UKU Nationals 2013 Preview - Open

The Open division at Nationals looks set to be competitive at the top and bottom, but perhaps not between the top and bottom 8 teams. With players and clubs switching to the Mixed division (and in some cases Masters) the Open division contains a lot of teams who can challenge for qualification to Euros, mixed with some teams that started the year in C-Tour (the third tier of competition in the UKU structure). Whilst this means the first round could feature a few blowout wins by the higher seeds, it also means any team wanting to compete in Semis and avoid the back door bracket to Europeans better not start off round 2 slowly.

Round 1:

Game to watch: In what should be the closest game in the first round Manchester find themselves starting as the number 2 seed after a sudden death Northern regional final win over Chevron, and Fire 2 find themselves as 15^th seed after winning the game to go in the London Region over Burro. Considering the Tour finishing positions (Fire 2: 8^th and Manchester: 11^th) this should be the closest and most entertaining of the first round matchups.

Ka-Pow!: We start against EMO 2. We should be using this game to get warmed up for Round 2 and get all our systems going early. We can also use this to get our fundamentals (throwing, catching, man defence) working early. EMO 2 had an average tour finish of 22^nd, but could have picked up other players who played for other Midlands Open teams (particularly the Non-Masters contingent of BAF), so whilst it won’t be an easy game we should be looking for a comfortable win.

Round 1 predictions: Clapham over Devon 2, Devon 1 over Reading, Ka-Pow! over EMO 2, Brighton City over Birmingham, EMO1 over Release, Fire 1 over Glasgow, Chevron over Flump, Manchester over Fire 2

Round 2: (going on assumption that all predictions above are correct).

Top 8: All the games in the top bracket should be worth watching so I’ll give a little preview here.

The Northern Regional Final rematch between Chevron and Manchester should prove very interesting because it will be the first regional rematch at Nationals and, whilst Manchester took the region, Chevron were reported to have only sent half a squad (the half that actually lives in the North). Regardless, Manchester will be pumped to prove it wasn’t a one off and Chevron will be out for some revenge (it’s the first time they haven’t won their Region since regionals were introduced).

Clapham vs Devon should prove interesting because if there’s anything Devon loves it’s an upset in a game against a physically challenging opponent that they can get fired up against. Clapham have just flown back from the East Coast of the USA where they attended the Chesapeake Open Invite tournament. They had a fantastic set of results, beating Ring of Fire (who finished tied 3rd at USAU Nationals last year), Chain Lightning (who finished tied 7th at USAU Nationals last year) and a close game against Ironside (tied 3rd with Ring of Fire at USAU Nationals last year). Whilst they will be riding high on such a great international showing in the states, it remains to be seen whether fatigue of so much travel by Clapham (including some of their players who also flew out/back to Colombia for World Games or Toronto for Under 23s not long ago) could play a part in Clapham's performances later in the tournament. Regardless of this, they should feel comfortable about making Semis by beating Devon 1 and 2 in their first two games.

EMO 1 vs Fire 1: Fire 1 will be very disappointed after such a down season. Considering they made the Nationals Final last year they must have been hoping for a better Tour. They are a better team than they showed throughout the year and will be hoping to bring it all together at Nationals. EMO1 on the other hand, have been the big story of the year so far. After qualifying for Euros for the first (???) time last year they built in the offseason with strong leadership from their GB stars Colonel and Rich Gale. The pairing of some of the best game managing, level headed players in the UK with a wealth of young talent coming up through strong university clubs has brought EMO a fantastic Tour season and a comfortable Regional title. Both teams will be looking to make Semis and avoid the backdoor route to Euros. However, looking at EMO 1’s roster Colonel appears to not be playing, which could play a part in this game.

Brighton City vs Ka-Pow!: We have faced off against Brighton only twice as Ka-Pow! in our two years as a club, at Tour 3 2012 and Tour 3 2013 and both times we ground out tough wins in our undefeated campaigns. At nationals last year though, Brighton brought the best squad they had been able to put together all year and absolutely dominated DED in the second round after they had lost to them in the South East regional final, going on to qualify for Euros. Last year, Ka-Pow! weren’t able to put together a good weekend at Nationals after an undefeated Tour 3 and ended up 9^th. This game will be tough and, like EMO vs Fire, should be a game both teams will go into thinking that they have what it takes to make Semis and wanting to avoid the back door to Euros.

Bottom 8: Game to Watch

Again, assuming all games in Round 1 go to my predictions, I see the game to watch in Round 2 being the London Regional rematch between Flump and Fire 2. After another strong season, Fire 2 found themselves in the game to go to nationals after losing to Flump, a team who hadn’t played in the A-Tour, in their 3-6 bracket Semi final. They will be pumped for revenge and should have come off a closer matchup against Manchester than Flump will have had against Chevron. Both teams will probably still have eyes on either 5^th or 6^th and their associated European Qualification spots and would love to play spoiler to the other team’s tournament.

I will not be doing any predictions this year for the Open division.