Our final day of competition in Perth and we were facing the prospect of facing some familiar competition. First up was 7Express from New York, a team that beat us on Day One to spoil our chances at jumping 10 seeds. As I mentioned in the recap from Day One, we felt we should have won the game, and now we had a chance to prove it.
Playing on the same pitch where we lost to PULA the day before, we felt we were due some redemption on two counts: one for losing to 7Express on Day One, and one for blowing the lead against PULA. What traspired was a good old-fashioned a**-kicking, with apologies to 7Express. It wasn’t that we didn’t respect them (far from it…they were a worthy opponent). We just took our frustrations from the previous day and combined them with the lessons learned to put together a near-flawless game.
Our offense clicked both up-wind and down. Unlike the game against PULA, we moved the disc quickly against zone defense and gave our top receivers a chance to score on our down-wind hucks. On defense, we put pressure on the 7Express handlers and just shut down their receivers. It seemed that every Discuit at some point did something awesome during the game, either on defense or offense.
Even with our dominance, 7Express made one final push at the end, forcing us to work for the final point. And what a point it was. Starting up-wind, we put on perhaps our strongest line of the game against the zone (and I’m not saying it was our strongest set of players…just that the combination worked best). Paul and Rachel Kett handled with Andi Hall, which Rich Turner and myself worked the mid-field (popping, in Ultimate parlance). I believe Helen Turner was playing deep, but I can’t recall the other lady…sorry! In any event, we put on a clinic of patient zone offense, eventually scoring on an easy 5-yard pass to yours truly!
Next-up was another rematch, Zhong. This was a bit of a let-down since we had beaten them already. However, the other choice was Sheffield Steel, a fellow UK team, and one we’d beaten handily a few times in tune-ups. Nothing to prove there, so we were happy to face Zhong.
it was, not surprisingly, an easier victory for us this time around than last. A lot of credit goes to all of the Discuits for playing as strong in our 10th game as we had in our first. This is a testament to our commitment to training and conditioning in the months before Worlds, and it payed off in our final day. Even in the game against 7Express, it seemed we were a step quicker than our opponents at most positions.
There’s not much more to say about the Zhong game. It was a happy ending, and yet a bittersweet one, as it meant no more games at Worlds. On to the parties!
13 hours in a 747. Sounds dreadful, but it wasn’t the agony I expected. And at the end of the flight, I walked out of the airport to the warm air of the tropics.