Last year saw the first Mixed Nationals being held over the same weekend as Open and Women's Nationals at the perennial Southampton venue. The division saw great success with 8 teams attending and Bear Cavalry coming out champs and not really being pushed at any point (The Brown getting closest 10-15). We could attribute this to most players choosing their Open and Women's teams over Mixed for the opportunity to go to Euros in Frankfurt. A stat to note is that there were still 6 Women's teams competing last year.
Looking to this years tournament we yet again have 8 teams but with even more top end tour teams that will provide truly exciting Mixed games:
- Cambridge go in top seed after a great season pushing the World Games and RGS throughout, and poaching the likes of Rich Hims, Ben Bruin and Tasha Nishiyama.
- Black Eagles; with Fusion and Swift not challenging in the Open and Women's divisions this Scottish combo powerhouse will be a tough customer.
- Bear Cavalry; the reigning champs with Dave Tyler returning from national duties in Colombia you cannot ignore the strength throughout this team.
- Dog Eat Disc; closing up the top 4 comprising of Punt and Brighton women and DED Open men. Dog Eat Disc will push everyone they play, underestimate this year at your loss.
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| Bear Cavalry winning Nationals 2012: can they repeat? Photo courtesy of Andrew Moss. |
You can quickly note that this year we only have 6 Women's teams (see the Women's Preview for more details) entered and the recent Regional results for Open included many normal qualifiers not making it, alluding to the point that many have chosen Mixed over Open or Women's.
Should we have to make this choice? Should we have all three Nationals on one weekend? Do we have enough players to do this? With Euros having a mixed division from 2014 onwards will this increase growth and skill level in UK Mixed but hinder UK Women's teams?
I am of the opinion that we simply don't have the player numbers to cope with a 32 team Open, Mixed and Womens tournament. I also understand that there has to be a qualification for Euros (and Worlds). Possible solution: make it smaller, even up the number of teams and make it the elite event it's supposed to be.
What do you think? Please comment and discuss. The UKU (as well as us, clearly) are interested for your feedback and opinion, don't hold back we are all "owners" of the UKU and so your opinion matters! So please don't be scared, tell us what you think!
Regardless, this years Mixed Nationals will go off with a bang, follow all the action on the official score reporter via twitter and our Ultiapps version also! Hashtag: #ukunationals
Regardless, this years Mixed Nationals will go off with a bang, follow all the action on the official score reporter via twitter and our Ultiapps version also! Hashtag: #ukunationals
If there aren’t enough ‘elite’ players for a 32 team Nationals, that might not be a bad thing – it gives the next level of players (‘challengers’?) the chance to get more top-level experience, which will help them to become top players. Which means more, better players in the UK. Which everyone seems to want. And the finals will still be the very high-quality affair. Maybe the issue is that we have more places than we need at Euros (or at least at Euros when it has extra divisions) - although you could use the same argument as above, that giving players who aren’t of the caliber that usually play Euros the chance to play will give them the experience they need to get to that level…
ReplyDeleteJust a quick stat correction: there were 6 teams in the Women's division in 2012 as well as in 2013.
ReplyDeleteAlso - I don't quite understand what you are proposing in your possible solution of making it smaller. Do you mean make all three divisions smaller than they are this year?
Yes you're right, must have looked at the wrong year! Corrected.
DeleteFloating the idea of maybe having 12-8-6 or 8 teams in each division rather than 16-6-8, if our player base isn't large enough.