DCU,

Lions 8 - 3 Homerton
(Sam, Tejas (c), Aly, Kaustuv, James, Emily, Dan, Tebs, Helen, Louis)

Lyans, what a way to continue our form from last term! We met Homerton at the beautiful Grantchester Road pitches today, which would have been perfect had it not been for the atrocious weather! As strong crosswinds blew every throw askew while we warmed up, I'd already started planning out this match report, "...and the real winner today was the wind". Homerton won the toss and elected to play O first, and our plan was basically to throw a well executed zone to trap them to the line, and run a chilly vert stack on the turn. Lions drew first blood but Homerton were quick to pull one back to make it 1 - 1 as the winds (and now rain!) made it difficult for both teams. Still, we took the next lot of points to make it 5 - 1, and after a flurry of more points to both teams we broke the soft cap at 8 - 3. The sun even came out at the end (scumbag sun). Job. Well. Done.

Sweet, now on to the umami fodder of this email. I felt we were top notch today, especially the D game. The cup took a while to settle but quickly merged into a contiguous unit, blocking off the breaks and forcing Homerton to the line, whilst the chase made it hard for any dump throws. The only real way Homerton moved the disc around was by crashing into the cup and I thought we were a bit slow to react to this at first, but no worries as they weren't really moving the disc up the field. Their handlers resorted to a few brave (and sketchy) throws in desperation as we consistently took them into the upper stall counts. It was all good for us, as our wings and deeps were well positioned to block these, and we did get quite a lot of blocks in that match.

The reason our defence worked so well today was simple: Discipline. The wall stuck together as a unit, pretty much denied them the breakside and we let them fall into our trap down the line. I feel we could have been a bit more effective at making and responding to crash calls, but perhaps I'm being a tad pernickety. On offence, we played a classic vert stack with a bit of L stack to get us off the line. The handlers swung it around with some chilly passing, and the undercuts really helped in working it up the field. Homerton poached off us a bit, which allowed us to score from a few long throws. Their force was a bit nebulous and I personally got slightly confused, but it was no biggie. It was nice to see everyone in purple taking time on the disc and using the dump pass to get out of trouble.

Everyone put on a gutsy performance today and if we keep this up all season, there is no reason we shouldn't finish top of our division. Tebs managed to play a whole game without drinking any Mountain Dew, which was the biggest shock of the day. Emily came back after a 7-month hiatus and laid out all over the pitch, including a nice grab in the end zone. Dan was as ever the danger down deep and entertained us with his ubiquitous flying Ds. Aly claimed a few blocks today, albeit one (a point-block) with her face (that's twice in 3 days now), and the handlers ran the "O show" with great pizzazz. The MVP though, had to be James "Blondie" Kenny with his consistent cutting, hard D and some grabs to savour. Mmm...

Credit to Homerton, they did their best to play against our zone today and their game has a much better flow to it.They have been working hard to overcome the spirit issues which have dogged some of their performances in the past and the effect was clear with the way they played a fair and competitive game. We decided to award them a spirit score of 5, which was highly deserved. An enjoyable day was rounded off with European Slappy Ninjas, which "Long-armed Louis" won with with his limbs that came in so handy for us during the game, especially in the wall.

Awesome. I still haven't showered and am really dirty, because I didn't want to delay writing this email and risk forgetting all the details.

Frove,

Cow ...Stuff