World Championships Selections Digest #2

Mixed Selections!

Another weekend, another camp, another city, 9 hours of flying, and more rain. Yes, in traditional Sydney style, the city turned on the waterworks on Saturday morning and flooded the two under-sized ultimate fields that the Australian Mixed Squad had to run on for the rest of the weekend. The term 'fields' is loosely used here to describe an unknown park in Sydney's northern suburbs that is currently being used by the council as a "Trial dog off-leash area". So there was poo as well.

The fields actually started off ok. The grass was a little bit long (in places a disc could be called down even if it was still 15cms of the deck) and a little bit sparse and a little bit clumpy, but the dirt beneath was soft and moist so it wasn't like we were going to injure ourselves. However, as the weekend progressed the fields became softer and so churned up that if you stood in one place too long you might never see your shoes again.

On the bright side, lovely, soft, squishy mud meant that even the most reserved players would jump on the chance to launch into a half-meter high, fully horizontal layout whether the disc was near them or not. Highlights came from an enormous, side-on layout from Brett 'Sweet as' Middleton, which just slipped through his end-zone bound fingers. And the most ridiculously gratuitous layout you have ever seen from non other than Tom 'The Chump' Walcott. Some spectacular layouts were also seen from just about every girl at the camp, but I've only just met them all and can't remember their names.

Rounding off the weekend was an old verse young, mudbath ultimate game. The cutoff for the guys was 24 and over and the cut off for the girls was about 26 (i think). Despite the oldies holding the enormous firepower of John Damiani, Adam Mortimer, Rueben Berg and Al Don, the aptly named 'Degrassi Junior High' young team delivered the biggest upset of the 2008 World Championships campaign by knocking out the oldies 12-9 (approximately).

Now many, many people wait with baited breath for a call from the selectors that will determine the course of their lives for the next 6 months. Best of luck to all of them.

Now, while the mixed squad was trudging through the soppping mud puddles in Northern Sydney, the so called Australian 'Men's' team decided that they didn't need to play any frisbee, so they went Sandboarding instead. Correct that, they got drunk, then went sandboarding, then got drunk again. And then, on Sunday, they played a little bit of Ultimate. So, as I sit at my desk at work with severely painful hamstrings, Paul Denyer sits at his desk at the Water Corp with a severely painful hangover. Awesome.