A Tough Pill to Swallow

Mark Earley kicks off our T1 review week with how the Irish lads did at London's Calling.

Three Irish teams travelled to London for UKU Tour 1 at the start of June and all three returned to Ireland licking their wounds and eagerly counting the days until their next outing. Tour is a tough animal – you show a weakness and you get savaged. No team gives you anything and the higher you go up the ladder, the stiffer the competition gets. Irish teams know this and it appeals to their stubborn, physical and hard-working approach to the sport. Indeed, much of what Irish Ultimate has achieved over the past decade has been built on foundations picked up over freezing cold weekends in Mansfield, sun drenched days in Cardiff and at windblown Brit Opens. So, why the poor results this time around? Well before trying to answer that let’s look at how the three teams fared.

Ireland U-23 Open went into B Tour expected to challenge for the title and with the added bonus of a run out against their British counterparts in a show game. Saturday went to plan, with no team able to run with them and they coasted into the quarters not having conceded more than 6 points in any one the game. The show game saw the highly fancied GB team rattled until half, which they took by 1 point, and after which they powered on to win the game 15-9. Ireland fought hard and showed athleticism, a decent work ethic and a sense of team that will stand to them in Toronto. However, on Sunday morning it all came apart in spectacular fashion. Complacency set in and LeedsLeedsLeeds took full advantage, racing to a 4-0 lead and not looking back. Ireland went on to win their final two games, both by a single point.

Highlights of the show game between Ireland U-23 & GB U-23

Lorcan Murray, one of the team’s captains, explained that they had got a lot from what he called ‘a disappointing but necessary lesson in what it takes to succeed in Toronto’. Murray went on to say that collectively they ‘realised the potential of our squad and what it felt like when we played to the best of our potential. More importantly we realised the difference between confidence (Saturday morning) and complacency (Sunday morning)’. Furthermore he said team chemistry was improving, something that will have a big part to play come July – ‘Coming away from our first tournament as a full squad there was a collective awareness of the personality of our team. Positivity is the fuel that fires us. When we're leading we're happy, joking and boisterous when we take big deficits we turned on each other and fell into the trap of our own frustrations’. The Irish youngsters will be back for Tour 2 where Murray says their goals are straightforward – ‘to go undefeated and get a shot at some Tour A standard opposition, but more vitally than that is our aim to maintain the attitude and approach we take when we are winning’.

Some of the U-23s pose with the St Albans Mayor

Ranelagh went into the weekend confident of returning to the top 8 where they made their presence felt last season, finishing an Irish-team-high of 5^th place. However, it just never quite clicked for the Dublin-based team. An opening day defeat to Chevvy was as heavy as it was hard to take. Unforced errors were punished by a smooth and confident Chevron O and suddenly the score was 5-0. Ranelagh regrouped but cough up that big a lead to any top 8 team and you won't be let back in. Next up were Brighton, a team Ranelagh beat for the first time in 2012. This time the Dubliners controlled the game from the start but come 12-9 and with the cap set at 13, two huge Brighton Ds and two uncharacteristic errors saw them snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. A third flat display rounded out the day as Fire 1 ran Ranelagh ragged on the way to a 15-5 win. Vice-captain Sam Mehigan said of their day one opponents – ‘the standard in the top 8 was very high. Chevvy and Fire thoroughly outperformed us. They had strong defences and Chevvy especially had a very clinical offence’.

Peter Forde of Ranelagh holsters the throw to Sam Mehigan

Day two was a welcome improvement for a Ranelagh team missing a couple of players, but once again it began on the wrong foot with a sudden death loss to a wily Bear Cavalry team, lead by a virtuoso performance by Dave Tyler - capped off with a point block and layout grab in the final point. DED bore the brunt of Ranelagh’s frustrations and were beaten 15-6, a result Mehigan was pleased with. ‘DED beat us a few times last season in games we still carry with us but after four straight losses on the weekend, they got the wrong end of our frustration and we beat them by a large margin’. That left an all-Irish battle for 13^th place. Mehigan explained how the win went for his team – ‘The last game of the weekend was the 1st ever meeting of Ranelagh and Rebel on foreign shores. The first half saw lots of trading with each team having a few small runs and thus the lead changed hands a few times. The second half saw a Ranelagh run that got us a margin which we managed to hold onto to win by 6’.

Looking back on the weekend the team will be disappointed having been beaten badly by two top teams and losing closely to teams they would prefer to be beating. According to Mehigan they will be back with renewed focus come Tour 2 – ‘We didn't do as well as we feel we could have, so it was a bit disappointing. After just two days for the dust to settle it's too soon to have identified our goals, but for sure we'll be looking to get our performance consistently to the level we showed in patches at Tour 1’.

Rebel Ultimate and Irish Mixed Beach team player Darragh Kelleher goes up

Rebel will arguably be the least concerned with their results this being their debut in the A Tour and only the start of their season. The Cork outfit are consistently raising the bar for others in Ireland, thrive on new challenges and have many of the UCC Ultimate team on their roster so it came as little surprise to see them competing in the top bracket of UK Ultimate. They approached the tournament looking to make 9^th place their own but, much like Ranelagh, shipped a couple of heavy losses that disrupted their plans. With a somewhat depleted roster due to the Irish U-23s team presence, a certain team member sleeping in and a couple of late injuries the Corkonians struggled with numbers.

On Saturday the team in red made light work of both Devon 1 and Tooting Tigers but lost heavily to Bear Cavalry and as a result faced a tricky crossover against Brighton on Sunday morning. The southern English team beat the southern Irish team by a big margin meaning Fire 2 were their next opponents. Rebel regrouped and got involved in a dogfight with the London team. After a few tight calls and a turn by each team the sudden death point finished in Rebels favour and the ‘Irish Classico’, as detailed earlier, was on. A tight first half ended with an injury to leader Brian O'Callaghan and Ranelagh never looked back.

Rebel & Ranelagh team photo - a rarity! 

Speaking to Donal Murray, one of the team’s leadership, he was pleased with the weekend as a whole, specifically as a way of bedding in new players – ‘The weekend was all that we could have hoped for: a smoothly run tournament, beautiful weather, and tough long games against teams we knew well, not so well, or not at all. Some of our players got some knocks or had a few niggles, but nobody got badly injured during the tournament. As well as our regulars, some players were making their Rebel debut, some their Rebel comeback, while others just finished exams. We didn’t have strategies and systems drilled in, but we had a few talks before and during the weekend on team goals, individual goals, and the attitude we expected.  We were quite happy with how our teammates improved with these over the weekend’.

He added that there was work to do – ‘Our goal of 9th didn’t quite materialise, but a mixture of results ensured a thorough investigation of where we’re currently at as an open team and as a club’. Murray was impressed with the standard of the Tour – ‘Every team we played had some fantastic athleticism, great throws and clear systems. Some had lines, some had their own rotation system, some had clearly defined plays and defences while others had looser styles. It was great to play against some players who have become household names, to still see women compete in the open division at A tour, to see a very high standard of spirit with this year’s new rules, and to finally get a crack of A tour teams’. While Rebel wont be back for Tour 2 as it’s too close to their annual trip to Amsterdam for Windmill Windup, they hope to make Tour 3; 'Our goal is the same as always, finish as high as possible and improve as individuals and as a team.  One or two more specific goals will be specified to the players in trainings and in the run up to the tournament’.

There’s no doubting the talent pool in Ireland, nor the enthusiasm but Tour 1 will surely have blunted some of the Irish confidence. In terms of the reasons, they are many - from injuries to complacency - but as each captain/leader has made clear, the teams will come back with renewed determination looking to get back on the horse, so to speak! It will be very interesting to see how the rest of the Tour pans out. 

Photos courtesy of Niall McCarney, Cynthia Lo & Andrew Moss
Video courtesy of Felix Shardlow at Push Pass Productions

Look forward to seeing Irish teams at T2 and hearing more from Mark! Like, share and more in the right hand pane, more T1 reviews coming up. DP @ tSG. 

The Grapevine - 07/06

This weeks The Grapevine features a lot of home grown works along with some nice additions from the continent and further! 

Chrissy Birtwistle has written a piece for Forbes about "What defines you?", she talks about what normal people might perceive of Ultimate and it's players and how being different is a good thing. 

UTalkRaw talk to BULA president Patrick van der Valk in episode 22 

Matthew "Smatt" Hodgson, has written an opinion piece on Ultiworld giving us the key to Ultimate in the olympics.

Summer is here (finally) and what better place to go for you holidays than Croatia where an awesome looking tournament is being set up! See here for more details. 

ECBU has got it's spirit director in Belgian Fery Vluff.

Understanding Ultimate have had a busy week but Benji's last post was on how life just isn't fair? 

SkyD start their ECBU 2013 coverage with the hosts Spain. Read up here.

Ultimate Interview talk to Tim Morrill on his high performance workout for Ultimate for a second time.

Finally, you may have noticed we have not run T1 reviews yet. This is due to us wanting to do as much as possible. Hence next week we should be having a division per day! Exciting right? 

Ultiworld - the premier news media site dedicated to the sport of Ultimate

Share, like, tweet, <enter social media outlet>. DP @ tSG.

An early look at Clapham.

Sion "Brummie" Scone was at T1 spectating, tweeting for tSG and tells us what he observed of Clapham in this seasons first outing.

Justin [Foord] got a little upset that Clapham seemed to have attracted some "hatred" from my tweets at the weekend.  So, in the interest of fairness, here's some more detailed thoughts based on observations at Tour 1 while I wait for my dinner to cook:

1) This is a stacked team.  They haven't lost many players from last year, and have picked up some speedy deep threats in Enda Naughton and Stephan Rossbauer.  Oh, and Rob Schumacher, the fastest guy in British/German ultimate. I doubt Clapham will get a tight game from any domestic matchup in 2013 (cue outrage from Chevron, Fire et al).  But this team looks like they haven't rested on their laurels after winning EUCF, as they stormed past everyone in St Albans.

2) They are athletic - and they know it.  And this could be something that actually causes them problems. They were easily capable of out-muscling the opposition (case in point, I saw Clapham huck it to Dom Clark going deep when his defender was still deep of him, the thrower just knew that Dom would over take and score ... which he did). It would be easy for Clapham to be blasé about what the other team is doing, and just run right by them as if they weren't even there; hence my comment about making eight cuts into the same spot.  Clapham could be their own worst enemy in many respects; if no-one else is going to give them a tight game, then they need to critical of themselves if they want to improve.  They are off to Chesapeake in a few months to play the likes of Ironside and GOAT, and the worst thing they could do is get used to out-muscling teams in the UK, then come across a team that is equally or more athletic.  Splitting their lines for Tour is the right decision for them, but maybe they need a really even split to give themselves some preparation of how to play against people who are just too damned fast.

3) They've learned a nice poachy set to break down brick/pull play scenarios.  It was really effective.  Even better, they have been working on transitions, which were pretty slick and got numerous turns *during* the transition (particularly in the final), which is a credit to Clapham.  This is no mean feat, and shows a smart defensive team as well as one who can run with any team in the world.  They mean business, and should be in a great position to compete in the USA.

Clapham Bullfrogs: 12 times Nationals champions.

4) It is so hard to be the team that is way out in front.  If any team in the UK needs to do video analysis of their own performances, it is Clapham.  Winning shouldn't be enough for this team, winning well should be a constant aim.  Aside from a few individual mistakes on Saturday afternoon, Clapham were never really pressured enough to cough the disc up, but it wasn't obvious whose job it was to make things happen when the offence stalled.  Justin?  Britney?  Cian?  Schuie?  Colin?  The list of "go-to" players is much longer than this, but you can see the potential for problems when you have so many players capable of dominating the pitch all thrown in together.  And bear in mind this lot were just on one of the two teams.  As a result, when it got messy, it got *really* messy, and while they got away with occasional lapses last weekend, those same mistakes made in Chesapeake may well be more costly.  Still, first tournament of the season so there will be plenty of time to iron out these minor blips.

5) Clapham oozes confidence.  They strolled - almost literally - through the final.  They were six goals in before I heard a celebration, and offence just looked so easy for them; they weren't pressured on the mark at all (or at least, they didn't look like they were pressured).  I don't even think I saw them get to full speed this weekend, which is seriously scary when you think about what they might do when they step up a gear (for example, I didn't see a single layout block).  Considering they were playing with short lines, I suspect this team might peak at exactly the right time.  Did I mention they did all of that missing their GB U23 players?  Ha.  This team has bags of potential, and the road to Worlds looks promising.  In 2010, Clapham had one of the most stacked teams I've ever seen assembled from the UK, and fell far short of their target of a berth in semi finals.  Let's hope that they have learned from the mistakes they made last time, and that they don't get too confident too soon.

Ironside et al - beware.  The bullfrogs are coming.  My dinner's on fire.

Brummie

Comments, tweets etc are all welcome! DP @ tSG.

Repeat Mixed Success for Jabba the Huck

Mark Earley's column 'An Irish Eye' continues with a look into Jabba the Hucks win at Irish Mixed Championships.

A few weeks ago Irish Ultimate held it’s annual Mixed Championships (as previewed in this article). The tournament took place in Maynooth, a town in Kildare, not far from the country’s capital. Hosted by the U-23 Mixed Team in an effort to raise some much needed funds for the trip to Toronto, the tournament ran very smoothly and perhaps more importantly was blessed with great weather.

Jabba the Huck's 3 teams at the recent All-Ireland Mixed Championships

Going into the tournament it looked like only 4 teams would be vying for the semi-finals spots but a number of things changed this. Firstly, a few late dropouts for Binge?, a consistently strong Mixed team with a long history of success in domestic mixed events, forced them to add to their roster after the IFDA Roster Deadline. This made them ineligible and prevented them from finishing higher than 5^th (which they duly did). Secondly was the underperformance of a Rebel team missing a host of it’s first team players. Shipping big defeats on day one and against teams they would usually beat, the weekend didn’t play out quite as they would have hoped. Finally, the emergence of Pelt, who, buoyed by a pick up or two and the power of their U-23 Open stars finished an impressive 3^rd.

The real story however is that of Jabba the Huck. Jabba are a closely knit, well-drilled and welcoming club who for years have failed to match success in Mixed with the high numbers they consistently have at training. Last year they finally got the monkey off their back and this year they consolidated their reputation with an eventually facile victory in the final. Lead by coach and captain Ian French and with excellent strength and depth across their first team roster, the Jabba team are just that – a team. They work hard for each other, have simple and effective systems and they practice constantly.

Fiona Mernagh lets a flick fly during the final.

Over the past two years or so their attitude has appeared to shift from a team that parties hard and plays hard too to a team that can manage both, and more notably, know when to attempt both. A strong recruitment policy, based on an open arms approach, has allowed the club grow hugely. In turn, places on the first team are now something to fight for as the depth of talent increases. It is the ability to call on a much stronger team over the past two seasons that has seen them dominate the Mixed division.

Having cruised through the pools stages and their semi-final (against Jabba 2 no less!), the would-be champions started somewhat shakily against a fired up Mixed Veg side, looking for revenge following last year’s universe point loss. Slowly though Jabba grew into the game, using their fast offence and big receivers to convert their offence. As the game went on the Veg team started making more and more mistakes, a lot of them seemingly unforced but capitalized on repeatedly. Suddenly a traded game became a landslide victory with Jabba scoring 7 points in a row to win the game 11-5. It was a well deserved win by a team who earned it through grit, belief and team work.

Full game footage of the All Ireland Mixed Final.

Unfortunately for Jabba the Huck Ireland doesn’t have a spot in the WUCC Mixed Division at the moment. With at least 3 Open teams and 3 Women’s team likely to want to play in Italy it’s unlikely that one will become available soon, not to mention the fact that the division itself is likely over-subscribed already. It’s a shame because it would be interesting to see how the team would do against the best of European and world Ultimate. Trips to the UK have seen them compete well, but without a full Tour under their belt this year and following a low seeding it’s hard to tell how they match up against the top teams. Perhaps next year, when there is no U-23 team demanding most of their players’ focus we will see a full Jabba take on Tour. In the mean time they will split into Open and Women's teams looking to win a unique treble…

Photos courtesy of Mary Dempsey & Alan Breathnach
Video courtesy of Richard Buggy

Mark will bring us the Irish Eyes viewpoint of T1 alongside our very own A/B/C/W tour reviews in our T1 review week: one review a day! Like, share and contribute! DP @ tSG.