The Dingo April Newsletter

The Dingos started April by finishing March, and we finished March with a 2 day training camp in Sydney. This was our first official training camp post selection, we did manage to fit in a cheeky bonding camp during February however this time the cleats were out and there were no sand dunes, ping pong tables or clay blow pipes in sight.

We had a number of administrative tasks to knock over during the training camp and we successfully completed the following:

elected Matt Dowle to be our vice captain and work with our previously elected captain Jonathon Potts

welcomed our new coach Rueben Berg to the Dingo team

voted on a couple of Kenny’s uniform options (the green shorts look to be the go this time around)

made some key decisions about our pre-tour of the states, 2 weeks in San Fran, Vegas and Colorado hopefully playing some great U.S. teams

discussed some extra support team members who will join us on our pre-tour and at the tournament. Alex Chadwick, Emma Booth and a yet to be appointed local North American physiotherapist will all be involved with getting the team physically and mentally prepared to play at our peak during late July and August

shared progress with our individual training goals from March and outlined our personal focus areas for the month of April.

One of the things of note that came from the camp for me was that everyone there over the weekend felt like a Dingo. At the bonding camp back in February there were rookies and returning players, leaders and learners – all selected to play for Australia however not all yet Dingos. On the field and during team discussions at the first training camp all the blokes there held the same value as Dingos, we all carry the hopes and prospects of each other, we all need to believe and work hard to succeed. It’s was a good feeling.

Since the start of April the Dingos have been back in their regional areas building for Worlds (and Nationals on the side) in their own special way. The gimps have been getting to know their Swiss balls better, many blokes have been in the gym (or the park with big rocks) working on their cores, rotators and extensors, the track sessions have started and training reports have been going up on the training blog and spreadsheet.

It is a little hard to be fully focussed on either worlds or nationals during April, as I think most of us have the attention of our hearts and minds split a little on each (the proportion may depend on how competitive your nationals team is). None the less if you are watching you will see the vast majority of the Australian Mens team working hard down in Coffs Harbour next weekend.

• Steve and Tim will making it happen Wollongong style.
• Paul will be cutting all weekend I expect with the Sublime boys.
• Anthony, Matthew, Pete and Ken will be running lessons on field 1 with Fakulti.
• Abra, Gus, Gav and Dave will welcome Tubs back on the Barefoot team thanks to some focussed rehab of his damaged knee (frisbee lifestyle injury I think).
• Jonno will be involved in a kind of imposing Canberra team, explain that.
• Tim, Chris and Tats will be doing the business for the I beam boys.
• John L will be defending the national title with one of the two Chilly teams.
• I’ll be seeing what we can get out of the youth (Frisbee wise, not age wise) of Queensland on a Firestorm team.
• Joel is hopeful of being back on the field and leading Karma from the front.
• Dan and Owen will be working desperately to defend their number 1 seeding with Heads of State.
• Brett and Andrew are currently overseas and so will be drinking protein shakes, running around in circles and throwing forehands into the wind somewhere.
• And Pottsy will be coaching the Newcastle women and doing a lot of swimming in order to get his ankle right and keep his enthusiasm to play managed.

So that is the Dingos in April, we’ve been training, thinking, I know I had at least 1 dream, and generally laying the ground work for what we hope will be a great year of achievement for our team, and all the Australian teams heading over to the World Ultimate and Guts Championships 2008.

Thanks for reading. We’ll be back with some more news in May.

The Dingos will see you at Nationals.

Mike