Saturday kapow training and DED warmup tournament

Good turnout for Saturday training with spirits high for some sun and generally favourable conditions for ultimate. Another really high intensity session lead to good drills and high quality games. Or focuses were on defensive drills teaching dump and up field cutter making, with a secondary focus on decisive offensive cutting. We also worked on one of our zone defenses which we would use to great effect on the Sunday at the DED warmup tournament.
We finished with a high quality game before heading out that evening to eat some authentic fire baked pizzas.
On Sunday we headed to st Albans. The atmosphere was quietly optimistic as, though we were missing some of our big names, the players there knew they'd put in the work and were confident in the systems we'd been installing.

Game 1: Kapow win vs tooting tigers (13-3):

This game was a good way to get our eyes in. Both teams had been warming up with the immediate aim of adjusting to the gale that was blowing. Kapow started the game off converting an upwind break and didn't look back from there. We had a much larger team, tooting only had 9 players for the game and were introducing more new players than they had returning players from last year. I also think the amount of time we've had as a roster playing on the high quality 3g pitches has benefited us no end. We comfortably took the game by employing the defensive principles we had practiced the day before, but we know Tigers will be stronger when they have the core if their team back.

Game 2: Kapow win vs Burro Electrico (15-4)

Another London rival game against a team trying to build themselves, with offensive systems that seem well installed (mostly) and new players. Much like Tooting, this game was won by us probably due to all the time we have already been training. We continued to build on the defensive systems we had practiced the day before and, much like Tooting, Burro tried to break our marks with frequency.

Game 3: Kapow win vs DED (12-7)

DED were probably our biggest rivals from last season as we played them the most and split our games last season. We knew they would also probably be the toughest game of the day as they look to build on their strong Tour season last year with the aim to be able to capitalise at Nationals. We held to the defensive systems we had been running all day and practicing the day before and tried to be calm going up wind whilst allowing them to take punts going downwind, on which we generated a lot more turns than we allowed completions. We started to pull away and took the half with a considerable lead. After that DED played it more conservative with less huck and D but couldn't close the gap Kapow had opened and we finished the game with a comfortable win.

Game 4: Kapow win vs Cambridge CUlt (9-3)

We shortened this game as previous games had overrun, but Kapow wanted to finish strong and we converted our first point and then got a break and continued to run out our lead. Taking half at 5-1 (I think) allowed us to take stock but keep momentum in the shortened game and we continued to score on O and get turns on D. Cambridge had some strong players and didn't look sharp, but will definitely be better going into the season.

All in all a great start for Kapow, with this being the second year that we attend the DED warmup and the second year that we remain undefeated and win the trophy.