UKU Tour 2 Review

David Pryce, Edward Parker, Christopher Bell and Fiona Kwan bring the UKU Tour 2 review from all four divisions.

Full results and spirit here.

A Tour: Clapham O take the title after some tight pool games for both lines.

Clapham D vs Chevron Action Flash but unable to play a whole game against the champions. Photo courtesy of Andrew Moss.

As mentioned above, although Clapham came in as obvious favourites to take another Tour title, Fire of London and Brighton City did not get the memo. Both teams took Clapham’s O and D lines, respectively, to sudden death but after that shock CU did not look back. It was again an O vs D final with O making it one all for this season. Sadly, on the way to victory the O line lost a player to a broken arm; we wish JJ all the best, get well soon! Clapham are currently making their way to Minnesota for this weekend’s US Open (watch their pool game on NGN) where they are hoping to take a few scalps after a promising Chesapeake tournament last year.

London Calling - Open Preview

The club season is upon us! James Burbidge takes a look at the competition heading to the open division this weekend.

Returning to St Albans, Tour 1, this year's London Calling sees over 70 teams entered into the open division with 10 coming from overseas.

At the top of the pack, four teams will hope to prove themselves the best of the best in Europe: Clapham, Chevron Action Flash, Bad Skid and Flying Angels Bern. London Calling will doubtless provide top competition for these teams as they prepare for the big one: the World Club Championships in August.

Reigning National and European champions Clapham have split their team into two like last year (an O-line and a D-line), and are using the competition as the final part of a long and heated selection process. Captain Marc 'Britney' Guilbert returns to lead a club firmly focused on a peak in Lecco and will be hoping that his teams can meet in the final this year, rather than the semi. With no major player movement out, and more top recruits coming in – notably Ollie Gordon from Chevron, Matt Parslow and James Baron from Fire – they may find that the toughest competition is also the most familiar.

Photo courtesy of Graham Bailey.

Herd Mauled by Bears in Sunny Cardiff - Mixed Tour 1 Report

Matt Dathan reports on Mixed Tour 1 in sun-soaked Cardiff

Bear Cavalry took Thundering Herd to the slaughter to draw first blood in this season’s mixed tour. 

On yet another sunny day on the fields of Cardiff, Herd went into the final still milking their fine 13-10 semi-final victory over Bristol, but their performance was less than legendairy. It all looked to be going well for the Londoners in the first half as they kept up with the Bears, trailing by just one point at half.

Theo Tizard (Bear Cavalry) gets high over the Herd.

Former Bears handler Cian Ó Móráin was a constant thorn in their side and was opening up too many breaks for their liking. But tactics maestro Dave Tyler put his thinking hat on at half time and pulled out a masterstroke to contain the Irish playmaker, stifling his leftie throws.

UKU Mixed Tour 1 Preview

Matthew "Smatt" Hodgson starts his tSG career off with a quick preview of #ukumt1.

With teams attempting to prepare for the World Club Championships this year, the Tour will feel simultaneously significant and insignificant. Whilst results won’t “matter”, the worlds teams will want to prepare as best they can and notch some wins against the other teams going, and the teams not going to worlds will be eager to cause some upsets. (Note: as far as I’ve seen, the qualification method for EUCF in Frankfurt hasn’t been announced).

Below is an analysis of the top 10 seeded teams for UKU Mixed Tour 1 this weekend in Cardiff. 

Teams going to WUCC

Bear Cavalry: The focus for Bears is worlds. They have retained almost the entire squad from the European Championship winning team, brought in D line contributors, and comfortably handled business at Winter League (not conceding more than 5 points in a game). The Bears are out to win the tour and continue their legacy as a mixed powerhouse on their route to WUCC.

Cambridge: have taken the interesting decision to split their worlds team between O and D lines for Mixed tour 1 (and possibly beyond?). Whilst this will undoubtedly provide plenty of exposure to the highest level of mixed ultimate across the roster, and get more game time and grow connections along the two lines, I see them losing some games on the decision as well. Having said that, with this long to go before WUCC, losses likely won’t provide as much of a sting if the progression is there.

South East Uni Open Indoor Regionals

Uni Ultimate coverage continues with Joe Spreckley (South-East Uni Coordinator) giving us the overview from his region.

This weekend sees 36 teams head to Dagenham to compete for the 6 spots available for nationals from the south east. 

South East with great depth (36 teams, including 14 first teams and a 4th team) over the smallest area.

Group A puts top seeds Sussex Mohawks 1 up against LSE 1, UCL1 and Portsmouth Sublime 2. Despite losing a number of key players, it’s hard to see any team except Mohawks topping the group for a direct path into the semis and another South East title. UCL (who were a victim of seedings last year) and LSE will battle it out to avoid the crossovers. Sublime 2 will be looking to create some upsets, but should find themselves bottom of the group heading into the crossovers. 

UKU Mixed Nationals 2013 - Review

David Pryce reviews the Mixed division at UKU Nationals.

Last weekend saw eight UK Mixed teams competing at Southampton's Wide Lane Sports Ground for the title at UKU Nationals, a spot at WUCC 2014 and a place in the top 3 to go to xEUCF 2013 in Bordeaux.

In the first round all games went as expected, although JR came close to upsetting Black Eagles the Scots pushed for the win in sudden death. The second round saw two early big match ups in DED vs Black Eagles and Bear Cavalry vs Cambridge. Going with tour seedings Black Eagles dispatched DED 15-10 but the return of David Tyler and too many mistakes from Cambridge gave Bear Cavalry an easy win 15-6.

These two rounds acted as seedings for the QF's on Saturday afternoon which all went to tour seeding and put Cambridge vs Black Eagles in one semi and DED vs Bear Cavalry in the other. Semi final 1 was the closest but Cambridge utilised their clinical offence and took full advantage of Black Eagles turns in the wind and rain of Sunday morning, game ended 15-10 Cambridge. The other semi was a very one sided affair; Bear Cavalry winning 15-2. 

DED snatch 3rd and a place at xEUCF. Photo courtesy of Andrew Moss.

UKU Mixed Nationals 2013

David Pryce previews this years UKU Mixed Nationals and qualifier for xEUCF 2013 in Bordeaux.

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

UKU Regionals Preview - South East

Brighton Echo player Miles Tincknell finishes of the regionals previews with a hotly contested South East, who have 3 bids and will compete on Sunday.

With only three places up for grabs the SE region will be experiencing a heated game to go while the top two battle for the prestige of taking the region.

DED (Dog Eat Disc) were last years years victors of the region after finishing a comfortable 4th at Tour in 2012, however a stronger and more fleshed out squad from Brighton brought it back hard at Nationals, beating them comfortably 15-5 while DED where were lacking some key players. This year they have slipped 6 places in the tour rankings down to 10th place, but will still be fighting for that vital qualification if they are again to establish themselves as the biggest contenders in the regionals tournament. With them placing in a mixed squad into the region, it is clear that DED's focus is not just on the Open side of things. It will be interesting to see how they split their guys between the two teams, trying to find a balance can be difficult. DED will be looking to get comfortable with the mixed team but should be doing so without cutting too much depth from the DED open squad. If this team is to continue it's growth, it's important that it tries hard to find this balance and not sacrifice the few spots that are on offer, which will be highly contested from Reading and Brighton Echo.

DED at T2, but which men will go play mixed from this bunch? Photo courtesy of Andrew Moss.