Anyone who knows our very own Jonathan Neeley of Inside Breaks knows that he loves bullet lists. In honor of Neeley, here are my day four bullets – random thoughts about my experience at Worlds so far I had to get on paper:
- The grass at the field complex is exquisite and meticulously manicured. The Sarasota Polo Fields have nothing on Sakai’s J-Green. However, the excellent fields come with limitations: players are not allowed on the grass fields and must watch the games from the edge about 20 meters from all sides of the fields. This detracts quite a bit from the spectator experience. The turf, however, has full access and has garnered raving reviews; the type of material being used really cuts down on turf burns.
Believe it or not, this is natural grass, not turf.
- The Australian teams are the surprise of Worlds thus far. They’ve been preparing for WUGC 2012 for a year and a half and the results of their hard work are clearly evident. The Open squad is undefeated and the Mixed Barramundis have only fallen to Team Canada. In preparation, they decided they needed to play top US teams at least twice in order to improve. En route to Worlds, the Dingoes (Open) scheduled showcase games with Rhino, Voodoo and Sockeye in the Northwest United States and also attended Emerald City Classic in Seattle last year. The Barramundis played at Potlatch just before flying over to Japan. I wonder if we’ll see more teams go this route in future World Championships.
- The German teams are having a tough time of it. The Mixed team is 1-4, having lost two games on universe point today (to Colombia and Great Britain). The Women’s team is 3-3. The Open team is 3-2, but lost a tough one to Australia today, letting them run away with it to win 16-12 after being down only 8-9 at half.
- The Canadian and Japanese teams are completely undefeated. 23-0. I’ll let their records speak for themselves. We may see a lot of Canada-Japan matchups in each division as the tournament winds down.
- Overheard at Worlds:
- “It’s kind of hard losing to a team wearing overalls…” James from the Barramundis on their semifinals loss against Paidea (George Stubbs, Grant Lindsley, Chicken, Kyle Weisbrod, etc.) at Potlatch two weekends ago.
- “Just give it to him, we all know he fell down!” “He fell down? No, he got fell down!” Conversation between Barramundis player and German mixed player about an alleged Barramundis trip of a cutter in the end zone.
- US Club Player sightings: Many players were talking about “that Jolian Dahl (Chain Lightning) look-alike on GB Open” until we got up close and found out it really was him. Meanwhile, former Sockeye mainstay Jaime “Idaho” Arambula is here and is coaching the Mexico Open team.
Jolian Dahl, who has British heritage, has suited up for GB Open.
- Masters is an incredible division to watch and needs to get more love. I was witness to a tense Canada – Great Britain matchup with around eight contested calls per point and a few flaring tempers. Canada ended up pulling out the win 14-11 after the cap went on. Meanwhile, on an adjacent field with considerably higher spirit, the French masters team pulled out a surprising come-from-behind 16-15 win over New Zealand.
- Womens featured a clash of two prominent Ultimate countries, USA and Japan. After building an early lead off the defensive layouts of Emily Damon, the Americans let the Japanese creep back into the game. Japan took a 14-11 lead before USA roared back on the play of their four woman cup. However, it was too little too late, as the Japanese offense held and defense broke to win the game 16-14.
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