Keeping busy...

Been cycling, played some indoors and been to Yoga a couple of times.

Excited about Tim Morrill Sessions this Saturday. This will influence my gym work going forward, and I'm hoping to learn a lot.

Furthermore, the Ka-Pow! AGM is coming up in November. Really excited about where this club is going forward!

Lastly... #RoadtoWorlds

xEUCF2013 and Season Wrapup

What a season!

And it’s now over…

We went to Bordeaux with an almost full strength squad, but had unfortunately lost one of our D Line captains (Jake) as he couldn't get time off work. I was moved from O line to D line after coming up with some big blocks in the EMO game at Nationals and was preparing myself mentally to try and make an impact. Unfortunately, I feel I may have been partially limited after not being able to keep up fitness due to my rib injury shortly before the tournament.

I felt I mostly played well though, I made some key blocks again (no layout Ds at this tournament though, and I was a little disappointed about this) and overall I felt my man defense was really strong, as I was usually put on a big matchup and I felt I was able to restrict them from getting the disc. I did miss playing offense though. I feel that whilst I can play defense well, and can make a difference on that side of the disc, my strengths play more to the offensive side of the game.

Ka-Pow! went into the tournament as the 6^th qualifying team out of 6 from the UK and started as 21^st seeds out of 24 teams in the open division. Opinions seemed to vary as to our chances, and this seemed to be down to it being a lot of our player’s first international club tournament (that we’ve had to qualify for), mine included.

I played GB Under 19s and Under 23s, but I was anticipating this tournament so much more than either of those. During my ultimate career, the biggest club tournament I’ve qualified for is UKUNationals, so I was eager to take the field on this big stage and show just what Ka-Pow! was all about and what I’d been working for since joining two years ago.

Game 1 vs Mooncatchers (Loss 15-10)

Our first game was against the Belgian National Champions. Our last game at Windmill Windup had been against the very same team and we’d come away with a close loss with a small squad. We came out and appeared to be playing nervously. Our O line, who had only really played up to their full potential at Nationals against EMO, continued to struggle. The D line were able to generate blocks but weren’t able to convert all the time. I put up a big huck after we had got a block, which was called back on a dubious foul call and Mooncatchers turned up the pressure and got the block back. We were never able to get that big play to provide a spark or pull back the difference that slowly increased throughout the game and unfortunately they took the game fairly comfortably. This was a really disappointing start to the tournament, but was only the first game. We tried to look forward to the rest of the tournament.

Game 2 vs Prague Devils (Loss 15-13)

The first game against Czech opposition of the tournament for us (of 4). This team were pretty big and comfortable making big plays. I don’t really remember much of this game. I do remember the heat, which seemed to affect our team quite badly, and that our defence couldn’t put consistent pressure on their offence. We forced a turnover on some good dump marking from me combined with good upfield marking from the rest of the line, and as the disc fell to the ground I streaked deep, the huck that went up was pretty bad and was batted away. It was pretty deflating as even when we got a block we couldn’t do anything with it.

So we finished day 1 with 2 losses in 2 games. Again, people were pretty disappointed but determined to turn it around come day 2.

Game 3 vs Tree Monkeys (Win 15-11)

We were told over breakfast on this day that we would be catching a shuttle bus to some satellite pitches for all our games on day 2 (organization issue number 1). We managed to catch the first bus and luckily had Will C and his campervan to ferry people over and it meant that we were set up at the pitches before our opponents. Whether this affected the game in our favour I don’t know, but we did play as though we were prepared and confident in our preparation. It felt good to get this game under our belt and finish with our first win. Players seemed to relax after this game and throughout the game you could see players getting comfortable in our systems. We were confident in our gameplan on both offence and defence and scored fairly easily, and converted breaks throughout the game.

Game 4 vs Lucky Grass (Loss 15-13)

We knew that our second game of the day would be against the Russian national champions. Like the games we had already played this team liked the long ball. Running with a squad of 15 (ish?) seemed like it would take it’s toll on Lucky Grass, but their fitness was tremendous and they really ground out this win against us by sticking to their strategy and playing tough defence. In the end we weren’t able to take the final steps in this game, and Lucky Grass finished as deserving winners.

Game 5 vs FUJ (Win 15-13)

We had heard that FUJ had beaten Lucky Grass earlier in the day and we could still grab ourselves a crossover on the next day if we nabbed a win over FUJ in our final game. Our O line held for most of the first half but gave up a couple of breaks, and our D line despite putting on plenty of pressure wasn’t able to generate a break early on, which lead to a first half which finished 8-5 (I think). However, the second half was a different performance. Early on, I managed to intercept a cross pitch hammer by poaching off my man, which lead to a fast break score and from then on our defence started winning us the game. We went up 13-11, but FUJ brought it back to 13-13 after our offence faltered. Our offence took the point to make it 14-13 and we won the game on defence! This was a huge game for us and was one of the best performances we put in at xeucf (especially the D line) and meant we started day 3 with a crossover which would take us to the middle 8 if we won.

Game 6 vs Tchac (Loss 15-11)

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to take advantage of the position we had earned on the previous day. Our offensive struggles continued and though the D line grabbed a couple of breaks, Tchac proved too clinical to allow us a comeback. This along with the game against Mooncatchers were probably the most disappointing performances of the weekend for us, as we felt not that the opponents were just better than us, but that we hadn’t given a proper representation of our abilities.

Game 7 vs KFUM Örebro (Win 14-12)

Despite coming from a disappointing game, we were still looking forward to the remainder of our tournament. We wanted to at least improve our seeding at Euros and with a win in this game we would guarantee to achieve this. The swedes were playing an interesting O strategy, employing a hybrid split/horizontal stack offence which provided a lot of space for their big players to play in, but relied quite a lot on these big players, with some of their cutters remaining largely unused. Their team were tall and very athletic, but our D line were able to generate some breaks to turn this game around after our offence gave up a couple of breaks. We ended up taking this game away towards the end and were all pleased to have guaranteed to improve on our seed. But we wanted to keep fighting and keep climbing the rankings.

This win set us up with a “Semi” against Devon. Both Devon and Ka-Pow! didn’t particularly want to have come to Euros to play against a British team, so Pichler and the Devon captain wandered around the site trying to get the other two teams in our bracket to switch. In the end Devon organised a match against FUJ and we set up a game against Uprising.

Then the lightning happened. The plan had been communicated amongst teams that if the impending lightning storm came too close to the pitches the call would be made across the tournament that all people on site should head to the velodrome until the storm had passed. The tournament directors managed to time the call perfectly, as the last few players walked through the door the rain was starting to go from light to heavy, and within minutes was torrential with forks of lightning lighting up the sky and thunder booming.

After the rain, thunder and lightning stopped, everyone headed back to their pitches and were given 15 minutes warm up time before clocks started.

Game 8 vs Uprising (Win 15-12)

This game would be our third matchup against Uprising in our two years as a club. Our first game came at Tom’s Tourney in 2012 where we won fairly comfortably and our second came at Windmill Windup this year where they avenged that loss by taking us down in sudden death. At Euros, we came out of the lightning delay much quicker than Uprising and were able to convert early breaks to take a 4-0 lead. Though Uprising came back, earning some breaks late on, we maintained control throughout this game to set up the 17v18 final with a rematch against FUJ.

Game 9 vs FUJ (15-13)

Pichler had said that we were allowed to let our hair down on the Saturday night. We had improved on our seed and the difference between 17^th and 18^th isn’t very much. Despite one of our injured sideliners getting pretty drunk, there seemed to be an unspoken agreement between most of the team that we wanted to finish Euros with a win and wanted to come out the next morning able to play a good game. FUJ enticed some of our players into a drinking circle, but FUJ were at the pitches earlier than us and looked ready for a game, with whispers going round that they were pumped to avenge the loss we had handed them earlier in the tournament. We circled up, said we were going to not call lines and just play loose and relaxed and this seemed to get us off to a strong start. We maintained a hold on the game throughout, and played with a smile and a song. It was pretty good to see we could still get a strong win when playing without strict lines and without two of our star players.

And that was the end of Euros and the end of the season.

It’s been such a pleasure to see the progression throughout the season of my team mates as individuals and of Ka-Pow! as a club. There have been good games and bad games, but we have come out with a great result. We came into this season with only 10 players returning from our first season (two of which dropped out half way through the season), but the new additions made big plays throughout the season and picked up our fairly complicated systems really well.
Discussions have already started surrounding where we can look to improve for next year. Despite not taking one of the spots to Worlds, enthusiasm is still high and we will be looking to get a spot to Euros for the second year in a row and improve on our finish from this year.

We will also be looking to push the envelope on what merchandise we can get our logo on and will look to retain the friendly but competitive attitude which lead us to winning spirit at Nationals and Europeans.

It’s been a hell of a year!

Ka-Pow!