make any noticeable difference (apart from the warmth) one way or the other. But, like I mentioned before, fair weather isn't what I bought them for so I will reserve final judgement until I've played with them in bad weather.
There were more people wearing ultimate specific gloves this weekend then I've seen before, and I can't help but feel that they may be due a sudden boost in popularity. I remember when I was a student and no-one would be seen dead wearing sports compression tights, and now they are a regular sight in rain and shine. It also helps when SkydMagazine are running very positive product reviews (lookfly, gaia and friction) on them.
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