Hey DCU,

So it's not quite Tebboth's level of prose, but I gave it a shot.

On a foggy day in November when the sun forgot to get up, when not even a rousing bonfire could bring warmth to freezing fingers, Downing Eagles set out to battle Trinity on green green (heavily watered) grass of Parker's Piece. As the warm up began, the omens were not good. A captain and several key players out for SB or otherwise missing. A stand in captain nowhere in sight (and I quote: 'sozzle'). Yet heads were not yet bowed. Claire led a super warm up, with great emphasis on the aquatic nature of ultimate (gotta be able to swim to win). Then gradually we accrued late running players, to start the game with 9 (not on the pitch obviously, that's cheating).

Having strategically allowed them to win the toss, we started in defence. The first point was a malestrom (awesome word) of excellent play. Will and Ares handling and some great cuts from the stack allowed us to take the point with suprisingly little resistance. The second point was harder, pushed more we allowed them to equalise.

Entering the third point we turned the tide again, the same combination that had worked so well first time (and the opportunity to push them down to 6 players due to a women defficiency) leading to another well deserved point.

Unfortunately, now that Trinity had had time to wake up, and bring on some of their players who we weren't expecting, the tide turned a final time. With guys over our heads, some beautiful endzone play, a couple of nice layouts, Trinity's total kept rising.

A little before the end of the half, a tactical rearrangement to horizontal stacking allowed us to put up more resistance, plenty of handler movement and good play by Joanna whilst unmarked meant that we could stall them but eventually they still pushed the points in.

The second half continued in the same vein, with Trinity's slight but sufficient extra competence in offence and defence showing through.

The final score line, 13-2, failed to show quite how close some points were, but overall they were the better team. A particular mention to Cameron -valiant in his first game of Ultimate, Joanna with some great use of a lack of marking and to Fraser for captaining in a tough game.

Frove

Will 'Never written a match report but it sure beats Green's functions' Benfold