The indoor season has been a little up and down so far this year – we came second at Plymouth Beginners – Experienced Division and only managed top eight at Iron Five (yes, we know that’s a good result but we won it the year before).
After the 2018 COIQ event saw us narrowly miss out on qualification by losing in sudden death to PROtm, we aimed a little higher this time around. It’d prove a little tricky as, due to other commitments and injuries, we were a little thin on numbers to begin with. Still, we had our strategy and a solid team and knew we were capable of doing the job – even if regulars Mojo and Chubb were out of action.
Jamie Banks
With Horse having stopped off at mine and Becky’s the night before, we headed to Plymouth and watched the early pools until we were ready to take to the pitch ourselves. We were seeded 4th out of 16 and in a group with Fresh Princes, AirBadgers 2 and Flex.
Everyone in the region knows all too well how dangerous the AirBadgers can be. Sure, this would be a second team but you could be up against the sixteenth St. Peters squad and still find yourselves in trouble. We knew they’ve have good disc skills and run a lot. This squad was talented and made up primarily of Year 10 pupils. We knew that traditionally, the best method for playing Badgers is to not let them play their running game, so we slapped the zone on.
We got the turns as desired and promptly put the goals in. They battled hard through the zone and eventually got one disc through to score. We used our usual method to deal with this – score as quickly as possible. Mop lobbed up a big throw to Jamie, I went to cut in the endzone and WHACK – I get a wrestling style chop across the chest as I go to run past my defender. I go to cut again and he does a good job of staying on me. I soon notice he’s face marking so stop moving, Jamie dumps to Melliott and he bungs a scoober over for the score. We eventually closed it out 11-1 but there was a lot of room for improvement.
The Exeter University grad team have been getting increasingly better for a while and we knew this wouldn’t be easy. We win the toss and immediately hit them with iso. We turn them and smack in the next goal and we’ve used a total of about 4 passes to go two up in about a minute. We put the zone on again and something becomes clear – Fresh Princes were absolutely prepared for it. They shred through it and, with us still being having yet to click, take advantage of every error we produce. They hammer in five unanswered points before we can respond. We score and switch to man and the D-roll arrives as we swiftly convert two more turnovers to level the game. As the game closes out, there’s a bit of a discussion when Horse beats one of their guys int he air in the endzone. Almost landing on him though, a foul is called. The hooter sounds and the disc goes back meaning the best we can get now is a draw. The team puts in a shift and gets the turn to end the game at 5-5. The draw meant we’d need to beat Flex by a greater margin to ensure any emphatic victory over AirBadgers would be nullified.
Another team hailing from Exeter University, Flex were a fast and athletic lot. However, we knew what we needed to do and we also knew that zone could be too slow to generate the desired result. Opting to go man, we continually turned them over and thundered in 11 scores while they managed 3. We used iso where we could and took full advantage of Jamie’s height. We showed what we could deliver in this match and the victory was great enough that we pipped Fresh Princes to top the group on points difference.
By now, we were in a top-tier power pool with Purple Cobras and AirBadgers 1, with Fresh Princes joining us from our pool. We needed to come at least second in order to put us into a better position for a top eight finish.
Having fought the Year 10s, we now had to go up against the more confident Year 11s. AirBadgers delivered more of the same but with more skill, speed and accuracy. We continued to use the zone and iso to keep them at bay. We knew full well that, with a draw int he group with Fresh Princes carrying over, we’d need to play out of our skins to do what we needed to do. The tactics generated the desire result as we beat them 8-4. However, the rules and fouls were becoming a bit of an issue, so I had a gentle word with them afterwards.
We get on like a house on fire with Cobras and we knew this match wouldn’t be easy to say the least. Before the match begins, Jamie comes up to me and Mop and tells us he’s not backing himself in the air against them. We know that zone will be pulled to bits by them and so we resort to man for most of the match. They steam ahead to begin with and we eventually get Jamie to back himself. We level with them and I don’t know exactly what happens but they quickly get ahead by three again. As the minutes count down, I’m off the pitch and know full well that there’s the possession rule in play where teams finish the possession.We’re haring towards their zone and I’m yelling “Not yet!” but it falls on deaf ears. We score before the buzzer to bring it within two. The hooter sounds and we then have to play another possession which they manage to put away. Has we waited a few seconds to score, the deficit would have been two, putting us in good stead for second in the group. Instead the score was 9-6 where as Princes had lost to them by two. If they scored more than three over AirBadgers, we’d have come third. Ideally we needed then to have no more than two – thankfully it was 8-6 meaning we’d pipped them by one point again.
We finished the day holding seed. We headed back to wherever we were staying (for me, Mop and Horse it was Cullompton) and had an evening of trailer watching and curry before getting sleep in prep for a tough day of play on Sunday. Thankfully coming second in the group meant we remained top four and so didn’t need to play a crossover. We noted the 5 v 12 game between Dinomite and AirBadgers 2 to see who we’d play. Predictably, Dinomite came out on top, bagging a spot int he quarterfinal against us.
We’ve played the Plymouth grad team loads and we knew they’d be more than up for this match. With 27 minute games and us down a player as Jam couldn’t make Sunday, we had our work cut out for us. In a similar fashion to the Fresh Princes match the day before, we were suddenly on the business end of a barrage from Dinomite. They went ahead something like 5-2 and show little sign of letting up, with the smell of our blood in their nostrils. Finally, we start clawing things back as a disc gets jammed low into the far left of their endzone, which I managed to snaffle to grab a score. We turn them and Mop again utilises Jamie’s advantage to bring us level. They pull away again and we’re down by three when the shout of two minutes rings out. We work hard, get turns and close the gap. Scoring to put the game into sudden death. We again put in a shift and finally snag the turn. They turn us and we finally turn them again and score with Mop lofting a disc up for Jamie to bring down. We’d won 10-9 and secured a top 4 finish in one of the most competitive, well-spirited matched I’ve ever had the joy of playing in. Meant we had a bit of a job on our hands now though…
FC are the best indoor team in the country and so I set about trying to snap everyone out of the mindset that this is where our campaign for the title would end. We win the toss and I breathe a sigh of relief in the knowledge that this is potentially the only way we’d be able to beat them. They pull to us and Mop jams the disc up for Jamie. He brings it down and dumps to me before attacking the zone himself. I spot a gap and jam the disc in to go one up on FC. They quickly shred our man defense and level it. I piss away a shot but Melliott turns them back. Something else happens, they turn us and go ahead. From there we trade for a while using the iso on Jamie and eventually they commit three players to deal with him. One shot goes awry and they gap increases to two. We frantically chase them and it goes to pot as FC continue to drill in goal after goal during the three minutes or so that our heads dropped. We made them work hard and the scoreline didn’t show just how close this match felt. They beat us 11-4 and, in the speeches afterwards, Joshy Kyme noted that we had a tactic and we weren’t even trying to hide it. They also praised our defensive efforts and said they hoped to see us at Nats.
We knew that we’d not produced our best ultimate the day before and this match saw us go toe to toe with Cobras. We went up, they leveled and converted a turn. From there, it was a case of us chasing the match, which we did well. They crept two ahead towards the end and we squeaked in a score to go within one before the hooter sounded – putting us into a cap of sorts. We worked our arses off and manage to turn them twice, threatening to out us into universe point territory. Unfortunately, one mistake too many sees Cobras manage to finally jam a disc in to take the game 9-7 and bag the last qualification spot for Nationals.