MT1 preview
Tomorrow sees the start of the mixed tour season, and I look forward to this every year. Playing with my good friends, mostly Leeds Uni Alumni, for Curious Bacon reminds me of what I enjoy most playing Ultimate.
The emphasis is usually on having a good weekend, enjoying each others company. Our best performances always come when we're relaxed and having fun. My personal favourite game we've ever played was at Brighton Beyond in 2006. We had a quarterfinal against Bristol Plastic Factory. This team was preparing for Worlds in Perth, and had a good number of players there. They had a skilled team, including Ollie, who I love to mark, and the sublime handling of Caeser, who I don't like marking!
I expected us to lose heavily, and I think a lot of us felt the same. This meant we were relaxed and didn't feel the pressure of a last 8 game. Due to this we just played our own game, enjoying the sun and having a laugh. Then we found ourselves 4 or 5 up. Not quite sure how, but it seemed to be working. This buffer helped keep us in the game as Bristol fought back. Eventually we found ourselves in a sudden death winner scenario. Both teams turned over, but the benefits of Bristol's training paid off and they took the win. I honestly didn't mind losing that game. We put so much into that game, once we realised we could win, I was spent afterwards, but happy in the knowledge we'd pitted our best against a good solid team.
Another thing about playing with Bacon is that we are all spread about the country now. Despite having a core of Leeds Alumni, we don't all live/train together regularly, which is usually our downfall in close games. You can't beat the experience of playing together week in week out. We do get the occasional glimpse of this, as we did last year when I often had 4 downfield cutter from our LLLeeds division. They would agree a LLL play between them and I often had no clue what was going to happen downfield, just give it to however looks like they want it first!
We'll have difficulties in MT1 I think purely because we'll all be a bit rusty from not playing together for a while, and we've got some new faces this year, and a pick up seemingly flying in from abroad. I look forward to how his experience will blend with our nonsense!
Report will probably follow!
The emphasis is usually on having a good weekend, enjoying each others company. Our best performances always come when we're relaxed and having fun. My personal favourite game we've ever played was at Brighton Beyond in 2006. We had a quarterfinal against Bristol Plastic Factory. This team was preparing for Worlds in Perth, and had a good number of players there. They had a skilled team, including Ollie, who I love to mark, and the sublime handling of Caeser, who I don't like marking!
I expected us to lose heavily, and I think a lot of us felt the same. This meant we were relaxed and didn't feel the pressure of a last 8 game. Due to this we just played our own game, enjoying the sun and having a laugh. Then we found ourselves 4 or 5 up. Not quite sure how, but it seemed to be working. This buffer helped keep us in the game as Bristol fought back. Eventually we found ourselves in a sudden death winner scenario. Both teams turned over, but the benefits of Bristol's training paid off and they took the win. I honestly didn't mind losing that game. We put so much into that game, once we realised we could win, I was spent afterwards, but happy in the knowledge we'd pitted our best against a good solid team.
Another thing about playing with Bacon is that we are all spread about the country now. Despite having a core of Leeds Alumni, we don't all live/train together regularly, which is usually our downfall in close games. You can't beat the experience of playing together week in week out. We do get the occasional glimpse of this, as we did last year when I often had 4 downfield cutter from our LLLeeds division. They would agree a LLL play between them and I often had no clue what was going to happen downfield, just give it to however looks like they want it first!
We'll have difficulties in MT1 I think purely because we'll all be a bit rusty from not playing together for a while, and we've got some new faces this year, and a pick up seemingly flying in from abroad. I look forward to how his experience will blend with our nonsense!
Report will probably follow!
posted by Garry at 12:49 pm
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