G'day chaps and chapesses,

WHO: Downing Eagles vs. ARU
WHEN: Weds 14th March around 15.00
WHERE: Jesus Green
WHAT: The college league plate final kids! Also our 3rd fixture against ARU Darkside this academic year(!)
WHY: Iuno 'cause ultimate is the only thing keeping us sane while we toil through our various degrees?

Final Score: Eagles 9 vs. 8 ARU Darkside

Team: Messrs. Owen, Benfold, Longden, Barnes, Khan, Elliot, Roberts, Skliar-Davies.
MVP: Will Benfold

Again and again we face ARU Darkside, and again and again it proves to be a tough fixture that goes right down to the wire. Last week was no exception friends.

When I rocked up on JG (sans crutches, but sans ability to run) I couldn't see any DCU members through the veritable horde of Darkside players warming up. Our last fixture against them had seen them fielding around 10-12 players but last week there numbers were back up to the epic proportions of previous fixtures. Then, I spotted Acting Captain NOwen, Will Benfold and Camilla diligently shooing cats through the crowd. A pretty sorry turnout if ever there was one (as good as these players are, 3 against 20+ are not good odds). We needed 5 to avoid a forfeit and thankfully CBarnes and Nuha were less than 100 yards away, waiting to be poached from mixed practice. I even considered playing as a walking handler at one point but thankfully NOwen talked me out of it.

Now, normally I'd go on a bit of a rant here about the importance of getting there half an hour before, hitting the ground running, exploding out of the blocks and giving the appearance of an organised team who turns up early so that they don't start the game rusty. However, just this once given it was a weekday and some were at mixed practice I'll begrudgingly let you off. Especially since the previous week you'd all been bang on half an hour early.

Aaaaaanyway, the game got underway a little later than expected, but with Eagles managing a bare 7 with which to take on the swarm. (Credit to ARU who not only agreed to start the game ten minutes late, but also allowed us to play mixed i.e. always matching our two women). After a few points playing man D, Eagles wisely switched it up and went Clam so as not to exhaust their limited numbers too quickly. This Clam was supremely effective, pushing the ARU handlers back further and further until they were forced to throw crap through the roam, which if completed was usually turfed by their inexperienced receivers. We really rattled ARU with this play guys, and it was the smart choice given their superior numbers: the trend of our zone defence suffocating ARU's O continues - credit should go to our chases here, who worked extremely hard to keep ARU on the back foot and did well communicating with each other as to who was marking who.

Our O was OK, we usually relied on good handler movement to work it up before boosting it to someone in the endzone (usually benfold or fraser, who did well as deeps). However a word or two needs to be said on our stack discipline and general cutting. Essentially I think the stack as a whole racked disciprine. We were setting up either too close to the handler or too far over on the breakside, cutting off space for our cuts. In addition, our first cuts were generally late and clearing out was poor, which left the space clogged and the handler under pressure. There were also a fair few cuts without any attempt to fake whatsoever, which as we all well know and have drilled a hundred times turns it into a straight 'who's the fastest player' contest. We'll try and work on this next term, but this is stuff we've gone over guys, and on Wednesday it left our handlers with nothing to work with upfield and having to dump or cut themselves to gain yards.

The game was pretty tight with us trading points, ARU breaking then us breaking back and it went right down to the final point once time had gone. By this stage you could tell we were knackered. ARU were on O but then an interception by SD as the roam, followed by a swift disc to former chase NOwen put an end to the game and granting Eagles a respectable 9th place in the college league.

Cool, any inaccuracies in the report lemme know, my memory's a little hazy

Draves 'hey! dissertation rhymes with procrastination... I wonder what else rhymes with things.... *three hours later*' Avery