Aussies with altitude

Yo!

This is Pottsy on Gussy's computer.

We are currently in Boulder, Colorado. Much has happened. We flew to Denver from a long but reasonably controlled night in Vegas. We came to play Johnny Bravo, runners up at UPA Nationals last year, and so one goal shy of representing the USA at worlds.

It was a tough game, we were warned (by our hosts) that the disc flies differently up here, and they weren't foxing. There were quite a few pulls and hucks that sailed well out of bounds.

In the end it was a pretty disappointing game for us. Many uncharacteristic turnovers from us, both short and long, and spread amongst our gun players. And we failed to effectively shut down Bravo's deep game.

We could blame the changed conditions and poor preparation (ie Vegas and all that went before), but I think a fair amount of credit needs to go to the Bravo defence, which was fast and unrelenting. A pressure defence creates unforced errors from the offence, as throwers suddenly become less certain of which players are free and want to get rid of the disc before the count gets high.

To our credit however, our defence had a similar effect on Bravo, and there were many points where their offence struggled to advance the disc. We actually came out strongly and were up 2-0 before Bravo rallied and got on D and took the lead from us. We managed to contain the half-time score to 9-5. It was looking a bit like our 2004 semi (vs Condors) all over again, but to our credit, we regrouped and the second half was a lot tighter. In fact, we had the disc after time cap to bring the score to 14-12, but failed, and in the end they took it out 16-11.

No excuses from us, we were beaten soundly by a better team, and we learnt a huge amount from this game, which is why we are spending so much time and money on this tour. Sadly we are still missing some top players (but so were they), we are confident that they will play an important role in Vancouver and I can say personally that I'm looking forward to rejoining my teammates on the field of play.

Post-game the Boulder frisbee crew put on a killer party up in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Played some fun party games with them till late in the night. A last hurrah for the Dingos party crew. We are each dedicated to putting in some more fitness work between now and worlds as we go our separate ways in the next week.

Those who've stayed in Boulder took in a 2 hour session at the track yesterday, followed by a creek swim and dinner at a local brew-pub and then BATMAN!

Today, 7 Dingos went up to 14000ft, twice. Man, that was the most demanding hike I've ever done. Walk 100m, heart rate in the mid 100s, just putting one foot ahead of the other, and then rest till you don't feel so dizzy any more. Repeat many times. I think there will be some good photos. We continue our altitude training over the next few days.

More later...

Pottsy.

Revenge of the Dingos

Best served cold, our revenge against the Condors was dished out on a platter of rubberised astroturf, surrounded by a running track of gold under the setting sun of a warm California sky.

We played the Condors under lights at the Occidental College sports fields in LA at 7pm on July 23rd.  The Condors of '08 are a younger, less experienced team than that which we met in the semi-final at Worlds in Finland - only 2 of those Condors have survived in this team.  The Dingos on the other hand have 12 returning players and for many of us, the semi of '04 was a disappointment that still niggles every now and then.

Coming out of the blocks fired up and hungry, the Dingos man-on-man defence was sensational, shutting down movement around the disc and generating turns through pressure across the field.  Massive blocks from Tim Booth (high overhead contested block) and Gavin Moore (full length layout in the corner of the endzone) were standouts.  The offensive machine looked like the Vogon Galaxy-Crusher Earth-Destroying Battleship fleet as the Condors were so much roadkill across the windscreens.  Tats was on fire, bombing long with impunity and throwing cross field hammers for Glover to pluck from the air for goals.  This was the first full game Glover played after fending off a back niggle, and he had a standout - cutting like a machine and backing up when needed.  He also had a nice assist when he streaked long, jumped for the goal and managed to nubs it so that the disc bladed towards the ground.  The ever aware Kenny Shepherd however was on hand, lurking as always, and made a massive layout to score - reminiscent of Gus' grab in the '06 Clubs Final.

Half was taken by the Dingos at 9-4 and things were looking comfortable.  To their credit, the Condors came out hard after the break and began clawing their way back into the game.  They started connecting with their long game, with Steve Dugan and Matt (a younger handler type) started smashing some backhands.  The pressure slowly built and they finally leveled the scores at 15-15 (game was to 17, win by two).  With a big crowd in attendance (and obviously Condors biased - there were only a couple of Aussie supporters including including Minh (ex Canberra) and some other connections) the US lads were looking fired up.  Some tough points followed, and the Dingos offense stood tall and the D line managed to get the turnover when required, a forced throwaway.  In the end the Dingos won 19-17.

This was our highest quality game of the tournament, and arguably our hardest.  The come back from the Condors was impressive, and it put our entire line under pressure, it was a great game to test our ability against a committed and talented team who wouldn't just give us the game.  The determination of the Dingos and the ability to remain focused at the crucial stages of the game was outstanding.

We are now in Boulder about to play Johnny Bravo.

Jonno, Tats, Chris and Glover.

On the road in Yosemite

Hey Folks,

Quick update from the road in California.  The Dingos have had an eventful 24 hours with an expedition to Yosemite National Park.  We stayed in "tee-pee" style tents at Groveland just outside the park ... kind of what I imagine Graceland would have been like if Elvis had of had 6 teeth, played the banjo and wasn't such a ladies man.  

We managed to test ourselves mentally, physically and possibly even spiritually as the team faced not only an 8 mile hike up the imposing "half dome" but finished the day with a discussion about what it means to be a dingo and what our expectations for the pretour are after a big night out the evening before.  The team really came together after this discussion.  This pretour is proving to provide the opportunities to play against elite level US teams and to become a really solid Dingo unit.  

Light relief for the day was provided by the Tatham, Denyer, A. Dowle, Holmes group in the race to the top of Half Dome.  Slowing to the back of the peleton to take a couple of photos, this group lost the main pack and one wrong turn and 6 miles of hiking later the four of us realised we were on the wrong ridge, on the wrong side of the valley, about 10 miles from the top of Half Dome where the other 20 dingos were ... the word D'oh sprang to mind.  Still we got some great photos of the Dome - as Tatham said "you can't take a photo of the dome while you're standing on the dome"  Both the official hike the Dome and the alternative hike-the-other-mountain-so-we-can-look-at-the-Dome were really impressive.

The magnificent view to Half Dome (at left) from the Tatham-Denyer-Dowle-Holmes Route.

Who would want to climb that thing anyway?

Tonight we head to LA to play the Santa Barbara Condors.  We are playing in the imposing sounding Patterson Football Fields at Occidental College ... playing on astroturf which will be unusual for many of the Dingos, but it is another challenge to be overcome and another scalp that we want to take on our pretour.

California Dreamin'

After swallowing the disappointment of the loss to JAM like a massive sea gherkin the Dingos got back on the wagon today with a convincing victory over another top quality US team - Revolver.  This is the other strong Bay Area team, made up with some Stanford college kids and some wiley old hands.  Dingos from the '04 Kaimana team will remember some of the guys who were on the Stanford team that beat us at that tournament.  Revolver has beaten JAM on a number of occasions this year and are looking to try to break into the semis at UPA nationals this year.

The Dingos were hungry for the game and bolted out of the gates with 3 defensive points in a row.  Blocks from Taylor, Matzuka and Holmes got the dogs on a roll and the Revolver offense was on the back foot.  The American's game was based around short, athletic handler types, relying on a couple of very fast receivers as their main go to guys but the monster Dingo defense was effective at shutting down all but the dinky little inside out throws that Seppo teams have come to love and use quite effectively.

In the second half, the Revolver lads had a bit of a comeback, generating some turns with hard running D, but generally the offensive juggernaut that is Dingo O rolled over the top.  Wavey Dave O'Brien had a really solid game, a couple of excellent "one pass" points where he hucked for goals.  Ant Dowle took some nice overhead grabs, Lavis and Tatham were strong all over the field.

Overall, an impressive rebound from yesterday's defeat and great to get the Dingos on the board with the first US scalp of the pre-tour.  

Even better than the win was the hospitality shown by our humbled hosts.  The Revolver lads turned out a massive feast of cold beer, steak, barbequed hotdogs and hamburgers, burritos filled with 24hr slow cooked pork tastiness ... mmmm slow cooked pork.  It was great to hang around after the game, chat to some of their players and eat some really fantastic food.  Nice work to all involved in that one.

We now have 48hrs of quality rest which will see us head to Yosemite National Park to hike "the Half Dome" before we head to Santa Barbara to play against the Condors.

san fran

Evening folks.

So we've been playing some ultimate here in San Francisco, but we've been doing some other stuff too.

We jumped off the plane and organised some vans to get around. Driving along the freeways north from the airport was a good way of taking in the lie of the land quickly. We arrived at the City College campus and threw the disc around on an artificial football field - very spongy. It is situated on the side of a hill and is open to a lot of wind. The temperature might have hit 15 degrees, but it felt more like 5 with the cool wind. Matt tried to explain the weather system hanging over the SF peninsula, but I didn't take it all in - something do do with hot air going up and cold air going down. So we've noticed that some spots in the bay area can be pretty cold, some areas pretty warm.

Later on Friday, our car (Owen, Dan, Joel and Ant and I) drove over to Golden State Park to play disc golf with Mike and Woody, our generous host. It is a permanent course in the middle of a huge and heavily wooded park. The course is a permanent addition to the park and well set up. It doesn't present the aquatic obstacles of the mac uni or queenscliff courses of Sydney, but was very challenging nonetheless. Pars were a rareity for us.

Saturday we drove to the city for some shopping before heading east over the bay bridge to Berkeley for an afternoon with Jam. Downtown Berkeley is pretty lively and welcoming. We shared a few pizzas and beers with the Jam lads (thanks Greg) before heading west again to the cooler climes of the city area. The night finished at Zeitgeist, a bar with a lot of character and patrons with an equally vibrant attitude.

More soon.

Game 1 - Pretour

Saturday 19th July 2008

Berkeley, California USA

After some earlier morning Golden Gate Bridge Gazing (or 'peering through the fog at a mass of cables hanging from the clouds' as it could more accurately be phrased) - the Holmes, Neild, Glover, Tatham, Lavis car unusually found itself at the fields before any other.  An unusual situation in anyone's book.

Tim Lavis "So what's the big deal about this bridge huh??"

The rest of the convoy arrived shortly after and before long our opposition:  San Francisco JAM arrived.  They had already called yellow for jersey colour, which suited us just fine as due to some form of "technical error" - see Gaia website for that one - we only had the green and green strip.  Still we looked mighty fine when we were all cleated up and ready to run.

JAM are a serious US team.  They made semi-finals at UPA nationals last year and are an established West Coast powerhouse.  

Dingos and JAM

The game began scrappily with some basic errors from both sides, and many of the Dingos looked like they had stepped off a 14hr flight yesterday ... which the majority of us had.  Things started to warm up when Tubby got a massive double handed high block between two seppos that took me back to the Yorsten block of 05 Nats final.  Our offense started clicking a bit better and we managed to take the first half 6-5 (halves being time capped at 45mins).  We decided to try out the Japanese zone we had been practiced, and with a high floaty pull and a hard run down, the JAM offense caught the disc, had a look at the zone, and called time out on stall 8 without throwing a pass.  The zone remains a work in progress, but certainly has potential to throw quality opposition off balance.

In the second half JAM begin applying greater pressure around the disc and on our downfield cutters.  Ken Shepherd was a standout, solid with disc in hand and two memorable 20-30m forehand into-the-wind forehand throws for goal.  Jonathan "Tats" Tatham came off the bench in the second half and was inspirational with his hard cutting and solid throws including a Newcastle special to Tim Lavis who skied some chump to take a very high goal.  

Things remained tight going point for point and before you knew it (well before this reporter/player realised it) it was timecap at JAM 11 - Dingos 10.  We finished the point with a score and it was game to 11.  I don't remember too much of the last couple of points, we made it to 12 all doublegame point and we were on D.  We came out on man and put a lot of pressure on every pass but a bladey hammer that split two dingos and somehow landed in the outstretched hands of a laying-out JAM player sealed the win for the locals.  

To say we were bitterly disappointed would be a gross understatement of the face Mike Neild gave me as we cooled down after the game.  Having said that, we were generally happy with how we played.  Our man-on-man defence was very strong across the board and the team is already starting to knit together into an even stronger unit.  

A highlight of the game today was the support from the Barramundis, who are in town and begin their pre-tour in the next couple of days.  It was fantastic to have some Aussie support on the sideline and it bodes well for Vancouver when there is going to be a massive Australian contingent.

Hospitality in San Fran has been sensational.  We contacted our billet by phone as we were driving to his address, the conversation went something like this:

Mike Neild - "So it's Mike from Australia here Seth ... how are you going"

Seth  " ........ "

Mike Neild "No.. no.. we're in San Fran now"

Seth "......"

Mike Neild "Yeah, so there's actually 5 of us ... not 3"

Seth "....."

Mike Neild "Well we were thinking of going out to dinner somewhere if you're keen to join us"

Seth "...."

Mike Neild ".....really"

Seth "...."

Mike Neild " ..... no ...  no none of us are Vegetarian"

Seth "...."

Mike Neild "well that sounds sweet, we'll see you in 20mins"

(hangs up)

Mike Neild - to the rest of the car - "so Seth's cooking us spicy sausage and rugala pasta sauce and we're all good to stay there."

Rest of car - "sweeeeeeet"

Dingos with wings

G'day folks

Its Saturday, its San Fransisco and its pretty exciting to be in town.

Over the last 48 hours the Dingos have said good bye to our family, friends and country to chase our Frisbee dreams.

We negotiated the 13 hour flight as individuals and small groups to arrive on Thursday and Friday up here in California. After a few individual detours we meet up as a team at the San Fransisco City College playing field for a team chat and throw around.

We are currently split up and staying with various members of the 2 teams that we will be playing this weekend. The generosity and hospitality of the international frisbee community is as always a pleasure to be on the receiving end of.

This afternoon we play our first tour game against West Coast powerhouse and 2007UPA semi final team San Fransisco JAM. We then have a match up on Sunday against the other top quality team here in town called Revolver.

We are eagerly anticipating these excellent opportunities to play as a team and build our confidence for the big show in early August.

We are all here safe and comfortable and looking forward to sharing some travel and frisbee stories soon.

Cheers

Mike