Last year's Regionals Preview was one of my favourite pieces I did for my blog and my predictions were mostly accurate. With some interesting points to discuss, I'm excited to have another crack at it this year!
Scotland (1 Spot)
With the Glasgow/Fusion split meaning that the highest finishing Tour team from Scotland was 12th, with Fusion taking a massive tumble to 46th at Tour overall (only entering Tour 1 and finishing 33rd) after just missing out on the Euro spot last year (6th) and Black Eagles attempting to consolidate a strong Mixed season with a European berth, the Scottish Champions may not be a big part of the Open division at Nationals this year. Glasgow would appear to be the tip to take it, but it could all depend on how many and which players choose Mixed over open in the end. Prediction: 1st: Glasgow.
North (2 bids)
There have been grumblings about the low number of bids allocated to the North this year and it's easy to see why. The North received 3 bids last year, but weren't able to make as much impact as they would have hoped with Chevron finishing 3rd (dropping one seed) and with Man Up! finishing 11th and Vision finishing last. This year, Chevron finished 2nd, Manchester finished 11th and Leeds finished 13th which is a more successful Tour season for the North than last year (Chevron 2nd, Leeds 14th) and yet they have one less bid. Last year, Chevron took the north easily, with Man Up! making a late season push on the back of a contingent of Leeds players switching sides (which is part of the reason Manchester have been as strong as they are this year) and the 3rd and remaining spot going to Vision (over The Brown who chose to enter Mixed, and Leeds). This year, the top spot shouldn't be a shock with Chevron favourites to once again take the region. We should expect to see Manchester and Leeds to be duking it out for the final spot. If the tour is anything to go by this should be a fierce matchup with Manchester looking to have the advantage, over the other Northern teams with National registrations completed: Vision and Black Sheep.
Midlands (3 spots)
EMO should be strong favourites to take the region after a very strong Tour season. The Midlands' tour season overall was weaker than last year though, with both BAF and Cambridge just holding onto the top 16 despite EMOs improvements. The interesting developments this year are Cambridge hedging their bets by entering Mixed (with the kicker being that Punt are not entered at all) and BAF entering a Masters division team which appears to give a 1 in 3 chance of a European spot. This leaves room for up and coming team Birmingham and EMO's second team to challenge for the remaining spots which look fairly open. Dependent on the quality of the Open teams being sent by Cambridge and BAF I see the region looking like this come the end of play. 1st: EMO, 2nd: Birmingham/Cambridge 3rd: Birmingham/Cambridge/EMO 2/BAF. If I had to guess it would be 1st: EMO, 2nd: Birmingham, 3rd: EMO 2.
South West and Wales (2 Spots)
This region has already been previewed by The Show Game. With the writer having knowledge of the South West regional entries, there is no chance for confusion. Devon are the only entered club with 3 teams in attendance. It will be little more than a training session and will leave the South West represented at Nationals by Devon 1 and 2. Whilst this could be good for Devon, all predictions would be towards Devon 2 finishing dead last at Nationals 2013 and the South West only receiving a single bid to 2014's Nationals. This could further weaken what is already one of the weaker and less populated regions. That's not to say Devon 1 won't or can't make noise at Nationals 2013 (they can definitely do that figuratively and literally), but it could lead to further exoduses from the region to the more established clubs in the future. Devon is also the only entered team from this region in the Mixed division so it's not like Cardiff Storm (Tour 2013: 32nd, Nationals 2012: 14th) and Bristol Open (Tour 2013: 28th) are focussing on Mixed. A very disappointing showing and there should definitely be a concise effort to expand Ultimate in the South West in the coming years.
South East (3 spots)
After DED open had a fantastic first tour season in 2012 (4th Overall) and winning the South East region, they were blown out of the water at Nationals by a greatly strengthened Brighton team who went on to qualify for Europeans. Brighton went on to have the stronger 2013 Open tour season (4th overall) and DED appear to have decided to concentrated on Mixed after a strong Mixed tour. As earlier mentioned, Punt have not entered the women's division and with their women playing for either DED or Cambridge mixed, and with both of these teams having strong Mixed seasons, this could be where the Oxford (or Thame) vs Cambridge rivalry plays out this season.
DED have still registered in the Open division, so they could be attempting to split their squads between the 2 divisions, but that would be difficult for the club. With Wessex dispanding after just one season, the number 2 and 3 spots open up to Reading, Brighton Echo (2) and Release. With Brighton also entering 2 teams into the Mixed division, their second team may be weakened enough that Release could challenge for the 3rd spot (assuming 1st: Brighton City (1) and 2nd: Reading). Knowing the players coming to Release for Regionals, and with them having home field advantage I can see them with a shot at sneaking the 3rd bid away from Brighton Echo, with the players from Echo focussing on Mixed where, at xEUCF2009 Brighton won the European Mixed division. Predictions: 1st: Brighton City, 2nd: Reading, 3rd: Release.
London (5 spots)
London should be the region most hotly contested at the top. Though Clapham are once again the established front runners, Ka-Pow! go in ahead of Fire 1 as 2nd seed and Fire 2 have to like their chances to secure a bid with victories over Ka-Pow! and higher finishing positions than their first team at Tours 2 and 3. The fifth bid should also be hotly contested between Flump who had a fairly strong year especially considering their start in the C-Tour, Burro who finished strong after a small down year and Tooting who will be eager to regain their form after a disappointing Tour year. The exciting action in this region should be for the podium positions and in particular the semi final with (what seems likely to be) the matchup between Ka-Pow! and Fire 1. I really don't know how this game will shake out assuming everything goes to seed, but both teams will be fired up to make the final and have a shot at Clapham and a higher seed going into Nationals. An interesting note here is that Clapham and Fire will be affected by players returning from World Games duty on what will be a downer (Justin, Gash and Mum for Clapham and Parslow for Fire).
My prediction after the top 3 would be: 4th: Fire 2, 5th: Burro.
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