Editor: Hazard (he/him)
A small note - from this article, we are providing contributors with the option to include pronouns. Please respect these if you do end up messaging any contributors.
Welcome to our first proper coverage for the Women's division! We've also included any reports we have from prior matches. A big thank you to everyone involved, and if you've entered into the Women's Cup please reach out to us to be involved in future articles!
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Structure
The overall championship is the UK National Series. Within it, teams compete for 8 spots at the National Championships. An easy to read graphic is included below.
We have 6 National League teams (Bristol, Iceni, Red, SCRAM, SMOG, SYC). They will play in a mini-league for 3 spots at the National Championships.
We also have the National Cup, with an as-yet unknown number of teams fighting for 2 spots at the National Championships. These spots go to the finalists of the cup.
The remaining 3 National League teams, the two Cup semi-finalists, and one intrepid qualify-the-hard-way Cup quarter finalist will enter the National Playoffs, seeking to be among the final 3 spots at the National Championships.
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| Taken from UKU's guide to 2020/21 Ultimate |
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National League
Iceni 15 - 8 SYC
Location: London
Hannah Brew (Iceni): After a slightly shaky first point, Iceni offence flowed well, frequently scoring deep with well spaced and fast flowing offence. SYC disrupted our offensive looks with some well placed poaches that Iceni managed to adapt to. SYC's goals often came from down the line to continuation shots with both teams playing relatively few strict endzone sets.
Defence-wise SYC marked Iceni under, but Iceni quickly adapted and scored from a huck or a quick pop into the endzone after longer down the line cuts. Iceni's defence was focused on hard match defense with key match ups and flashes in the lane to disrupt initial flow. Both sides battled it out in the air which seemed pretty even across the board! Iceni took the half 8-3 / 8-4 (can't quite remember...) meaning SYC had a harder second half. Iceni's small (7 players) but well-oiled offence line got broken once. SYC's offence line were well drilled at moving the disc down the line and hitting middle of pitch continuations. All-in-all a high quality game that utilised the whole pitch and well executed offensive strategy from both sides.
Rupal Ghelani (SYC): Iceni had good deep game, scored lots through hucks. SYC managed to stop a lot of under game and played more small ball. Two different offences. Ellie Taylor and Amelia Kenneth were rapido for Iceni. Megan Brass also had a great game. And Eyan Sham had some great grabs for SYC. Alex Nevitte and Illia Afifuddin also had great games as cutters skying people.
Bristol 15 - 1 RED
Location: Bristol
Carla Link (Bristol): Bristol outnumbered RED having twice the number of players. We used this to our advantage running hard from the 1st point and playing a long game. RED played well against our zone loading the wings. They had great flow when they moved it to the breakside.
Sasha Squires and Ella Knight (Red): Despite the score we’re proud of how Red played. We made Bristol fight hard, turning them multiple times every point just sadly struggled in making that final pass to the end zone ourselves. Shout out to Marina Symington for some amazing runs to the end zone, and to Ellen Phillpot for using her tactical knowledge to help us all to best utilise our strengths.
Iceni 15 - 4 RED
Location: London
Time: Two weeks ago
Hannah Brew (Iceni): We came out strong against RED starting with a break and keeping the momentum to go 5 points up. RED had strong handler movement and clean deep shots from well timed and executed down the line strikes. We focused in the middle of the game to change up the defence to pressure these shots which worked to some extent but RED diverted to strong swing movement which meant we had to work hard to shift across the pitch. Both unfortunate errors and increased Iceni defensive pressure allowed us to generate some more turns and move quickly to go on another run to 9-1. We took a timeout as RED's defensive pressure meant we hit a bit of a wall. After a refresh we came out strong, RED got the turn, but we got the disc back and scored quick. Solid resets and patience from RED got them a goal after a sweet huck. A great grab from RED between a hoard of Iceni defenders took the game to 14-4 and then we took the game 15-4 and accidently played an extra point taking final score to 16-4. RED created a lot of opportunities through well executed handler movement and Iceni were quick off the mark with fast offence which helped us convert those endzone opportunities into points.
Shout out to Iceni Rookies: Megan Brass for getting bookends, Maeve Crowley for chasing everything down, Becky Thompson getting ever closer to that dump poach block, Katie Flight for setting the Tempo after a turn, Chee Ling Wu for some next level breaks, Hayley Dalmon and Ellie Taylor for brilliant offensive control, Jin Ho for hitting shots through defensive sags, Kat Rowland for wide swings, Kathryn Elsby for top notch D positioning and Katie Light for intense handler defence
Sasha Squires and Ella Knight (Red): Red were a little slow off the starting blocks for this game, still adjusting to playing again and competing against such high level women. As the game went on our movement and accuracy improved massively and we got some really nice flow up the pitch, with some amazing end zone grabs (Shout out to Rosie Hudson) and great commitment to defence (Shout out to Rozzi Chalk). However, Iceni’s stamina, skill and aggressive play helped them secure this victory as they punished every mistake we made and made us work incredibly hard for every point.
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