Sublime Warm-up 2008

Skunks 1

Skunks 1 headed to portsmouth in high spirits. Two teams finishing in the top 7 the previous week and an almost full strength first team to compete with whatever this tournament had to throw at us. We knew it was going to be a tough but great weekend.
Players: Smatt, Maisey, GT, Fry, Tiger, Hammond, Russell, Chester (Saturday only), Cryer (Sunday only), Mike (Sunday only)

Saturday
Skunks 1 v Skunks 2 (unsure of final score, Skunks 1 won)
We started the weekend playing our second team. A team almost thrown together last minute with very few subs they were but throughout the weekend they performed magnificently and they did not show it. However, this would be a comfortable win for skunks 1.

Skunks 1 v BLT (13-4 to skunks)
After a close defeat to BLT the previous week, we were looking to come out hard and dominate early on and that is exactly what we did. Bath had a slightly weakened team compared to the week before but they still had most of their key players. However, their swift, concentrated offence that they had shown the week before was replaced by risky hammers to marked players and we capitalised on their mistakes. A good win which put us all in high spirits going into our last group game.

Skunks 1 v Disc Doctors (4-3 to DD)
We started this game with the wrong attitude. DD’s had been beaten by a small margin by BLT and I think we thought it would be a pushover. Talks of Bagels and the like didn’t help. We threw away needlessly and were unable to contain their rapid offence. This was a game filled with calls and although they had some gaps in their knowledge of the rules regarding picks etc. we were unable to resolve these issues quickly enough to get the equalising point. Luckily on points difference we had still topped the group but we all walked away from this game disappointed nonetheless.

Skunks 1 v Southsea Commoners (15-0 to skunks)
Our last game of the day was against the team seeded last in the tournament. This was a team of very inexperienced players with only a basic understanding of the game, the rules and the tactics. Though they showed promise we shut them down and completely shut them out for the 15-0 win. After their game with the seconds Nick gave them his number and I’m sure we will be seeing them for some friendly games in the coming season and hopefully they will grow into a good team.

Sunday
Today saw Chester recovering from being awake for 26 hours (tournament then night shift) and being replaced by Cryer and Mike, who were a great asset to us on the second day.

Skunks 1 v Chichester (11-4 to Skunks (I think))
Chichester yesterday had beaten MILF but lost to Thundercatch and ended up second in a similar fashion to the happenings in our group. They had several strong players that made up the core of their team but also had several weaker players too. Overall our strong defence turned them over quite successfully and our unfaltering and chilly offence wore them away. This was a great win that put us into the top 4 in the tournament and a semi final with MILF.
Skunks 1 v Man I Love Frisbee (10-6 to skunks)
This was a Southampton grudge match. The MILF team had topped their group and remained almost unchallenged throughout this tournament. Dressed in pirate attire they were hardly taking this tournament incredibly seriously but they still wanted to beat us, however we wanted to beat them even more. We went out strong, scoring our first offense. They came back and scored their offense to tie the game at 1-1. We kept scoring and our strong D started to get the turns until eventually they started turning themselves with long, incredibly difficult to catch knives to the back wall. Skunks kept scoring and kept MILF from scoring until a place in the Final had been booked. A great result for skunks this was a fun and challenging game.

Skunks 1 v Fully Charged (14-5 to Fully Charged)
The final was always going to be tough. Fully charged used to be bitter rivals to MILF but have evolved into a powerfully strong and unwaveringly tight team. Skunks, however, were unfazed and after a great team firing up from Mike went out hard and looking to win. Skunks went out on offense and went 1-0 up. Fully Charged then came back at us using their aggressive disc skills and incredible fitness and height to make it 1-1. We traded for another two points to make it 2-2 before they stepped it up a notch. Their defense became almost impenetrable and their offense became almost perfect. We fought them for every point but could do little to stop them racking up the points. At 14-2 the skunks made their last stand. With the win almost in their grasp fully charged faced a brilliant display of undying will and conceded three points in a row to a skunks team refusing to give up. In the end Fully charged were unable to finish the game on points as the skunks defense held them until time was up. This was an amazing end to the tournament with everyone performing incredibly well. Two trophies from two tournaments and skunks are headed for a brilliant showing at indoor regionals. Thanks to everyone who came and worked your arses off for this brilliant result. MVP for the weekend was difficult to choose as no-one had a bad performance but in the end I decided to give it to Hammond for his brilliant cutting, safe hands and all the hard running he did on defense and offense. Congratulations Hammond, and everyone else that played this weekend.

Skunks 2

Skunks 2 Pompey Captains report (thats a captains report from pompey, not a pompey captain)

I had alot of fun captaining the team, first of all well done and thank you for ellie and brendan for being a solid supporting duo for my on pitch decisions. especially for brendan who played injured for most of the games. Also for Dan who ran himself ragged, improved brilliantly, and only missed the last game of the tournament.

Saturday
Skunks 1 vs Skunks 2 (11ish - 2)
(ellie, brendan, dan, jess, robin,lauren and myself, - picking up, dan, anna, lauren and another milf player) 
Not starting with the full team compliment of the team was difficult, and when they arrived partly through the first few points we weren't very cohesive. Spirits were high between the two teams, and i hope we served as a useful warm up for the first team. Thanks to some assists by dan we managed to keep the first team from having a bagel for breakfast.

Skunks 2 vs Disc doctors - win to DD
As you can see from the first teams game, disc doctors were an under rated team, who beat us, no shame there

Skunks 2 vs BLT (8 - 4 BLT)
A good game, with BLTs stronger players bringing the most from their weaker members. However, a point of note is that the score last weekend with a much stronger team lost to BLT 7-3, therefore we scored more points than the other first team, making us better. In every way.

The team played really hard all the way through the day, some good cutting from brendan, some great endzone play form Brendan, as well as some assists. Jess took down some amazing catches, despite me taking her out after doing possibly the sweetest low running grab of the tournament! Robin also showed that his few years out of the game where a mere hiatus, as he quickly got back into playing ultimate. 

Sunday
Unfortunately we lost jess and robin. However, were lucky to be joined by megan and pierce.
Another game, we lost. 
Served only to tell pierce that playing ultimate with a chest infection is a really really bad idea, and so we were sorry to see him leave us. 

Thundercatch, we lost.
However…. We were now playing iron man, and everyone worked extremely hard. For those who don’t know. Iron man is when you do not have enough players on your team to sub off after any point, and so the same 5 members played all points for the full half hour. Magnificent effort from Brendan, ellie, dan and megan. Giving it their all on D and snappy on O getting us some points on the score board and keeping us from ending the game early with the 15 point cap. 

Southsea commoners, 11 – 3 … to skunks 2! 
Unfortunately Dan had to leave early for work, fortunately lauren was able to rejoin us, bringing us back up to 5 players, with anna kindly hanging on the edges to allow some of our players to have a few points rest.

However, determined to give it our all for the last game of the tournament, and determined to keep our 15th seed in the 15th/16th play we pulled together, and despite losing a few points early on managed to shut down their O and putting point after point onto the score board. Its hard to keep structure with an inexperienced team, but we stayed firm and finally got a win which we’d fought for all weekend.

Thanks to all the players that joined us at such short notice, we might have lost the majority of the games, but we had a lot of fun doing it, definitely played our hardest for every point and all gained a lot of experience. MVP prize went to ellie who was solid in every game, doing brilliantly in ever role asked of her and giving some valuable on pitch decisions and tactics.