Showing posts with label Takeaways. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Takeaways. Show all posts

9 takeaways from: EUCR-W/UKU Nationals

Editor/Writer: Hazard

Made via special request. As a disclaimer, I was only at the pitches for Saturday.


Schedule
Spirit

Women's
1. Gravity (Spirit)
2. Iceni
---
3. Bristol
4. Rebel
5. SCRAM
6. SYC
7. Throwback
8. Red

 Mixed
1. SMOG 1
2. Deep Space
3. SMOG 2
---
4. Reading
5. Birmingham
6. Guildford
7. Cambridge
8. PELT (Spirit)

Open
1. Clapham
2. Chevron Action Flash
3. Ranelagh
4. Alba
---
5. Devon (Spirit)
6. Rebel
7. PELT
8. XVI
9. EMO
10. Brighton
11. Ka-Pow!
12. YOpen
13. Fire
14. Manchester
15. BAF
16. Bristol

1. Gravity rises as Ireland win their first UKU National trophy
A couple years ago, if you were to guess which division would be the first Irish victory, I don't think you'd have picked Women's. Iceni had stranglehold that looked completely unassailable. However, this is now the second year in a row that Iceni made the final, but were unable to win the final game. This year it is, with all due respect to Iceni, at the hands of a superior Gravity squad. With many of the team coming away with Gold at EUC just a short while ago, Gravity is a side that have tested themselves against the best, and come out top, even without Eurostar Sarah Melvin. 

 Last year, despite coming 2nd at EUCR-W, Iceni still made the final at Euros. They may do the same this year, but you can be sure Gravity will be the team they meet there if they manage it, because you'd be a fool not to be backing the ladies from Ireland for yet another Gold. Oh, and Gravity also won spirit, because they just can't stop winning.

2. Alba have no respect for tradition
The Chevron vs Clapham final is a tradition dating back at least 50 years. Maybe more. And Alba, being 8-5 up at half against Chevron, looked to be entirely unaware that this was not how things were supposed to go. There's been an Alba squad at EUCR-W before, but not a squad like this. Filled with young talent and a lot of WUCC experience via Glasgow and Black Eagles, it was no surprise to see them doing well. But this well? After Chevron clawed the game back in sudden death, they were forced to fight up through the brackets. Which they did...reasonably comfortably. Big plays, big energy, lets see how they do in Italy.

3. SMOG earned their spots
First, I'm informed that SMOG did indeed pick a first and a second team rather than split their squads. You may doubt that, given how well SMOG 2 played. But SMOG 1 destroyed everyone, winning most games (including the final) by at least five. They haven't won the title before, but they've been grinding and improving as a squad for many years, so you have to say SMOG 1 earned it.

 SMOG 2 however, came in as the first second team to qualify for the division, and went straight to the euros spots. I had the pleasure of commentating on their Birmingham pool game, and they showed they were able to hold their own with the top players. Typically on a second team, you'd expect depth to be an issue. Nope. I couldn't identify any weak links in the chain. Yes, there's definitely some areas and connections to tighten up. But they had a lot of grit, didn't give up when they went down, and showed that SMOG is definitely doing a lot right as a club.

4.  Deep Space finally make EUCF
Deep Space have always had one of the best rosters in UK Mixed Ultimate, and always seemed to have one of the best ethos's too. Honestly, when they formed only three years ago, it was actually a little bit of a surprise that they weren't instantly right at the top, even if they were always nicking at the heels (last year's victory of Black Eagles being a key example). Now they seem to have finally got over whatever ghosts have been in their way, and look frightening. It's tough to know what the future of elite UK Mixed holds, and which teams will stay around. But you'd be a foolish player not to bet that Deep Space will be among them from here on.

5. YOpen is the underdog story of the tournament
I can't overstate how proud I am of these lads, even though I have no right to be. Yes, this is personal (YOpen were my first team). But YOpen formed, had a brief sojourn in B Tour, and then a lot of the players in the area were pulled away through retirement/moving/Leeds/SMOG. I've seen how hard the local players (notably Matthew Carson and Steve Wrigglesworth) have worked to maintain a scene and build a Nationals-quality team. This took a lot of time and effort, and even getting to Nationals seemed to be an upset. To then come out and beat Manchester in sudden death with a squad full of nearly all rookies was fantastic to see. I'm aware it's biased, but screw it. Well done boys, 12th best open team in UK + Ireland.

6. Clapham win again
Honestly, when I've played in the Open division, winning the division has never really been on my mind. Qualification for Euros has always seemed a realistic goal, despite the calibre of teams. But winning? Clapham have been so dominant for so many years, and it really is hard to overstate how tough that is. And what's more annoying, is that they seem to have got better as a squad over the years too. Another team you'd back for Gold at EUCF. Since there's nothing else really to say about Clapham for now, four Irish teams in the top eight is also really scary.

7. SCRAM look to position themselves among the elite
At the start of this season, SCRAM were my hot tip for a wildcard in the women's division. Unlike Alba, they seem to have required a little more bonding time to build chemistry, because it's no doubt that they have great players, taking similarly from the mixed WUCC teams. And, while the 5 vs 6 game is not usually significant at Women's Nationals, SCRAM managing to reverse their sudden death loss in the pool stage against SYC and finally get a win against one of the big three teams seems very significant for next season. Scotland has had a lot of recent representation in GB U24s and U20s, so if SCRAM can harness this I'm sure we'll see them challenging big come next year.

8. That final mixed qualification spot was really up for grabs
With a weakened PELT at one end, and SMOG 1/Deep Space at the other, it was really anyone's game for the middle spots at Nationals. SMOG 2, Birmingham, Cambridge, Guildford and Reading all had wins over each other, and many games felt like they could go right to the wire. Reading would normally have been the favourites, but didn't seem to be clicking quite as much as usual. In the end, it ended up with SMOG 2. But for a division which was fairly predictable in terms of top half and bottom half last year, it was really good to see a lot of teams all challenging at the same level.

9. Iceni still have the big game mentality advantage, for now
At the start of the year, I remember having a chat with some friends. Iceni, Bristol, or SYC - which one would come out on top. Bristol honestly seemed the favourites - they've retained a lot of their core squad and have been doing well at tournaments all year. That said, SYC have had a more European focus this year, aside from the one Ranking Event they joined and won. But it was Iceni that came away with that final qualification spot, thanks to a 12-8 win over Bristol in the game to go. All these teams have coaches and captains far better qualified than me to know how to progress going forward. But in this new tight era of UK Women's Ultimate, Iceni seem to have the smallest edge.
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9 Takeaways from: Nottingham Windfarm (Women's/Open UKU Ranking event)

Editor/Writer: Hazard

 As said, I wont be doing full coverage for UKU Club Ultimate this year. However, I attended this one, and thought there were some really interesting storylines to point out. If you'd like to write one of these in future, please get in touch!


Schedule

Women's
1. GB Women
2. GB Women's Masters
3. Bristol White
4. Deadly Buzz
5. Iceni
6. SMOG
7. GB U24 Women
8. SCRAM
9. Hydra
10. Reading Women 1
...

 Open
1. GB Men
2. Chevron Action Flash
3. Clapham
4. Devon
5. Ranelagh
6. Alba
7. Pelt
8. GB U24 Men
9. Ireland U24 Men
10. SMOG
...

 1. GB Men are dominant
Five games, five wins. No team scored more than 6 points against them (Ka-Pow!, Clapham and Chevron). Sure, Clapham and Chevron may have been weakened by some of their best players being on GB Men, but that's still an emphatic performance. 

 2. GB Women are mentally dominant
Sadly, the Women's team did not go undefeated, despite taking the title. A sudden death loss (10-11) to GB Women's Masters means that they had to fight through the brackets the hard way, before winning the rematch 13-7. It's not a great sign to see the senior team lose (although it is nice to see the Masters team are still very strong). What is great to see is the response after the loss. GB Women are going to face a lot of tough games at EUC, so this experience will only have strengthened them.

 3. GB U24 < Ireland U24, for now
Last year, the Ireland U24 team had some fierce match-ups with the GB side in the Open division. While they didn't meet this time, they did end up with similar results and only separated by a single seed. An unfortunate match up against Ranelagh means that Ireland were unable to come higher than 9th. But it looks like this is a game to watch out for at WU24UC. On the Women's side, I believe this will be Ireland's first U24 team, at least for a while. Despite that, they managed to top a bracket and finish 11th. It was more GB U24's impressive performance (7th, with some impressive victories) that kept a distance between the two sides.

 4.  Bristol are shaking up Women's Ultimate
After taking Gold at Spring Break Vienna (a European tournament with some very impressive teams), it was interesting to see how they'd do here. The answer is that they'd have a very dominant performance for a split team, finishing as the highest club team in 3rd. And also tumble down the seeds a bit, lose in sudden death to GB U24s and Red, and finish 13th. Ah, the beauty of split squads. It would've been interesting to see a full strength (minus national players) Bristol team take on GB Women, but we'll have to wait for another time for that.

 5. The Irish refuse to give up, or be consistent
Post-pools, the top Irish teams (Ranelagh/Pelt) seemed to be in the most commanding position in the event, with wins against Chevron/Clapham respectively. Sadly (for them), they then both lost their crossovers, against Clapham/Chevron respectively. Yup, that took me a while to get my head around too.

 6. Any Irish women's team you haven't heard of is to be feared
This might be my personal unfamiliarity with the Irish team, but it seems like Ireland keeps sending over a team with a different name to UK tournaments. And, each time, no matter what they're called or where they come from, they seem to do very well. Deadly Buzz fairly comfortably beat every non-National team in every game they played, although they left early before a rematch against a now-gelled Bristol Red. 

 7. Alba are good now
Rising 14 seeds this weekend (20th -> 6th), you could say Alba had a good time. They've been threatening it for a while, but the lads from Scotland finally entered a focussed open team into a tournament. Scotland has been focussing on mixed for a while, but with the emergence of SCRAM (7th in Women's) and the reinvigoration of Alba, it looks as if they're looking at other divisions again. As the season progresses, this could well be a team that has its eyes on an EUCF qualification spot. 

 8. Thundering Herd know how to name a Women's team, but not a Men's one.
Thundering Herd - Mixed
Thundering Her - Women's
Thundering He - Open. Wait, nope, they went for Thundering Him instead. No, I don't regret spending one of my points on this.

 9. Ranking Events are starting to take on a new structure
This was my first time at a ranking event, and it is still taking a while to capture people's minds. There were a lot of references to "Tour", with the similar competition structure not helping matters. However, it seems as if that is finally starting to change.  A Mixed Ranking Event has just been announced (Highfield Mixer) will be taking place after the third round of Open/Women's events. I wouldn't be surprised to see this continue, with local Tier 2 weekends being more flexible for venue availability. With that said, Ranking Event is a mouthful. Not that I have an easy answer. Also, as much as the flexibility of teams moving around was very nice and ensured competitive games, I did miss not having a C Tour trophy to fight for. 

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Women's Tour 2 2018: An Overview


Writer: Alice Hanton
Editor: Ali Thomas

Twenty women’s teams faced Cardiff’s rain and wind (‘the Nottingham we never had’ in terms of weather, according to Iceni) to battle it out for the Tour 2 title. For Iceni, Nice Bristols and SYC (and players from mixed teams such as Reading and SMOG) this was the final tour before stepping onto the international stage for WUCC in July.

Top 8:

1.      Nice Bristols
2.      Iceni
3.      Reading
4.      SYC
5.      SMOG
6.      Hydra 1
7.      Purple Cobras
8.      RED

It’s reassuring to see the worlds teams occupying the top five, and I don’t think the teams that made the semis will come as a surprise to anyone (Nice Bristols, Iceni, Reading and SYC were all top four at the Windfarm too, although with different final placings: third, first, second, and fourth respectively); however, I believe this is the first tour since 2013 that Iceni have entered and not won. After not facing any full-strength Worlds teams at Tour 1, Iceni were keen for the test ahead of Cincinnati, and they tell me they had some ‘excellently fought games.’ Nice Bristols proved to be their only challenger in a relatively smooth road to the final (which finished 15-9). While a loss is rare for Iceni, I doubt they will be fazed as they look towards WUCC, given their vast experience and strong mental game. The win surely gave Bristols a confidence boost ahead of Cincinnati, for which their performance seems seem to be peaking right on time; their play looked hot all weekend, winning all of their games by at least six points, sailing through pool play and looking untroubled on Sunday. Rachel Dean said, ‘Obviously we’re incredibly happy with how the weekend went for us! We’ve been trying out some new offensive and defensive looks over the last few months which have taken a little while to make fit and it felt as though by Tour 2 it was all starting to come together.’ Their positive mentality is significant: a large squad means an ever-enthusiastic sideline, and this particularly stood out in the final, as Dean notes, ‘There was also a newfound belief that the team could do well; we had a big win at the start of Saturday and from that I think it was the first time we’ve really believed that we could win the final and had the plays to back it up. Now just a few weeks to tidy things up, Worlds is feeling incredibly close!’ Does this mean Nice Bristols can top Iceni at WUCC? They looked the stronger team this weekend and have been improving all season, but Iceni are perhaps more established internationally (this season they were second at Tom’s Tourney in May, Bristol were tenth) and may have more self-belief.
Nice Bristols had a fairly easy weekend, beating all opponents by at least six points
Having stormed Tour 1, Reading had some closer games this time than they would have liked, but nevertheless finished third - no mean feat! Topping a three-way-tie after two universe point losses in the pool, GeeGee Morrison said, ‘Guaranteed top 4 we knew we had more to prove, we knew we were better than the sloppy and panicked team that crossed the Welsh border.’ They were unable to stop the Bristol powerhouse (‘They capitalised on every single mistake we made and showed us what a Worlds team is made of’), but turned up to beat SYC in their final game. Morrison says that ‘Finishing 3rd meant a lot to the squad, especially our developing players, and taught us a lot about mental toughness.’ The connections developed between the WUCC mixed team players over Tours 1 and 2 should prove beneficial in Cincinnati.

Cardiff saw the split SYC squads of Tour 1 come together, and demonstrated their strength by topping their pool easily on Saturday. They will perhaps be disappointed with their loss to Reading in the 3v4 after beating them in the pool, but this is a team that has already proved itself internationally this season (fourth at Tom’s Tourney) and they should feel confident heading to Worlds.


SYC's unsplit squad was still no match for Iceni 

SMOG had an excellent weekend despite losing some WUCC mixed players to injury and work. Their focus was on development, with several non-Worlds players stepping up, and WUCC players taking on bigger roles. Katie Ackerley says of their fifth place finish: ‘We were a little surprised with the result but I think it was thoroughly deserved.’ Such a high placing without a full-strength squad is testament to the depth of the club, and I expect them to remain at the top end of Tour in future seasons.

Hydra’s large squad relished the opportunity to match up against Worlds teams and faced a tough pool (Reading, SYC and SMOG), coming out bottom of a three-way-tie. They dealt well with challenging match ups on Sunday, beating Reading Black and Purple Cobras, and finished the weekend with a close loss to SMOG who, according to co-captain Grace Owen, came out firing and had solidified their connections. Owen is happy with their performance overall. ‘We felt that we had a much better weekend than at Tour 1,’ she said, ‘really focusing on minimizing our unforced errors, except in our game against Reading on Saturday in the horrendous wind!’ This (still relatively young) team is one to watch in future, including at Tour 3 where the absence of the WUCC teams will put them in serious contention for the title.

Purple Cobras and Red were pleased to be playing higher up the seedings this tour, and deservedly so. Both teams had comfortable wins against non-Worlds teams, and met each other on Sunday in a rematch of Tour 1 plate final, this time in the 7v8. Purple Cobras are in their first season as a Women’s team and do not train, but the experience and skill of each player is evident. They had no trouble finding their connections, securing an early win against Brighton to set them up for the rest of the tournament. Red easily topped their pool (Reading Red and Hydra 2) and lost only to SMOG and Purple Cobras. Some talented players head up the Red squad, and they and Purple Cobras will be other teams with high expectations for Tour 3.

Considering the rest of the field, it is uncharacteristic of Brighton (ninth) to be out of the top 8 (they were sixth in Nottingham). Perhaps the absence of ‘talismanic’ Megan Hurst had a big impact? Reading Black finished highest of the second teams, securing comfortable wins against Brixton, Merseyside and GB U20s.

GB U20s had a successful weekend (finishing 11th and climbing 3 seeds) despite having a squad of only 11 (losing some players to exams). Coach Hannah Randles tells me they have been training since November, ahead of Junior Worlds in August. They particularly enjoyed their games against Uprising: ‘even though they lost in sudden death to them on Saturday they were buzzing from that game and it set them up for Sunday.’ They found their groove in a win against Chaos (who seem to be having a less successful season than last year where they finished eighth overall) and rounded out the weekend with a win against Uprising. Randles says that playing Tour was a really useful experience for the U20s:

‘It really is an invaluable experience for the girls to play against such a range of different women. There aren’t that many chances for them to play at junior level and when they do it’s against people they know really well so they don’t need to adapt in the same way they were forced to at Tour. Not only that, it’s a great way for them to see the wider world of women’s ultimate, meeting university players and club team players who they’ll potentially play with in the future […] we’re all really excited for Tour 3 and feeling good about our preparation for Junior Worlds in August. Only 60 days to go!’

Tour 3 in Birmingham will see the absence of SYC, Iceni and Nice Bristols, a depleted Reading and SMOG, and (presumably) the return of the Scottish teams (who will also be affected by WUCC) and other northerners such as LLLeeds. The title is up for grabs and many teams will be eager for the opportunity to finish in the top 4. I would put Hydra or Purple Cobras in the number one spot, but Brighton and the Scots should not be counted out.



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6 Takeaways from: Open Tour 2 (B Tour) 2018


Writer: Anthony Featherstone
Editor: Ali Thomas

Here we take a look at the B Tour event from Cardiff. Given the size of B Tour, I am being fairly liberal with what this encompasses, including the bottom of the Cardiff A Tour and occasionally tapping into C Tour as well.

The top of B Tour can challenge for A Tour
With several of the regular A Tour teams not entering, this gave a chance for some of the teams near the top of B Tour to have a go at the more established A Tour teams. Whilst some of these games looked comfortable, most of them looked very competitive, with the deciding factor often being the number of unforced errors teams made. Making the step up means that teams are less and less likely to give you a second chance, and from pool play the teams which have had A Tour experience or pedigree at these higher levels seemed to come out on top.
Looking at one of the A/B Tour pols, whilst not looking good on the surface for Camden, I am informed that games were competitive and simple errors cost them the wins, and they were able to turn things around on Sunday, reversing their result against BAF in the brackets. In the opposing pool, it looked like Birmingham were the biggest movers. They have had A Tour experience not so long ago and despite a relatively small but skilled squad, they can certainly challenge the top teams on most days. Cobras were perhaps the one outfit which didn’t challenge as much as they would have liked.

Any GB team will be good.
The question is how good, and is this reflected in their seeding? We saw this last year when it came to the U24 squads in both Mixed and Open Tour. They were all seeded around the bottom of A Tour/top of B Tour (or equivalent placings in Mixed), and worked themselves up to the level of established A Tour teams. We saw exactly the same with the GB U20’s this time around, going undefeated to finish 21st with their closest game being a 15-9 win. This begs the question: how far could this side go given the chance to have a crack at some of the higher placed teams, and is the future looking bright for the GB program?
Home advantage?
Simply looking at whose has gained/lost the most seeds, South Wales Storm 1 gained an impressive 12 seeds (starting 34th, finishing 22nd). Their seconds also had a decent showing, gaining 4 seeds. Having not entered Tour 1 there is an argument to say they were under-seeded, but nonetheless you still have to go out and deliver the performances. It’s no windfarm, but conditions were still not the kindest at times over the weekend, so to come out with what looked like fairly comfortable wins is impressive.

Patience, persistence and training pays off
There are several teams that have long been near the top of B Tour and are relishing the exciting chance that Tour 3 brings, with WUCC taking away the top three teams. Tom alluded to this in his article, but there are several teams which will look to give a big challenge to those at the top. Cloud City and Camden are two London sides (one north and one south) who have been competing with each other for a while, this time Cloud City came out on top 14-8. Vision are another team in this camp who may well be eyeing up some scalps at Tour 3. Both BAF and Purple Cobras will have a point to prove after a disappointing Tournament, dropping 9 and 8 seeds respectively. Reading 2 will be looking to make an impact, having made A Tour at Nottingham, but were then pushed down to 16th at Cardiff – how they do without the support of a few first team players will certainly be interesting to watch.

How to balance development and performance
Both Bristol’s and Devon’s first teams had good weekends by most people’s standards, Devon 1 finishing third, and Bristol 1 finishing eighth. The same can’t be said of their second teams however, with Bristol 2 losing 7 seeds in 32nd and Devon 2 finishing down 9 seeds at 28th. Have they sacrificed on development to boost their first team performance? Only they will truly know, but it will be interesting to see how they come out at Tour 3; is it a one-off blip?
On the flip side, EMO 2 produced a good performance to push up into the final A Tour positions, coming out on top IN close games against Cloud City and Brighton Gritty Legends. And whenever there are good development stories, it always feels like Reading get a mention, but when you have a first team challenging the top four, a second team at the A/B Tour boundary and a third team rocking around C Tour, someone must be doing something right.
I think I should also mention Sharkbear, a team largely made up of Warwick university freshers (known as the Warwick Bears). Whilst being nowhere near the top, this is great development for their players and it will be interesting to see them in next year’s uni season.

Multiple events
One of the complaints of the sister B Tour events last year was that numbers were too low, making them uncompetitive until bracket play. Looking over at that schedule, the scorelines didn’t look too different to those of the Cardiff event with some closer and some less close. It certainly looked better by virtue of far fewer teams being capped this year compared to last year. I would say it looks to have improved, but it would be interesting to see what the players thought of it as well.
This feeds into the more generic conversation of what Tour should be in the future (both Mixed and Open/Women’s). Capacity is becoming an issue at venues, so the question of logistics is becoming more pressing. Does the current method of splitting the events work, should there be more teams the sister event, or should there be some different solution altogether?


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8 Takeaways from: Open Tour 2 (A Tour)

Writer: Buzz
Editor: hazard
Schedule/ResultsThis weekend saw 39 Open teams take to the pitches of the Llanrumney playing fields of eastern Cardiff for the second instalment of the UKU tour series. Britain's recent track record of almost flawless weather conditions was put in jeopardy and in true Welsh style, Cardiff fought hard to uphold its reputation for grey skies and persistent drizzle. Thankfully the weather wasn't enough to deter the teams from producing a fantastic weekend of Ultimate.

Here we look back at the key points of OT2, the last major British event before the three qualifying teams of the division head across the pond to compete at WUCC.

1. Clapham domination

Clapham did split their squad into Offensive and Defensive lines at the Windfarm a few weeks back, meaning this was our first look at 21 of the 28-man squad representing CU in Ohio next month. Despite an unfamiliar makeup to the top 16, the West Londoners returned with the intensity and professionalism that they are renowned for. In pool play they found opponents in Devon, Brighton City and Manchester, coming out 15-6, 15-6 & 15-7 winners respectively in these match ups. One of these fixtures, the Devon game, is of course the most noteworthy as they to have also been invited to the USA in mid July. From their last encounter the Devonians had made a marked improvement against the country's elite. Despite this renewed effort Devon were still only able to muster the same scoreline they achieved twice in Nottingham when playing the split O & D lines. All in all, it’s fair to say the weekend provided a pre-windmill run around for Clapham and I'm sure they enjoyed stretching their legs. However if we are to assess in terms of competition, it was almost non-existent.

2. No Chevvy? No Irish? More Ka-Pow!

The absence of Chevron Action Flash, as well as the Irish contingent of the top tier, seemed to create a power vacuum effect on pool play. One team in particular, seemed to seize this opportunity and present themselves as a surprise package. I'm not sure what else you'd expect from a parcel labelled Ka-Pow!. Come 1pm on Saturday, the vigilante London squad had secured themselves a place in the semi-finals with wins over EMO and Reading. However, it wasn't to be plain sailing all day, Ka-Pow showed the Fanseat live stream how easily the wheels can come off if you're complacent in the later stages of pool play, losing comprehensively to SMOG in their last game of day 1. Despite making the semi-final difficult for themselves by dropping a pull late in the game, they ground a win out against Devon and booked themselves a place in their first tour final since their victory over Manchester in 2015 (also at Cardiff). The final itself didn't last long, just 45 minutes in fact, but we've covered CU and I think Ka-Pow! were just happy for an all London final.

3. Devon devowed mental strength?

We are 27 days away from first pull in the states and this is not a time I'd like to bring into question the mental toughness of any team representing the red, white & blue. Be that as it may, needs must, when you're receiving in galaxy point (7-7), turn and concede half there is concern. To then regain advantage and be receiving in universe at 14 apiece and do exactly the same thing alarm bells have to be ringing you have to question the mindset of a team. Now I'm hopeful that this was an isolated learning experience for the boys from the South West , but there are certainly things to work on before their international outing.

4. Where there is no Fire there comes EMOs?

In the not so distant past we had two Fire of London teams competing in the top bracket of play. While it was always going to be difficult to maintain, the complete removal of FoL from A-tour in Nottingham thanks to an impressive Reading 2 side came as a surprise to most, even after the departure of Alex Cragg and Will Routledge to CU. During the Cardiff event a massive 26 man Fire squad did break back into the top division ending the weekend with a top 8 finish. What will be interesting is if they can hold this status when the clubs absent return.

With FoL's slight demise from the high standard of years previous, the door for other established squads to promote second teams into the top bracket was left wide open, an opportunity which EMO took with both hands. Having split their squad for this competition it was impressive that the first team actually climbed two seeds finishing 6th. While many staple names of the East Midlands core played on this team the likes of Ben Poole, Tom Tongue & Phil Brunson to name a few took a trip down to B-tour to strengthen the seconds chances of promotion. An eventual 13th place finish for EMO 2 (including a convincing win against Brighton Gritty Legends) really highlighted the strength in depth this team has to offer. I'm expecting to see big things from the boys in blue as we get ever closer to Nationals later in the year.

5. Reading between the lines... (It's a homophone)

Another team that decided to mix up their rosters a little was RU, which continued it's Tour 1 approach by having Mark Bignal featuring on the third team and Sam Gunbie on the seconds. Despite this, a weakened Reading 1 outfit managed an impressive 2nd place finish in the pool stage before coming unstuck against the aforementioned rampant CU in the semi-final and a hurting Devon in the 3v4 final, which proved too much for them to claim a top 3 spot on this occasion. Reading's result this weekend is, I believe, yet another display of the unparallelled depth possessed by this squad.

6. Get off me son! SMOG resurgence

Having lost their opening two pool games against EMO and Reading, the team from the North East turned up in front of the cameras and blew away Ka-Pow! in their last game on Saturday. Unfortunately this performance came too little too late after having locked themselves out of a top 4 finish, finishing bottom of the pool due to their head to head result against the East Midlands side. What happened from here proves that for one reason or another they had performed well within themselves on Saturday as they went unbeaten on day 2 (for the second tour in a row) and ended up clinching 5th place, even getting their own back over EMO at the end.

7. Purple Pick-up?

Purple Cobras, having fought their way into A-tour, came into the weekend missing several key players that had played a big part in their rise to these heights last tour. I don't think this will be the last we see of this team but consistency is certainly critical if they want to regain and maintain top tier status. With more teams dropping out for Tour 3 (due to Worlds), they'll likely get another shot at proving themselves next time.

8. An unfamiliar A Tour
This weekend saw a lot of teams get their first taste of A Tour in a long time. Bristol almost pride themselves on being the 4th best team in B Tour, yet had a resurgent weekend and seized top 8 (winning their 5-12 crossover against Brighton City). 

 It might also be the first time that EMO 2 and Cloud City have been in A Tour - that latter being particularly impressive as a club that has been building for years which is finally reaping their reward. With Open Tour 3 expected to see no Clapham, no Devon, and weakened sides from Reading and SMOG, you have to wonder who else in B tour may be eyeing this rare opportunity.

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University Indoors in the Past Decade

Writer/Editor: Hazard A couple of weeks ago, I  wrote an article talking about how UXIR has see n a drop in both the number of teams and th...