What Went Down At: UK Club Open Outdoor Regionals (South)

Chair/Editor: hazard (Reading)
Contributors: hogi (Clapham), connormch (Clapham), MJB (Reading)

Results 
1. Clapham
2. Ka-Pow!
3. Reading Open 1
4. Brighton City
5. Flump
6. Devon
7. Bristol Open
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8. Fire of London 1
9. Brighton Gritty Legends
10. Camden
11. Reading Open 2 (spirit)
12. Fire of London 2
13. Brixton

Non-Headlines
Clapham win comfortably

Headlines
Clapham destroy nearly every team (including Ka-Pow! 15-1 in the final), despite having a weakened post-WUCC squad.
Reading are focusing on Open/Women’s rather than mixed post-WUCC, look impressive
Devon bring some juniors to bolster squad size to high single-digits, claim sixth
Brighton City and Ka-Pow! qualify as expected
Flump and Bristol continue strong tour form into Regionals
Fire 1 fail to qualify for Nationals for the first time in 15 years

Pre-amble
UK Club Open Southern Regionals was held this weekend, only a week after WUCC and a week early than all other qualifiers. All WUCC teams (Clapham, Devon and Reading) were missing key players, with Devon particularly hard hit. This was so that Fire of London were able to attend both this event, and the US Open (although Fire were also missing some key players).

This event was a qualifier tournament for EUCR-W (aka UKU Nationals feat. Ireland). The South has seven bids in the Open division (Ireland has three, The North has six). That tournament will be a qualifying tournament for EUCF, aka the European Championships.

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hazard
Let’s start at the top, as I don’t think these topics will take long. Clapham destroy Regionals. Any surprises or anything worth mentioning beyond that?

hogi
Wouldn't say we destroyed Regionals tbh. I think we had 2 testing games vs Brighton and Reading on the Sunday AM. I think with that wind and rain combo, it was really anyone's tournament but the difference was Clapham decided to play short ball and executed it relatively ok where nobody else really tried it 🤷

connormch
I'd agree with that. The conditions made for interesting games, and we were by no means super relaxed going into any of them. Though I only attended Sunday so can't comment on Saturdays conditions

hogi
To quickly elaborate on the conditions (in a Saturday vs Sunday sort of way), Saturday was sunny (ish) and v windy, where every pitch was unwind-upwind. On Sunday, it was raining sideways; buckets of rain, a gale blowing from one sideline to the other and if you stopped moving for a bit, it was pretty cold too. A pretty grim change from 35 degrees Ohio...

connormch
Agreed. Southern Regionals should he held in Lebanon, Ohio next year.

hazard
And how did being post-WUCC affect you guys in terms of personnel?

hogi
Loads of our guys are out in the states still or had other commitments the week after a 10 days to 2 week hiatus from the country so we had a small squad and had to get a few Ragnarok pick-ups, as well as Jaimie Cross dusting off his boots, coming out of retirement and pinging hucks around the place on Saturday. I think we were all still a bit knackered from WUCC tbh... But the ground was so hard in Edenbridge, I think I'm more sore due to Regionals than I was after WUCC...

hazard
“Ragnarok pick-ups”? 😉

hogi
Yeah, some Danish Richard Harris and Connor McHale looking fellas

hazard
Alright, on to Reading. A bit of a surprise to some to see them in the Open/Women’s divisions this year rather than Mixed. With that said, they seemed to cope ok.

MJB
The rationale for going Open/Women’s as opposed to mixed is that it gives a greater number of our players on the bubble more high-level experience.
More experience than carting off our 10 best boys and girls for the post-season, anyway.

hogi
With over 100 players in your OWT1 photo, I was surprised there wasn't a Reading mixed entry for Regionals also tbh. Or did I miss that?

hazard
A mere two teams for Open and Women's each I'm afraid.

connormch
Has a club ever managed to get a team in all 3 divisions to Nats before?

hazard
Last year Reading had an Open team, a Mixed team, and a Women’s team at Nationals (and one Mixed team at Euros on a wildcard spot). I assume that means Reading have plans beyond Nationals, given that (likely) only a Men’s and Women’s team are likely to attend Nationals this year?

Also Brighton one year I believe, depending on how you define “club”. (I could be wrong - they’ve certainly had three teams at one Nationals before though.)

connormch
Last Nationals. Nice one McHale *facepalm*. I shall ask the question again if the club manages to get  to Euros in all three divisions.

MJB
We polled everyone on where everyone would prefer to play, and our gender equity discussion indicated the desire for more single-gender play. No promise that everyone is happy 😉

hazard
Is this a permanent change do you reckon, or likely decided year-by-year?

MJB
With a big club and a lot of opinions it'll probably be something decided year on year. With an eye on how the last year went.

hazard
And do you reckon Reading could get both a Men’s and a Women’s team to Euros? Also, for fun, which one is more likely to make it.

connormch
I was personally very impressed with RU. Knowing they were missing some key names, I'd definitely put Reading Open down for maybe a 4/5th place spot for Euros. Especially with Fire out of the picture for the first time in years. And Reading v Ka-Pow! would have been a great game if they'd been in the other pool.

hazard
They got their spot at Euros last year (in mixed) on a wildcard, so it would fit with tradition. I was also quite sad the schedule didn’t allow a Reading vs Ka-Pow! game.

hogi
I think Reading have a good shot at Euros spots in multiple divisions this year. Could they make all three in one year? Hmm... Mixed is weaker this year with no Reading, JR, among others... So maybe but I'd still say no, not at the moment.

connormch
I'm going to say Men's are more likely, though I think both teams could take 5th

MJB
I reckon we could make it. Our women have a bigger pile of scalps than we do this season, so I can't wait to see them at Regionals.

connormch
It will be tough, but wouldn't put it past either.

hazard
For reference, the West region (UK/Ireland) will have four bids to Euros in Men’s, and two in both Mixed and Women’s.

MJB
W is just behind S for an extra Women's spot (in case of a dropout).

hazard
And first in line for a bonus spot in Mixed!

Ok, onto the main thing people probably clicked on this to read. Fire 1 fail to make Nationals.

Fire have never finished outside top six of Nationals before. So to not qualify at all is fairly astonishing. Opening up to wild speculation/expressions of sympathy

connormch
I don't think there's any need for speculation. They lost a large number of top players from last year and it was very apparent.

hogi
I'll pick the sympathy route to be honest... They're going through a pretty big transition period with a ton of roster turnover this year. To compare them to previous years or to hold some of these guys up to the history of the club seems unfair in some ways (not that they aren't capable of being of that standard but it wasn't them who created the history of the club). It was an interesting (brave) choice to split squads this weekend which led to a few solid guys playing on the 2s who might have been able to provide some good options in those rough conditions. I'm thinking of Max, Pope, Fenn, among others here.

This weekend they were missing a good few first teamers (DP, Guns, Niall Jackson, and captain Adam Lothian). Fire's depth was something they could boast about a few years ago but it seems to be less deep now perhaps as they couldn't get past any of the better teams they played this weekend.

hazard
Despite UKU actually scrubbing Fire of London 2 from the records of last Regionals so I can’t check how they finished, their second team did come close to qualifying last cycle. It is a big fall from a second team nearly qualifying to no team at all. They won spirit, so they were definitely there....

connormch
I believe they were close in 2016 as well. I'm sure 2017 being a worlds qualification year will have had an influence.

hazard
I’m also going to say that missing George Hudson this weekend would have been a big impact too. He’s not a traditional Fire player, but would certainly have been one of their better players to deal with high winds.

connormch
Has he prioritised JR? I saw him playing Fire 2 earlier in the year. He would have been very useful

hazard
JR haven’t entered anything, and he’s rostered for Fire for the US open.

hogi
I think he just didn't make the 1s; but I agree he has the throws to make an impact in that wind. I can only guesstimate that they had the Regionals teams picked a few weeks back at least and none of us expected sort of weather after a few weeks of sun... so even if we agree George would have been an asset, it remains to be seen if he'd have been on the 1s to make a difference...

I say that playing devil's advocate rather than anything else. 😇

connormch
Interesting to see whether this will impact teams roster selection from now on, knowing that qualification is far from certain for any team any more.

hazard
Ok, so we’ve got that they were missing key players. Any other reasons we can think of, or actions we think the captains could have taken?

connormch
As Hogi mentioned earlier about smallball, it seemed like they still relied on big plays to put the disc in. They have some receivers making big plays to come down with it, but in those conditions it wasn't enough.

hogi
Interestingly, I didn't think they did look too tall? I didn't see much of them play, but they seemed small next to Bristol in that last game. I might have missed some of their guys but Bristol have some big boys.

connormch
Also Bristol played very well in the 7/8 and looked like a team who thought they could win & qualify.

hazard
Stefan Lewis was still being a top receiver for Fire, from what I saw (which was limited, to be fair). I wouldn’t say they had many others who could read the wind well.

hogi
I thought Stefan Lewis looked good on Sunday - he was getting blocks all over the place in the wind. But they couldn't get him the rock in the endzone.
#greatminds

hazard
Which again brings it back to what one more big thrower could have done, potentially.

I would like to postulate that another reason is that Flump and Bristol have both actually improved in quality this year too. Both finished top 10 in overall tour rankings, and seemed to have done a good job in developing existing players. (Bristol Open have only attended Nationals once recently - in 2016, when the old South West region got a strength bid from Devon. It's arguably this is the first time they've really earned their spot through outright strength).

hogi
Yeah, I think having the likes of Cian Quinn (former Ranelagh captain, Ireland Men's 2011 & 2016) move to Bristol in 2016 was a win. He, among others, seemed to do alright in the wind. bit of small ball, and they didn't just stand in the endzone but attacked short hucks too to keep the game alive
for sure, shout out to Flump especially for getting a few big Ws

hazard
Jake Burgess had some big hucks for Bristol too. You can always count on the one guy still wearing trackies to do something big.

hogi
Beating Devon 9-3 on Saturday was good but beating them 15-0 on Sunday was even more impressive. I think Bristol were smart about their game time too. They rested Quinner against us and stopped a few of their better players playing the second half also to save legs. It was good game management

hazard
I think I’d like to do one more thing as well - talk about Fire in the context of Devon.

Devon had a very small squad this weekend. Nine at most, and most of those local juniors rather than WUCC players. They’d been hit hard by both the distance, and Southern Regionals being a week early. They couldn’t really even play their last couple games on Sunday.

They still beat Fire 9-4.

MJB
I would think the GB u17 coaches are to thank.

:3

hazard
I think if Devon hadn’t qualified, we’d be talking about how the format had hit them hard. What does it mean that even in these circumstances Devon got a spot and Fire didn’t?

hogi
I didn't see who Devon had really other than Salty, nor did I see any of that game. I would assume that Fire couldn't put it in upwind and that was the difference?

hazard
They still had Josh Awcock, who I think is a really strong player. But it was on Saturday in the pool stage, before any of the winds really hit.

hogi
Ah right, well in Josh you've got a guy who's gonna do it for them on both sides of the disc

MJB
Sweetnam would have helped in the wind (one of the GB u17s from last year). They've got a good collection of Airbadgers (the local junior team).

hazard
I would love to check last year’s Nationals rosters vs this year’s Regionals rosters and see which of Fire/Devon had the biggest loss, though I do think Devon’s junior strength is a big factor.

hogi
Largely, with the format, you can turn up to Regionals, give it shoes and socks on day 1 and if you're in the top 3 you're grand if you're content on making Nats and don't give a rashers for Nats seeding. So you don't reeeeally need a top bunch of heads to get you there. You need 9-10 lads who are good and who are gonna out work the other team. athleticism and disc skills help... but my point is largely that (goals dependent), you don't need to have a big, two-day tournament squad and Devon did well to play the system in that sense.

hazard
Alright, final Fire comments. As an ex-Ka-Pow! player, it’s hard to say, but not having Fire at Nationals is going to seem like a big loss. They are a big part of the London development scene, and GB has seen a lot of players who’ve benefitted from the Fire system. They’re going through a big transition period right now, and I do hope they come out of it ok. Without any hint of sarcasm, best of luck to them at the US Open. Go cause some upsets with a full-strength roster.

hogi
plus 👆

hazard
Alright, let's end on some predictions.

hazard
From the Open North division, I’m predicting the following final results:
1. Chev
2. SMOG
3. EMO
4. Manchester
5. Leeds
6. Birmingham
----
7. Alba
8.  BAF
9. Vision
10. EMO 2

That’s actually going to be quite tight for the final spot!
From those and the Irish, I reckon Clapham, Chevy, Ranelagh and Reading take the Euros spots at Nats.

hogi
I think you have 5 of the right 6, with Alba taking Leeds' spot. I think PELT are gonna be in contention for that Top 4 spot instead of Reading - soz. It's hard to call this without seeing the squads

MJB
1 👏🐷
2 Chev
3 Ranelagh
4 Reading
5 Pelt
6 Devon
7 SMOG

hazard
Pelt definitely up there too. And Devon with a full squad is going to cause some upsets given their initial low seeding (we reckon it might be Reading in the first round, which I’m calling as one to watch)

hogi
I'm calling only 2 North teams to make Top 8
ooohhh... ballsy

connormch
Agreed^ one of Emo or Smog
Chev top 4

hogi
1 - Clapham
2 - Chevy
3 - Ranelagh
4 - Reading 1
5 - PELT
6 - Devon
7 - SMOG
8 - XVI

It all depends on original seedings and who is rostered where

hazard
Ooh, three Irish in top 8. XVI (Ranelagh young boys) going to cause some upsets then you reckon? Also interesting that Ka-Pow! won tour overall, came second at Regionals, and none of us have them top 8. We may regret this.

hogi
Ha - i think they'd take exception to being Ranelagh young boys 😛. More like Gonzaga old boys. Yeah, I rate them. I think with some experienced heads playing with them too they could upset teams like Ka-Pow! and EMO. A lot of them playing U24s in Perth and pretty much all of them have played Ireland Juniors and U17s for like 4/5 years each? They're going to be fast, ballsy in their options and really annoying when they celebrate 😂

hazard
Since tSG are taking a well-earned post-WUCC rest, here are Mixed South and Women’s predictions for those of you that like something to argue over.

Women’s:
1. Iceni
2. Reading
3. Bristols
4. SYC
5. Hydra
6. Cobras
--- (I think there’s only six)
7. Brighton
8. Brixton
9. Reading 2
10. Discie Chicks

Mixed South:
1. Deep Space
2. Thundering Herd
3. Curve Mixed
4. Leamington Lemmings
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5. Horsham
6. Meridian

Really no idea between final three. I think Herd may have missed a trick not entering two squads.

hogi
Herd didn't have the sign-ups for 2 squads 😞

MJB
Sadface for mixed south