Hello DCU

It's been a while since I've written one of these, and I may be a little rusty. On the other hand, it can't possibly be worse than the last one can it?

It was a sunny, but chilly Friday afternoon as I found myself leaving the Whittle lab, wearing my tour stash with a look of hope in my eyes. The reason for that look of hope was not that it was sunny, or that I realised I wasn't going to do any more work for the rest of the weekend, but was in fact that I was about to play some sweet ultimate with DCU. (Also a little bit that I was going to UOIR, ok maybe a lot that I was going to UOIR - seriously, we're going to rock UOIR, but more on that story later, like, Sunday).

As I arrived on the field of heroism that is Parkers Piece, I noticed something rather peculiar. Mostly that the opposition had brought more players to the match than we had - this is not something that happens often to DCU (and not the only infrequent occurrence that happened today, but we'll get to that in a bit). Draves was running what I can only describe as a warmup, actually, it was a warmup, that's just what it's called, why would I describe it any other way? In fact it's not a description, just a statement. Seriously, what's wrong with me? Why can't I just write things like normal people do? It can't be that hard can it?

It turns out I'm not much of a tosser (I profusely apologise for that awful innuendo) and we lost the toss and had to start the match on D. With no wind, it didn't really matter which end we started with, so I picked the one closer to where we were, it was a good decision. Well, it was a decision at any rate. They were kind enough to give us 5 minutes for more players to arrive, but unfortunately, no-one else did within those 5 minutes so we decided to iron-man for the start. After a solid pull, we got a quick turnover near there endzone with some good pressure and after a quick bit of passing between the handlers, I put a floaty outside-in forehand to Draves in the endzone to score the first point. We then did the same thing again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again. They just couldn't stop Draves catching my floaty OI forehands. We also got several stall-outs on them and lots of quite fast turnovers as they turfed a few and couldn't really complete any passes. We took the half 7-0. I was happy, but then again, I'm always happy, I mean, happiness is the meaning of life, right? Or at the very least the purpose to it. Seriously, be more happy, it's great!!!

During the half, I said some things, mostly about the fact that they weren't very good and we were schooling them hard for it. In all seriousness (well somewhere around that region), something DCU has lacked in recent years is a killer instinct and the ability to convert good play into points and today definitely saw an improvement on that front. (Less on the good play side though, there was a lot of me jacking it to Draves/Will/Jon etc. but if they don't cut off that option, we should definitely use it).

We went back on the pitch after the half and scored more points. Then disaster struck. I decided to leave the field of play for a well earned break, and to give freshers more pitch-time, because, well, more frisbee is better than less frisbee and somehow Thundercatz scored a point. They effectively put several throws to the open side and kept jacking up the open side line, eventually resulting in a score. The reason for this was that no-one was poaching at all and in situations where a team struggles to make useful cuts, poaching is incredibly effective, especially if there are some mismatches on pace, as there definitely were today. But what the hell, it's one point. We spent the rest of the game schooling them hard and possibly making them consider renaming themselves to Old Static-Electricity-From-A-Hairbrush-Kittens. The last point was scored in standard fashion for this game, I put a big disc up to Jon, who was near the end zone, he caught it, threw it to Draves (maybe), we won!!!!!

Final Score:

DCU Eagles 13 - 1 New Thundercatz

Something I really have to commend today was the quality of our freshers compared to theirs. You guys were chilly, relaxed and only made throws you were confident with and there were times when you worked well together and weren't just looking for the nearest experienced player if you thought the throw was on. Hugely well done guys. Also, Draves catches everything I throw at him, that was also sweet. Actually, so does Jon. (NB: for those who don't know, we have a new Jon, and he's better than the old Jon in every way, especially in that he's here and doesn't horribly betray all his friends.......... on the other hand, we miss you Jon, come back to us, we love you really!!!!!!).

So moral of the story - seriously, don't let me write match reports, it only ends in tears.

Frove

Nick SD