Frisbee Tournaments
8. Australian Ultimate Championships
Date: 24/04/2003 - 27/04/2003Location: Canberra, Australia
Team name: Dregsy
Finishing postion: 2nd last
Nationals 2003 was so good I could probably write a book about it. It started with the road trip to Canberra the day before the tournament with Pottsy, Piers and Dregzilla in the 504, then a day of drinking by the lake and art appreciation. I was given the task of out-skolling all other open team captains by the end of the tourney. Nearly all other members of the dregs squad also had a task, some of which were quite crazy, but that's not currently in the scope of this document. By the end of that first night I had taken out Pottsy and Ian Piggott (the captain of Dregasaurus), but had a tactical chunder by 8pm. A great start for the team captain at his first Nationals. However, I was fine in the morning and very keen.
Although I was the captain I was one of the least experienced people on the team. The more experienced players seemed quite happy to trust my judgement, giving me guidance but not over-ruling my decisions, which was fantastic. I learnt quite a bit about tactics over the tournament because of this.
We lost Simon Wood and Thom Hill after the second day (two of our most experienced players) which made things very difficult for us. Nathan Hare kindly picked up with us, but we were still a very undermanned team. With other injuries we were generally down to two subs, and during one point we had two injury substitutions, so all our fit players were on the field. Luckily shoulders were popped back in and a pickup was found so we didn't have to play savage. We still didn't have enough energy to win our close games though, and in three games we lost a 3 point lead to go down by 3.
The party was fantastic, and we kicked on in Canberra until about 4am, when I caught a taxi back with Jo, Sarah, Pottsy and Ian Sinclair. I was quite exhausted by the end of the final (which New Zealand won easily against Fakulti). The last night was spent winding down with Goldy and a friend of his and having a good sleep. I drove home with Goldy the next day.