From mrao.cam.ac.uk!majordom Tue Jun 23 15:03:21 1998 From: Graham C Fletcher To: frisbee@mrao.cam.ac.uk Subject: Southampton report. Hi all, Because of a novel tournament format in Southampton our first game was a crucial knockout game with us as seeds 17 playing the second Skunks team at 28th seed. If we had lost this we would have taken their 28th seed and would have been limited to coming 21st max. The situation was a little worrying ppartly because Skunks were the tournament hosts and their second team was reasonably solid and also because we only had 5 players - Pete, John, Ken, myself and Dora. We went on with five and threw an improvised 5 person zone which, mainly because they didn't use the huck option, proved very effective. We took a 6-2 lead but were slowly dying before reinforcements showed up - Tim Lloyd who had brought with him Tim Andrews and Kevin, who was injured but didn't mind going on and bluffing in zone d. Eventually we took it 15-6. This put us in a 3 team pool with Skunks 1st team and the women for 17,19 and 21 place and we needed to come first or second to end up in the 13-20 knockout. We went on immediately after the first game to play Skunks 1, though luckily by this time David and Ginny had arrived. We played very well doing a mixture of man d and zone d (zone d so our injuries didn't have to do man d) and somehow had a 12-10 lead at the time our extra reserves (Steve, Paul, Richard and Jabba) showed up. Despite injury Dora took two points, one whilst being marked by Squaddie, one when against Suzanne. With the extra players we held the lead and took the game. The last game of the day (they were 75 minutes each!) was against the women. I forget whether it was Twin Peaks or Bliss or a GB squad. Started close but we played respectable d and solid offense and won 15-7ish. Went for a good meal in a little seafood pub on the coast and then back for the last hour and a half of the party. Woke up on Sunday morning and it was unusual for me anyway to play that first game without a hangover. We lost to Village people who flawlessly converted every mistake we made into a point. This put us into the 17-20 slot and our next game was against the Jedi Children, from Leeds. They were a team of ten fit looking, young guys and I didn't think we stood too much hope but it turned out they weren't overly fit and our experience won through in the end (I like to think). We also started noting down some stats, subject to each players permission, for this game (completed throws, catches, crap d, good d, hammers, throw aways) and I think it helped us focus and raised our game a lot. The last game of the day was against Mild Mannered Janitors. Luckily for us they had a fairly small side and no Rick Shipley. The game started evenly but we built up a 10-6 lead before they started their comeback (and we lost David) and closed it to 12-10. Tom Hallem, Gump and Arran on their side playing very well and getting some decisive d and steady o. We held the lead though and won something like 15-13. MMD got our spirit vote in the end. We had gorgeous weather all weekend. Thanks to our pickups - Tim Lloyd, Tim Andrews and Pete who we would have been lost without. We did have one serious injury when Ginny went over on her ankle which put her out all weekend. Well played John and David and nice one again Paul and Steve who did most of the hard d all weekend. My favourite moments - Dora's points, beating skunks II with 5 players, Friday night party, my hammer to John, the game vs Skunks 1, Jabba's surprise pull, Richard's car arriving, and the times when we got bodyform offense working well. The next tournament is Exeter on the 11/12 of July. I'll start asking who is interested on Sunday but feel free to email me now. Later, Graham. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Graham Fletcher. Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, Tennis Court Road, Cambridge. CB2 1QW. gcf@mole.bio.cam.ac.uk