Tuesday 20 August 2013

UKU Nationals 2013 Preview - Mixed

The mixed division features only 8 teams again, but with all teams except ABH and JR having top 10 Mixed tour finishes and with only 3 spots compared to the open division’s 6, the Mixed division could be a more competitive tournament than some attendees may have been hoping.
Round 1:
Games to watch:
Thundering Herd vs DED & Bear Cavalry vs Brighton Breezy: The herd played DED a couple of times over the Mixed Tour coming away with both wins and losses. Bear Cavalry are aiming to defend their national title on their journey to Worlds next year but had a disappointing tour after winning all Tour and national events in both 2011 and 2012. Brighton always find a way to play the Bears tough, but will be playing with a weaker team than the one that went to tour, due to the majority of the male players choosing the Open division. I’m going to predict these as the closest of the first round games (with the assumption that Black Eagles and Cambridge should earn easy wins over the bottom two seeds) and therefore the best ones to watch, but if I were a gambling man my money would be on DED over the Herd and Bears over Brighton.
Round 2: (going on assumption that all predictions above are correct)
Games to watch:
Cambridge vs Bears should be good but with them both guaranteed a 1 and 2 seed going into the knockout phase and easy looking quarters this may be a little lacklustre. DED vs Black Eagles should be the more entertaining game in the second round, with many of the Scots on Black Eagles getting back into the swing of competition after many were not competing in the Open and Women’s tours this season and DED looking to consolidate their (presumed) win over the Herd in the first round.
After Round 2 it’s straight knock out and my final finishing position predictions look like this:
1.       Bear Cavalry (Euro Q1)
2.       Black Eagles (Euro Q2)
3.       Cambridge (Euro Q3)
4.       DED
5.       Thundering Herd
6.       Brighton Breezy
7.       ABH
8.       JR

Though I wish all the best of luck to my Thundering Herd team mates and hope they prove me wrong.

3 comments:

  1. Cambridge third?!? They were one of a few teams to give WG and RGS a game...not sure I agree here :p

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    1. Hmm, looked again at rosters and Bear Cav are taking only 14 players. Makes things interesting, but I see them beating Cambridge in pre-quarters and then Cambridge not getting past Black Eagles in Semis.

      Could be wrong though. Should be interesting nonetheless.
      What would be your predictions? Or is that coming up on the Show Game?

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  2. I would put Cambridge top regardless ... better overall team and got some interesting pick ups! For full details the ShowGame preview should be up soon enough ;-) p.s. don't put Fire 2 down so fast either :P

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