This piece is brought to you by Ulti.TV‘s Force Sideline
On Monday March 12th we learned who the 32 teams competing at AUC 2012 will be. And guess what – we predicted all of them! Admittedly many teams stood out as obvious candidates, and realistically there was only one match that could have gone either way. But still, the stats don’t lie! Today we have a look at what went down in each region.
North
As we already knew, Firestorm easily disposed of all comers, romping home in the final against Slamtown Flatball Club even with a slightly undermanned team – Chris Davis didn’t even think it was worth driving over from Toowoomba. While we didn’t actually state which order we thought teams would finish in, we’ll do the honourable thing and admit we thought TownsVillains would come fourth, with Gympie and Griffith rounding out the standings. However Gympie’s G-Force pulled off fourth instead, which is great signs for the first year club, and Griffith Heroes came fifth with Dan Cohen doing enough to win MVP. Firestorm will take 6th seed into Nats with Slamtown and Firestorm Ignition claiming wildcards to enter their second AUC. Black Betty will enter the women’s division with 9th seed.
West
In Perth the teams sweltered in 41°C (105°F) temperatures on a reduced one day tournament on the Sunday. Sublime ended up combining into the one squad and dropped only six points in four games. Paul Denyer sat out the day nursing an injury. The game of the day was between Happy Pig and Misfits in the preliminary final, with U20 squad members Jaxon Botje, Monte Masarei, Jeremy Nixon and Sam Francoise all starring for Misfits. Kaos split their squad in two and played a pickup team, with both teams comfortably winning. Sublime take 8th seed into AUC while Kaos will defend their well-earned 6th seed on the women’s side.
East
The big story of the weekend was the game-to-go between Bench and Magnum. Even at Southerns fans were following via Twitter the epic last point that featured four injury subs, many turnovers, five endzone drops and a heavily debated foul call. Bench ended up getting the win to deny Magnum their second AUC appearance. Max Halden, Phil White and Alex Baume starred for Bench. Firestorm couldn’t overcome Colony Pillage or Wombats in the pools on Saturday, and went down to I-Beam on Sunday to finish 6th. I-Beam battled through the weekend scoring convincing wins over Darling It Hurts (who went winless for the tournament) and Magnum, but went down to Colony Plunder 11-8 and Fyshwick United 13-8. It seemed they just didn’t have enough legs for the weekend and Chris Hill was looking sore by Sunday afternoon. The Wombats slotted in around about where we expected, with their throwing and strategy enough to beat the lower teams but couldn’t match the athleticism of both Colony squads or Fyshwick. After gaining a semis berth and guaranteed a top five seeding at AUC, Fyshwick eased the foot off the gas and rested key players. The 3rd place playoff was essentially a dead rubber, as both teams land the same pool at AUC (seeds 4 and 5). Between the two Colony teams, we rate Pillage as the better of the two – the level of sprint speed throughout their squad is enough to make anyone else jealous. Julio Duque in particular had a good weekend, standing out while Pete Gardner, Ken Shepherd, Ant Dowle and Pete Blakeley attracted defensive attention. Pillage won the final 15-11 to take top seed into AUC.
Rabble made us look very silly indeed when they disposed of Sugar Magnolias (13-1) and Black Betty (13-2) in pool play and carried that momentum into the finals where they finished 3rd over Wildcard Mirage 10-6. Meanwhile Factory had a very unlucky outcome in the pools, missing semi finals on a three-way tie between them, Wildcard Bellagio and Sand Dunes. Despite beating Sand Dunes 9-7, their 13-5 loss to Bellagio saw their goal difference not being good enough for top two. They romped through Sunday’s play to finish fifth and take 11th seed for AUC. Kylie O’Brien having a great day out with the disc for Wildcard Mirage, but it wasn’t enough to beat Rabble for 3rd (10-6). Phoenix finished strong on Sunday, with wins over Factory Smokestack (12-2), Sugar Magnolias (10-8) and Black Betty (9-7) to finish 6th. Black Betty’s young squad only picked up the one win (Factory Smokestack 13-2) for the weekend but their Nationals squad should look better. Wildcard Bellagio defeated Sand Dunes 13-7 in the final, with Gaby Melo (Wildcard) and Nikki Shires (Sand Dunes) the star players.
South
We don’t think Sporting Team Box Athletico United were troubled at any stage on the weekend, winning all of their games comfortably. Both Honey teams managed to give them a good workout on Saturday but whenever STBAU stopped experimenting and reverted to what they know the results were never in doubt. As we predicted Smart Honey were the better of the squads, getting wins over Fit Honey on both occasions. Cath Matthews and Kate Sargeant handled well while Kerry Justus and Cara Angel pulled down numerous goals between them. Safire failed to pull off the upset we hoped they would but had some very close scorelines against the top three teams. Ali Clarke was in great form for the locals. Squadron’s results were less than impressive, but their team was easily the most energetic and positive! Sophie Murdoch and Julia Baumann were their best, while rookies Kim Wong and Emilya Toney showed some promise.
The Open draw produced some incredible games. GFUC were on the received end of close losses, going down to Heads of State White 12-11 in the second round, and getting with a couple of both Karma and Chilly. Karma beat HoS White early but were trounced 15-1 by HoS Burgundy. They recovered on Sunday to make their first ever Southerns final beating Chilly in the preliminary final. Alex Britten-Jones and Rian Dutch were Karma’s best for the weekend, with Sam Odgen and captain Jon Warren-White also providing highlights. Chilly relied heavily on their top six players (Luke Stephens, Lee Baker, Chris Folkes, Chris Mulcahy, Steve Thomas and Tim Hordern) with every line containing at least three of four of that group. An calf injury to Mulcahy didn’t seem to slow them down, with Baker and Stephens producing some great plays on both O and D. Rookie Sam Gibb caught the eye of fans with his speed on D. In the game-to-go between HoS White and GFUC, the key moment was the second point, where Joshi Philip beat both Jake Angelovich and Tyler Dickson (GFUC’s two main O weapons) in the air for the first break. HoS White rode that momentum to an 8-2 lead, but struggled to close out the game, eventually winning 14-11. Chris Stephens and Matt Hill were HoS White’s best, while Josh Cukierman and Lewi Broad starred for GFUC. GFUC beat Ultimate Evolution for 5th and have since been granted a wildcard, but lose Cukierman for Nationals and possibly Pete Nixon (knee injury). The final was a one sided affair, with Heads of State Burgundy’s O being ruthlessly efficient. Lachlan McDonald ran open so often many thought he wasn’t even being marked. Owen Shepherd and Keith Hodgson also put in top efforts. HoS Burgundy claimed their second Southerns title and go in to AUC with 2nd seed.
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