Hi Guys,

Sorry it took so bloody long to get this out, but here it is anyway.

Last weekend Fire (2) travelled over to sunny Bristol for the first
Open event of the season. Our first pool pitted us against Discuits,
LLL2, The Brown and Brighton 2.

We started off with Brighton 2, who we creamed 9-0. This wasn’t much
of a game for us so more of a chance to get throwing in the wind.

Next up was The Brown who, lead by Stig “I’ve got a chip on my
shoulder” Unwin, put on a pretty tough zone and did their best to
turn us over and get goals early. Unfortunately for them we are much
better than that and as soon as we got a few points on the board
they started shouting at each other and that made it even easier.
The final score was 9-1.

Then we had to play LLL2. There was a bit of the unknown factor here
as many of their players were new to the Leeds squad, so we came out
hard to get their heads down. It worked and we were able to keep the
pressure on all game, with the final score being 9-4.

Last to play in our pool was Discuits 1.This was our first real game
and one that we, as a team, we’re really prepared for. We played an
effective clam but they basically played huck and D with the
intention of putting the pressure on us and getting the turn early.
In the end we lost this game 9-6 I think. We had a bit of a comeback
at the end but it wasn’t enough and the upwind points were too hard
to get. If it was a longer game then maybe we’d have had the
advantage towards the end but we really didn’t come out of the
blocks quick enough and in a 40 minute game that’s not easy to
remedy.

That was our pool out of the way. Next up we had two crossovers to
keep us in the tournament effectively.

First we had to play LLL1 who had a pretty much full strength squad
and they ended up beating us 9-5 (I think - sorry, my memory’s
terrible). Our belief wasn’t as high as it probably should have been
going into this game, and we were still on a bit of a downer after
losing to Discuits. If we get to play these guys later in the year
then I think we could take them a lot closer and be a real banana-
skin for them.

That was Saturday over and done with. It was disapppointing to end
with two defeats but we were motivated to come back even harder the
next day. Meanwhile however, we had to make sure that we bonded off-
pitch, so we all went for a fantastic all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet
meal with Karaoke too. Unfortunately we couldn’t quite convince Rob
to give us a rendition so we had to settle for the biblically awful
cover of “Ring of Fire” that someone sang. Made for good gags later
though!

Our second cross-over was against Ltd Release 1 on Sunday morning.
We beat these guys 9-2 (or maybe 3). They were bricking it about
playing us, and only had 8/9 players. We did a really good warm-up
and actually did the “throw and go” (or whatever it’s called – that
5 man quick passing drill we’ve been doing for weeks) and that
really helped. In fact, we did that a lot in our warm ups and I
think it paid dividends!). Considering the disappointment of
Saturday afternoon, we played really well and our clam and junk were
fantastic.

Having finished Ltd off quickly, we went and watched the last 10mins
of BAF vs Discuits, knowing that we would be playing the winners
next. BAF had obviously put their all into that game and (courtesy
of the classic Merrick-gets-every-second-pass tactic it came to
fruition as they were able to beat Discuits quite easily. Confident
that we could match their game and certainly deal with Merrick, we
got roused and stuck right into the game. We played some great D to

start and slogged it out to be 2-0 up. Then we were basically full
of confidence and the Ds started coming freely. We played a great
Junk on them downwind, with the offside point of the wall taking the
dump out (mainly Merrick) and as they didn’t have their main man
they just crumbled. Our sideline was great in this game and it made
all the difference – BAF actually had to resort to shouting at their
sideline from the pitch to get them involved as they were just
standing there with their arms crossed wishing it was all over. In
the end we beat them 9-7 I believe.

To our surprise, our next game was against Boogie Knights, a student
based team from the Liverpool/Manchester area. They had some
experienced players and were very athletic. Our clam suffered a bit
in the game, and they got away with some lucky swill to go 3-1 up.
We called a time-out to get our heads together and went out a
different team. Our sideline was a great asset here, and the
composure we showed in this game was a massive step for everyone in
terms of mental toughness. We won in the end 9-6 which goes to show
how ruthless we can be if we put our minds to it.

Our last game was the 7th/8th playoff against EMO. Having lost a
couple of good players this year (one of them Freddie, to us!), they
never really seemed to want to run with us. Probably the best thing
about this game was that we started off pulling into the wind, got
the D, then won the point. With great starts like that this year’s
looking promising! The final score was 9-5 (or maybe 9-6).

Special mentions have to go to Freddie, Luke and Andy T for getting
layout Callaghans. Thanks also to Andy, Troy and Babs for helping me
with tactical, motivational and high gag factor input all weekend.

Bring on Tour!

Steve