With the final installment of Mixed Tour this weekend, what have we got in store for Cheltenham?
The weather looks to be cold with some chance of rain later in the weekend. This never stopped us but please pack warm and stay warm camping!
Sadly we still have no schedule (mostly down to late dropouts) but we know where to look for excitement. We will see the likes of RGS, World Games, Cambridge, Brighton, DED, Black Eagles and Herd fighting for top spots. Watch out for some of the next 8 fighting their way up, Bristol, Shiny Happy Meeples and U23’s will not give up and will want to finish off the tour strongly.
Last chance saloon for Mixed tour glory. Keep an eye out for our review next week covering Mixed Tour as a whole and looking forward to Nationals and further.
Category: Previews
All-Ireland Mixed Championships Preview
With the Mixed season in the UK in full swing, Mark Earley tells us about the upcoming All-Ireland Mixed Champsionships.
Mixed Ultimate in Ireland is not something that the majority of Irish club teams focus on; in fact there is only one club that were set up with the aim of playing Mixed all year round – the Dublin-based Jabba the Huck. There are lots of reasons for this – perhaps the most obvious being a historically small playerbase and the way the sport grew in the country – through universities, where the number of male members always outnumbered the number of female sign ups. This has always been replicated at international level, where Mixed Ultimate wasn’t a preferred option until 2011 when a young and well-oiled Ireland Mixed squad surpassed the achievements of both the much-fancied Open and Women’s teams to make quarters of EUC.
2008 – Throwin’ Shapes
Photos courtesy of: Jabba the Huck, Martin Kelly, Ireland U23 Mixed Team
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Fog Lane Cup Preview
Josh Coxon Kelly brings us a preview for this weekends first A tour warm up.
This weekend many of the top open teams in the UK will be heading to Chippenham to compete at the second ever Fog Lane Cup. Hosted by Chevron Action Flash, and named in honour of their perennial training ground in Didsbury, the tournament is once again hoping to provide a high level tournament for UK club teams to flex their muscles at before the long tour season.
Notable absentees from A tour regulars Clapham and Brighton could be put down in part to the attendance of Cobra Kai to Tom’s Tourney in Brugge, but nonetheless the tournament brings together plenty of heavyweight competition, including (once again) two Fire squads, a fanatically hyped new Kapow! roster, as well as the GB u23 open squad looking to take scalps in the first tournament of their campaign for gold in Toronto this summer.
Last season’s Inaugural cup wasn’t without drama, with Fire 2 surprising many teams including the hosts. Will this year see the avenging of this loss, or with so many refreshed squads a similar upset? Or will a young and hungry GB squad dominate?
The u23s have a gruelling schedule with 3 games followed by an evening showgame against a ‘Barbarian team’ built from players of the other teams in attendance. Whilst a fair share of sledging is inevitable between friends, this exhibition match will be undeniably important for the young internationals: not only in forging their team chemistry, but also as a chance to start their journey with a win in front of a crowd – an act that they will very much hope to turn into a habit.
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Mixed Tour 2 (2013) – Manchester
The schedule is out, the weather doesn’t look too bad. We are all in for a great weekend.
Topping the tournament are the newly selected World Games squad, who look to hold onto that spot. They will be challenged by Brighton, RGS and Bristol tomorrow and most likely one of Black Eagles, Cambridge, DED or Bear Cavalry on Sunday.
Some great match ups there, go watch and support our GB teams!
Teams that did well last tour have been rewarded with their higher seedings, as expected. Sadly we are missing Ireland U23 but we have also gained some new faces: Halcyon, Team Shark, Devon and Brixton to name a few. Expect a few movers from this lot.
Finally, GB U23 are yet again using this event as training (pitch 24 for Open) with the Mixed squad out in full force once again and fundraising from the Women. Please find them give them money, water and support for Toronto.
University Open Outdoor Nationals
David Pryce brings us his brief preview of University Open Outdoor Nationals being held this weekend in Nottingham.
This weekend 32 open teams will travel from their respective corners of the country to University Nationals. Regionals was (for most) a month ago, the snow has cleared and we have even had some sun. I will now attempt to give a brief preview of the upcoming weekend and, after 7 years of failing, attempt to make some predictions about both divisions.
The schedule and pools are out and in Div 1 we have:
- Pool A: Sussex, Manchester, Edinburgh, Leicester – some would say the pool of death with current champs and a lot of strength in all four clubs. I would say Sussex and Edinburgh to edge it and take the top two spots.
- Pool B: Cork, Cardiff, Surrey, Aberdeen – A very similar pool to last year for Cork, Aberdeen and Cardiff. These three are at a similar strength to a year ago and so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a three way tie here.
- Pool C: Bath, Cambridge, Sussex 2, Sheffield – All props to Sussex 2 for making it this far but I cannot see them getting higher than third in the pool here. With Alex Brooks pushing Bath all the way and Elliott Moore and Dom Dathan doing the same for Cambridge few would bet against one of those two topping the pool.
- Pool D: Dundee, Southampton, Birmingham, Durham – Of the four pools I would say this is the most open but if asked to go for it, I would put Dundee and Southampton as the top two but very closely contested by Birmingham.
From a very open Div 2 we have:
- Pool E: Exeter, Leeds, Strathclyde, Portsmouth – A real tough pool to call here with a lot of strength across the board. Exeter still hold the edge at top for me and one of Leeds or Strathclyde. Too hard to call between the two but 12:10 on pitch 17 will decide for me.
- Pool F: Loughborough, Liverpool, St Andrews, Plymouth – Another hard one however the Loughborough and St Andrews teams have very strong training programs and so I would put my money on them.
- Pool G: Bristol, Newcastle, Nottingham, Imperial – I am slightly biased here so for integrity will avoid talking about Imperial directly however I wouldn’t write us off in this pool. Another three way tie between Bristol, Nottingham and Imperial?
- Pool H: Warwick, Glasgow, Limerick, LSE – An Irish team are always a tasty addition to Nationals but I think the strength of Glasgow and Warwick will power through to the top 8.
Push Pass Productions will be filming predominantly on pitches 11 and 12 so look out next week for releases of finals etc, like them on Facebook to stay informed!
Blockstack.tv will also be covering the event with team photos and gameplay photos too: contact Andy Moss for more details.
Twitterazzi have already started commenting with the hashtag #ukuuon and follow all the teams’ tweets for results. David will be at the tournament with Imperial so if you have any ideas or questions go ask him and don’t forget to like and follow us too!!
University Women’s Outdoor Nationals
UCC Ultimate – from Cork to Nottingham, via Maynooth
Mark Earley brings us the story of University College Cork’s year so far in their journey to Nottingham. Cork will be attending UK University Nationals next week with aims to avenge a painful finals loss at the hands of the Sussex Mohawks last year.
In Ireland the tournament that decides which university teams are the national champions is called Intervarsities and it takes place relatively late in the calendar year (April). Given the size of Irish Ultimate the Mixed and Women’s Intervarsities are smaller affairs with the Open division tournament canada goose Canada Goose mænd being the centerpiece of the university season. That said, the Cork outfit, UCC Ultimate currently hold both the Women’s and Mixed events and were looking to win their third title of the season last weekend. There is no qualification process for Open Intervarsities and all colleges are encouraged to bring as many players and teams as they can muster. Since the first Intervarsities took place the number of teams in attendance has ebbed and flowed, peaking at 16 in 2009, a number almost equalled this year.
Open Intervarsities took place last weekend in Maynooth, a town just outside Dublin in wet and very windy conditions. Fifteen teams took part with a pick up canada goose Chateau Parka team helping to round out the schedule. Going into the tournament it was hard to look past one of three teams as potential winners – UCC from Cork who had won the tournament 3 years in a row, and the two strongest Dublin-based college teams, UCD and Trinity. Three other teams, DCU – the college team from where WJUC took place last August – UL, from Limerick and NUI Maynooth, the home team, were expected to battle it out for the remaining semi-final spot.
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UCC Ultimate Logo |
After an upset free Saturday, it was Maynooth who caused the big shock of the tournament by winning their quarter-final on universe point against DCU. This was quite a break through for the team and their first time making it through to the semi-finals. (Later in the day they would add the Spirit Award to their top 4 finish). Cork, Trinity and UCD all joined them, as expected. The pick of the semis was a battle between long-term rivals UCD and Trinity. Both teams had looked strong up until meeting and went in to the game confident but it ended up being a match that will be remembered for the upwind downwind conditions as opposed to for the Ultimate. At first, neither side managed to do much more than play for territory but it was Trinity who imposed themselves getting a brace of upwind goals to build a 4 point lead that they kept until half. UCD fought back in the second half but the gap was too much and Trinity progressed.
Elsewhere UCC took care of a young and determined NUI Maynooth with little fuss, advancing into the final, making it a rematch of the previous year. UCC captain John ‘Doc’ Doherty put their performance against what he called ‘the tournament surprise package’ down to their considerable advantage in terms of experience. ‘A lot of us playing so well in this game was down to the fact that we were much more experienced than Maynooth in the windy conditions, and they had a lot of up-and-coming players who probably hadn’t played that much in such conditions before’.
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Trinity’s Hugo Fitzpatrick with a big bid in the final |
The final took place on a slightly more sheltered field and Cork came out on D to start. They turned Trinity in the first point and after a dropped pull in the second were very soon 2-0 up. This became 3-0 after more tight defence and the Corkonian team were in a position they are familiar with – bossing the pace of a game having taken an early lead. Trinity captain Finnian Flood explained that having gone three points up early ‘UCC played with a lot of hunger and composure. Suffocating our O with their strong defense and hitting the open man on their offence whether it was an under cut or a deep strike’. This was echoed by his counterpart Doherty who was pleased with their performance; ‘The offence was patient, the D was tight. We played like we knew we could in the first half to get the lead. I think in the second half we could have been a little more patient, because the wind picked up a lot, and we tried to force it a bit’. Trinity came back into the game with Sam Mehigan, Brian Boyle and Sean O’Mahony helping to add a measure of respectability to the scoreline but realistically it was all over as a competitive game by half-time. Standout performances came from a number of Cork players including veteran Donal Murray and captain John Doherty, It’s worth noting that UCC had lost twice to Trinity earlier in the season so to win the final 13-6 to win their 4th title in as many years will have given them great pleasure.
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Trinity’s David Ferguson throws around the mark of UCC captain John Doherty |
Given how late the Intervarsities tournament takes place, qualification for UK Uni Outdoor Open Nationals takes place via a University League held in February. UCC will be representing Ireland in Nottingham next week and are looking forward to it. We spoke to their captain Doherty about the trip and he had the following to say: ‘It is always hard to tell what we will come up against in the UK. I saw some of the defending champions Sussex at Siege of Limerick, and they looked even stronger than last year. So we have them as the team to beat standard-wise in order to be good enough to win it. We are missing a good few big players from last years team – last year’s captain Donal O’Donohoe, Mark Fanning and the star player all weekend Kevin Rice, but we have five new first year students this year who we think are capable of stepping up when needed’.
Last year the boys from Cork finished runners up after an excellent string of results but couldn’t beat a Mohawks side who were (and arguably still are) in a rich vein of form. That said, Doherty and his team are going over with only one thing in mind: ‘My team mates would be amazed if I said we have any other plan than to go over to Nottingham to win the tournament. It’s been our goal all season to win our own Irish IVs, and to then go to the UK and win UK Nationals’. This comment could be construed by some as arrogant but it would be slight on the Cork mentality to brush it off like that. Focus, determination, hard work and tactical intelligence are the mark of this team. As Flood, the Trinity captain, commented ‘They (UCC) are a very experienced, hungry team with a lot of athleticism and confidence and should do very well in Nottingham. Teams will have to play smart to beat them, but one thing is for sure – at UK Nats they won’t give up anything easy’.
We wish them the best of luck on their trip, as no doubt do the many Irish players they are representing.
Photos courtesy of Sarah Cummins & Mark Earley.