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Team:
Luke Farmery

George Imbert

Mike Elliott

Eddy Currie

Adam Levi

Jordan Sloane

Andy Glover

Graham Flower

Gopithan Ganesathas

Tim Norman

Alex Finch

Harry Sims

Tom Blackman

Ethan Fitzpatrick

Will Ruse

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Starting Seed – 39th
Final Seed – 42nd

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​Plymouth Ultimate has spent the last 6 months building on the success of last year, and looking to build on our individual capability by building chemistry through regular training. We had mixed success with training’s but came in to this weekend in a good position. We had retained a solid core of players from last year, and had brought in some fresh faces for this year.

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Since the Club formed, we have shown that we have the throws, the hops, the looks, the creepy guy who touches himself in his sleep, but there was one thing that we needed. The kit. From January the (unofficial) Club Committee had been working with Force Ultimate to design some kit which wasn’t blue for the people of Plymouth. We managed to get the kit to arrive in time (just), and we were all set for our first Tour of the year, Nottingham Windfarm.

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The team mum, Gopi, had booked a Travelodge for us all, and we all headed up Friday night, dished out the kit, and relaxed, ready for our first game against a familiar face on top of a child’s body.

 

Game 1 – Reading 3 9 - 8 (W)

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When we saw the pool we were in, we felt confident we could hold our top seed. Playing a 3rd team, we assumed it would be a guaranteed win. But little did we know what had been brewing in the depths of Berkshire. Before the game had even started the heavens had opened, and didn’t look like it was going to stop any time soon. Reading came out strong and made us look a bit foolish. We went 2-0 down after Reading worked it easily up the open-side to go ahead. This was a wake-up call to say that we were not going to breeze through this game. We switched up a bit on our offense and started putting our points in. We traded for the majority of the game, switching back and forth throughout. As we headed towards the end of the game we were one point down and needed to claw this back if we had any chance of topping the pool. We put in our O in to the wind and evened up the game after the hooter had gone. It was 8-8, with the next score winning. We put on our strongest D line, forced the turn and managed to work it in to get the score. We narrowly won our first game of Tour and still had a shot of topping the pool.

On to the next game!

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Game 2 - Brixton 6 – 12 (L)

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Following our win against Reading 3, we were feeling more confident, we had gelled, and felt like we could get the W. As the number above followed by a larger number suggests, it didn’t go that way.

We started out slow and Brixton put a few on the board straight away. We called a time out, had a few words with ourselves, and then remembered we should be playing Frisbee. We got a couple on the board and traded from there. Brixton moved quickly, cut down our offensive options, and really starved us of possession. We managed to get a few more points on the board, but the hooter signalled a game that was lost. Not much to say about this game. We couldn’t get things to work

Ho-hum. We finished 2nd in the pool and had a 40-42 crossover. Brief break and on to the last game of the day.

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Game 3 - Mythago 6-8 (L)

We had played these guys at SWSC with 1 sub and managed to win, albeit in universe point. We were confident going in to it. Idiots….

 

You could say that we started out fairly poorly. Mythago did pretty much what they wanted, taking the openside options and putting in their points. In fact, they put in 4 of them before we put our boots on and showed up (metaphorically speaking. Captain Luke does not appreciate nor accept tardiness). We switched it on, and managed to find some rhythm. We got our handlers, mids, and “Big Men” working like a well-oiled machine, and it worked like a dream. We put some points in and brought it back to 3-4. There were some long long points which tested both teams offense and defence, and also drained the clock. We managed to trade for the remainder of the game, but unfortunately Mythago’s initial lead took the game for them.

Despite not winning the game, this was an important game for us going forward to the next day and the next two tours. This was the pivotal game which got us to gel as a team and work together with some structure. Tomorrow was going to be a lot better!

 

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We headed back to the Travelodge, just in time to put our feet up and watch some over-paid babies with seemingly low pain-thresholds only narrowly beat a team 34 positions beneath them in the world rankings, got ourselves dolled up, and headed out for some dinner. 

 

Game 4 – As Yet Unnamed Portsmouth Based Tour Team 15 - 6 (W)

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Early start for us today, and the people of Nottingham were blessed with a meteorological phenomenon – sunshine. It was going to be a sweaty day!

 

Our lasted addition to the team, Jordan, had some important intel on this team – They had a BNO (‘Big Night Out’ for those older chaps nearing their mid-life crisis...Levi) the night before. And my God did it show. Lots of groans, sunglasses and a smattering of chunks on the sideline. Despite this, Portsmouth were not to be underestimated. They had strong handlers, big receivers and lots of experience. But that didn’t matter one bit to us. We started by trading for around 6 points. Then our boy Blackman became a man. He upped his game and brought the team to a new level. Our defence had been strong throughout, but this was something else. Run through D’s and skies galore. We kept up the intensity and played the game the way we wanted it. Everyone smashed it in this game. #BrownusTownus

 

Game 5 – Glasgow 2 12 – 11 (W)

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Glasgow were a club on the up, with their first team finishing 10th in A Tour. This team wasn’t going to be beaten easily. Their Club is known for having big men with big hops, and their second team seemed to meet that criteria.

We started out the same way that most of our games had, going down slightly to start with, and trading points for a bit. But we turned it up, and managed to get some control of the game, taking the game by the sporran and taking the lead. We took the half with a couple of points to spare. We were in a commanding position, so decided to celebrate my chumping it. We lifted our foot up and let them back in to the game in a big way. Before we knew it, Glasgow were up and the hooter went. 9-11 to Glasgow. We had the O and put it in. 10-11 to Glasgow, game to 12. We put out a strong D-line. Glasgow had the wind behind them and turned the disc. We calmed ourselves, learnt from our previous mistakes, worked the disc up and put it in. 11-11. We put out another strong D-line, pulled to Glasgow and chased down the disc. Glasgow has a few handler movements, get to around the brick mark, and see a man going deep. The guy winds up and goes for a ¾ pitch length huck. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t notice the giant lobster that was a sunburnt Finchy, who swats the disc down with his claws. We have a great chance now and get the disc up to Ethan on the front of our endzone. Our cutters can’t get free. Now would be the perfect time to put in to practice our endzone drill and swing the disc across to find an opening. So that’s exactly what we don’t do. Ethan pops in a disc with less stability than Michael J Fox in an egg and spoon race. Luckily it gets to Glover who shifts himself in mid-air to get his feet in, putting the point in and taking the game. This was a strong performance to come back so late in the game, but to be honest, we never should have been there in the first place.

 

We had a long break before our next, and last, game. Time to put our feet up, get some food on board and enjoy the sunshine.

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Game 6 - Cambridge 10 - 15 (L)

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Going in to this game we were feeling confident. We had lost to these guys early on last year, but beat them later on in Tour 3. We felt we had our offense down, and felt we could end on a high.

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From the start Cambridge put out a hard defense, running hard and fast and cutting down our options. As per usual, we traded for a bit, with the game looking relatively even. Then they stepped it up and went on a big roll, taking half with several points on us. We tried to bring the game back, but Cambridge had too much of a lead. With the hooter gone we were down 8-14 on O and needed 7 in a row to take the game. Whilst a win would be a big ask, a respectable score line would suffice. We carried on and put a couple more in before Cambridge took the game.

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It wasn’t how we wanted to finish the weekend, but overall we were happy with how we finished the tournament. It’s fair to say that we had a similar result last year, starting out slowly and building as we progressed. We are now in a position where we can go in to Tour 2 and force our way in to B Tour. We all had our sloppy moments over the weekend, but we also all stepped it up massively. Our handlers were fantastic all weekend. This is our strongest position, and will serve us well in the next Tours. Our “Big Men” were brilliant and added a huge amount of threat to the pitch, working the under just as hard as the deep, something we lacked in previously. Our cutters worked hard all weekend to make ground on the pitch and provide the handlers with options. To start with we struggled to get our cuts out, but were a lot more fluid by the end of the weekend. On defence, we were strong throughout. We matched up well, ran each team hard, and had some spectacular Ds. Big props here go to George and Blackman. Both deserved joint MVPs.

 

Can’t wait to smash our way in to B Tour! See you in The ‘Diff!

 

 

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