I’d like to kick this report off by saying a huge thanks and congrats to the whole team. I think our team ethic was undeniable and the envy of some of the other clubs that, for all their skill and comradary, couldn’t possibly have gotten along and worked together the way that we did. Also thanks to Karma and the Indies for coming over and offering us support during games when they were on break, or on the sidelines of their own nearby games. SA Ultimate – we’re loyal. I’d also like to point out that, as usual, any opinions that may cause people to get a little (or more) offended are not expressly the views of anyone, are likely there for humour value, and have probably slipped through any editorial filtering due to the size of the report. Anyway, enough self indulgent waffle (okay well, except really then that’d be the rest of the report), and on to the report.

Day 0 – 09/03/2007 – Departure from Adelaide, Arrival in Tasmania

We’d prepared for this tournament with a 15 man squad that was likely to shake a few teams up, and break into the hearts of our opposition and steal their courage. However it was not to be and we lost players to work commitments, and illness, so there would be some slack to be picked up by the rest of the squad. Despite that there was a relaxed and confident atmosphere at the airport as we began to coalesce into a team in ones and twos. It didn’t take long for the generic UE humour to start up and by the time we’d arrived in Hobart we’d run through all the usual material at least 3 times. Hobart itself was slightly disappointing. It definitely wasn’t the little Auckland I’d been hoping for, though the airport did inform us that we should kindly leave our “rock snot” at the quarantine checkpoint, and not pollute Tasmania with it.

A short taxi ride later and we’d arrived at the Shoreline Hotel, the not so secret base of operations of the Disc Heads for the weekend. Also with us was the traitor formerly known as Sando, now known affectionately as Jerkface. The hotel’s split level 2 storey arrangement wasn’t enough to contain the UE smack , nor the random lame vortex created by the partially expected combination of Westy, Old Man Williams, Morgs, and Rich, so a quick trip down to the fields for recon was arranged. By this time we’d located and roused B2 from his hibernatory sleep that he had begun to recover from an extended driving session from Adelaide. After quite a few throws and some discs on rooves we went back to the hotel for a bite to eat at the hotel. We were surprised to find a live piano player in the dining area, but chose not to request some favourite songs, and instead ate some hearty meals before going off to bed for the night. Also Muff was decided to now be called Map for the next few days, and at somepoint Peter called that we were going to take out Spirit because that’s his award.

Day 1 – 10/03/2007 – Games 1 -4 of Regionals campaign, also UE gains some new jokes.

After a “good” night’s sleep for most (I myself got about 5 hours, while Sando was a little less fortunate due (supposedly) to my tossing and turning) we mosied down to the OK Corral of Southern Regionals (alternatively known as Wentworth Park Soccer and Hockey Fields or something). A Round Robin draw had been built on the ashes of the initially proposed Pools draw so that we’d play each of the other 5 teams at least once. The determined games for the day saw us playing Sweet Chilli (I didn’t see any sauce which was probably a good thing), then Hot Chilli (supposedly the Chilli ‘A’ team – though I never saw BA, Faceman, Murdock, or Hannibal), then Heads of State, and finally Tassie Tig-gers.

Chris had convinced Ali to take stats for us, and Phil had brought the venerable camcorder and tripod to record our games. The DVD package will (or maybe not) be announced at a later date.

After some incessant wailing from the alarm system at the clubhouse that I was sure to bring the heat down on us like an anvil on a certain coyote that is the copyright material of Warner Bros., the first round got under way and I know that while we were playing Sweet Chilli, Karma (the other open SA team) were playing Heads of State. I’m writing this off of a rough draft written that balmy Saturday night that references a day of ultimate, smack, and laughs, as well as a bit of a vague memory of the game (factoring in the several other games, the time elapsed, etc), but I seem to recall that the game saw Chilli eek out a small margin before we fanged that turbo charged UE beast around the performance like a bogan doing donuts in Salamenca (according to Karma and the Indies) and kicking into some wicked scoring. We ran them really hard and busted through their puny human defences before the batteries in our superior Martian skills began to run flat and our unevolved brains started giving off strange instructions about the passes to make. Seriously why bother doing something with a hard earned disc when you have that golden chance to just throw it into the dirt. To be fair though there really wasn’t much dirt around, and the place looked as lush and green as well, ask Scott for a the metaphor he thinks I’d like to use here but won’t. He’d be wrong though, because what I’m going to say is “Denis’ Mum”. Take that Scrote. At half time we’d achieved a 6 point deficit and planned to strike black, just like the empire in the Public Enemy album of that name. Despite relling in the game in an encouraging fashion Chilli still had the juice and filled their goblet for a hearty swig of happiness at the end of the game. We followed the game with a friendly circle and then watched Jerkface and co lose to Heads of State in a close game that turned out to be somewhat of a statistical aberration for them.

During the break some tasty and nutritious fruit was provided for free by the tournament support staff. Unlike some other things I was to claim were free on that day, this actually was covered by our tournament fees, so it was slightly less than free (read we paid for it somehow). We had a brief warmdown and then a warmup for our next game, in which we did an endzone drill as poorly as we possibly could.

Having by now forgotten that we’d just lost to the notional Chilli B-team, we fronted up to take on the A-team of Hot Chilli. Victory number one for the tournament required that we pull the UE school bus into the parking lot so that Chilli could go on a field trip to the Disc Head Institute of Ultimate. Unfortunately mechanical gremlins interfered with that plan though, and we had to rely on the confidence and the fire we’d built in the first game to help us through. Unfortunately Hot Chilli seem to have been practicing with the CFS throughout the summer and easily quenched our fire and then carried out some back burning to prevent further in roads being made. In terms of the game we got off to our usual slow start to be down at the half, and then fired up for the second half to have a good hard crack at Chilli, before being overrun by fresher legs and cooler heads in the end of the game. I’d like to recall some highlights, but all I seem to recall is blah blah blah Chilli, blah blah blah goal. Surely Ali’s stats will provide the full story for the games greater moments, though at this stage I believe pray outs weren’t being counted (not that I required them anyway). To be fair to us, the scroe we achieved is what Karma would manage later in the day, indicating that they may not have been the super team they thought they would be after all. Most likely they were more like the Justice League of America minus superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Batman, Green Lantern, and Hawkman. That’s right they’re Robin and Aquaman.

We were now into the lunchbreak. Ahead of Karma and Indies so we stopped for a couple sarnies, some chips, drinks, lollies, and fruit. By the time we were done we’d gotten hold of a lettuce, and Karma and the Indies were on break (sorry we didn’t stop and lunch with you guys) and we went to warmup for our next match. This was the Heartbreak Ridge of the day for us, the one we were fearing. We were dreading playing this bunch of youngsters scrabbling that seemed to run around the field (and sidelines) like a bunch of ADD cases with a bag of crystal meth. They were on it (I’m not talking about crystal meth now) the whole game while us oldies kept with them for most of the match. In the end the two tight matches we’d just played, their youthful exuberance, our extended cool down during lunchbreak, and their sheer overwhelming numbers were all factors in the Disc Headss Alamo of 2007. Despite the vocal Indies support squad rooting for a UE victory we were like Butch and Sundance looking out of the door at the end of the movie. Our hot cuts, massive layouts, and tight D had them rattled at times, and the shock on their faces when we scored a few points was the perfect contrast to their weird lust for Callahans. While we couldn’t match Karma’s earlier efforts in this game we proved ourselves against the youngsters and showed them how you play ultimate when you’ve lived through watching season 1 of Transformers on TV and have enjoyed the phrase “We’ll be back after these messages”. While we eventually went down it wasn’t like the pitiful stumblings of a drunkard under the constabulary nightstick, it was more like Russel Crowe at the end of that movie where he gets to fight some Romans. The game was finally decided with Phil Shields claiming the extremely dubious “honour” of giving away the first legal Callahan in a Southern Regionals game which may, depending on other Regionals, be the first in the nation. Congratulations Phil, let’s hope you never do it again.

Another short break between games was filled with a short rest, and then some more warmups and drills. Then we went on to play the Tassie Tig-gers in one of two games we had to win to try and make nationals. By this stage were all starting to cramp up, feel our dodgy joints reminding us they were there, and become tired. That carried into the game at times being displayed as an inability to get free of our defenders. We prepared for this game with my beloved Triangle Drill which we executed beautifully. With the pain train well and truly waiting for us at the UE station, large slabs of the Disc Heads team were struggling to stay in the game. The cramp, fatigue and terminal lameitis kicked in just as the game was getting under way. Captain Manning already had a lunch date booked with his opposite number at the half time break to discuss how we’d be playing at time cap, after Tassie had experienced technical disagreements on it at their last game. We got off to our usual slow start and then began to work our way into the game with hot lays, cuts and Ds. There was talk of a strategy, but by this stage I was reduced to a pair of unstable ankles staggering up and down the sideline bellowing at my teammates, before returning to the field in one last effort to leave myself totally lamed in our efforts to burst through some points like were traversing the 213 in a 64 lolo. Biznatches. We really put in the try and pulled it back in the second half. Then someone’s mama rocked up and we were severely hampered by her singing or something despite our in field efforts to produce noise dampening fields. It was a disappointing end to the day that we’d not gotten a win, but we were determined to go harder the next day. Had we the funds to go online and purchase a gonad powered time travel device we surely would have changed the draw to be more in our favour, but we didn’t so we couldn’t. Surely there will be more than one such team around Australia lamenting a similar lack of funds at this point in time.

Taking our 0-3 record with us to the hotel we were already thinking of the next day’s first must win game against Karma in our bid to make nats and get sole custody rights of Anna Nicole Smith’s child. I’d vowed that Sando wouldn’t sleep, and then went to on to spout some nonsense about something being free and thus costing nothing, which became an overnight humour/smack sensation. Not quite up there with “that’s what she said” but it’s close. Jerkface just reminded me it was an 0-4 record, not an 0-3 record. Maybe that counting thing is part of Karma’s winning plan.

The Kanga’s were busy completing their first choke fest of 2007 as I wrote this after a heart meal of chicken & chips, and chinese takeout.

Day 2 – 11/03/2007 – Game 5 of the Round Robin, and Our Finals game

Day 2 started with a lot of groaning, and Sando complaining that sleeping next to me was a nightmare (funny cos your mum didn’t say the same thing Jerkface). We walked it back down to the fields full of energy and a strong desire to womp Karma. We warmed up and got through That Drill From Mixed Nats Last Year before the game got underway. Also Sando looked like a zombie so we got to calling him Zombie Lad. Karma got in for the first point, and they did it pretty easy. Then they got in a couple more that were tighter. Then we got it together and started to smash away at them. Our structure worked really well, with perfect transitions into the usual UE Chaos at all the right moments. We drew level, then took the half at 8-7. Karma were not looking satisfied with that, after beating us by 4 a fortnight earlier in the scratch match they thought that they’d beat us at least as convincingly when we both had our game face on. The second half was a hard fought one, and we kept up with Karma every step of the way before the eventually got ahead and stayed there for a narrow 2 point victory. We’d come so close to winning and we’d put everything out there. We had Peter do the boost bar talk since he thought he could do it better than anyone else and he came out with the name homo layoutus for the next evolutionary step in the ultimate player. This was quickly labelled ghey and then Karma gave us a surprise – their own boost bar. As it turns out this was a finely honed smack as they were awarding it to the best Disc Head in the game and quickly voted for Jerkface Sando the Zombie Lad. On countback this was found to be canned humour and they later awarded it to B2.

With that we were rostered off for 2.5 hours (or something like that) before the warmup for our next game. Some people elected to watch Karma play Heads of State again, and others decided to watch the Indies. I was among the later and saw the ladies start their game strongly in their away strip while playing Tassie. We were also visited by an ultimate friendly neighbourhood cat while we were watching, and were finally lured from the enthralling match by the promise of lunch over by the Karma game. Karma were getting beaten quite badly, and we gave them some sort of vocal encouragement while we were there. After that game we started to warmup for our final match of the tournament against the Tassie Tig-gers again. By that time the otherwise beautiful Tasweigan weather started to turn against us and brought in some horrible wind. The warmup throws were frustrating, though the had improved by the time we got to doing some drills. The plan for the game was to force away, the same way the wind was blowing and get a turnover. Unfortunately Tassie had the same idea and they managed to execute it better, going to half with a deafening 8-0 lead. Our displeasure was evident as we stormed back onto the field and began racking up points. While we may not have won the game we once again won the half and managed to stretch the game out far past the planned 80 minute intervals. The second last point went for an alarmingly long time. I’d like to think it was 20 minutes but I suspect it was closer to 10. Much of that point focused on the awayside corner of our endzone, which saw the disc trapped there for a continuous period of at least 5 minutes. Once again Tassie provided a strong spirit and a fair game.

With our day over we went to go and watch the Final between Hot Chilli and Heads of State which was already underway (that’s how far we’d dragged out our game) and consume some well earned beverages. By that time Karma were consoling themselves with their 4^th place position and similar beverages and the Indies were also relaxing on the line. With most of the SA contingent in the one place it looked a bit more like the end of a Wednesday night at ALFCF and the normal jokes were under way. The final ended up going to Hot Chilli after a magnificent effort on the Heads of State’s behalf. Having no further matches and thus no reason for delay the TD then announced the final results. It was at this point that it became evident that Peter Williams is in fact the alter ego of a super hero that can see the future, as Disc Heads took out a well deserved Spirit win ( a case of beer).

Following a quick game of hacky and a comment from Joel that sometimes UE seem to be thinly veiled nerds, we went back to the hotel to shower and change before going out for dinner. We’d planned on dining with the SA contingent but initial plans dissolved and we went to the Drunken Admiral (not as piratical as we were earlier led to believe). Some returned to the hotel while the rest of us went on for further consumption of alcohol (or whatever Scott drinks instead of) with Karma and the Indies.

By the time I got to bed I was exhausted and ready to get back to SA. For Morgan, Richard, K and Map there was a pillowfight and a slumber party yet to go, before we’d pack up and leave.

Day 3 – 12/03/2007 – Return to Adelaide

By this stage it was evident that I wasn’t going to lose my voice despite my best efforts. However I was just too tired to be bothered laming it up verbally and had to resort to just protracting out our game of Mariokart at Hobart airport. With the team (sans B2 and Nelly on their All Tassie Adventure) safely back in Adelaide and heading to their respective residences, time was called on the Disc Heads Southern Regionals campaign.

-Westy,
Deep within the Westvarian countryside.