Santa Delivers to UQ Lovers

The tree has been decorated, the presents have been wrapped, the rum balls have been rolled in coconut and the drinks fridge has been filled. Time for one last little pressie - a gift from us here at the DojoMojo Blog to anybody out there with an eye for top shelf Ultimate.

Well, maybe not the very uppermost shelf. With the Grand Final of Brisbane Premier League Season 3 2008 being postponed for a week, both the finalist teams found themselves losing key players to pre-Christmas travels. Messy Bugs were worst hit, losing at least 3 or 4 key guys and resorting to gun pickup Kristen Nott (from sister team Slippry, and one of only two females playing in the BPL) to make up a seven-player line. Facing up against a Lovers team missing really only big Julian Sacre, the Messy team were going to have to work a Christmas miracle to win their fourth (?) straight title.

So, with that intro let's get into the action:



More turnovers than goals! Not the most impressive game we've ever seen. And on it went:



Halftime saw Lovers way up and the crowd more or less giving up on the prospect of seeing a tight contest. Could Messy find a way to hold onto their hard-won reputation? Here's how the second half started:



But don't stop watching just yet - with the final looking like it was heading toward another blowout the focus of the UQ boys seemed to drift towards the contents of the post-game esky rather than scoring the winning goal, opening the door for a Messy comeback. But surely they couldn't come back from 15-8 down?



So there you go. A brief slip-up toward the end, but an easy win for UQ Lovers was never in doubt. Final score must have been something like 16-11. We're calling Pete Allen as Player of the Match, and not just because he kept his power grip flick in the bag.

And while we're here, we should also give a standing ovation to Dan Walls who this season took out both the DojoMojo Blog's Above&Beyond title and also the Brisbane Premier League's Most Valuable Player Award. So it's not just us that reckon Dan is the absolute business.

Next BPL season starts mid-late January 2009 and of course the coverage here at the DojoMojo Blog will be live (within reason) and uninterrupted as usual. Perhaps there'll even be the odd post in the interim...

Bob-a-Job with Pete Allen

Some people know Pete Allen as a young man capable of destroying the game of any frisbee team simply by tipping it to win. But we here at the Dojo know him as a mild-mannered student (not really sure what he's studying) who, unlike most other Gen-Y kids, earns his pocket money the old-fashioned way by doing odd jobs around the Dojo gardens.

Before he had to run off to lectures yesterday he spent the morning raking the pebbles of our meditation courtyard into patterns resembling waves breaking on a rocky shore, and when he'd finished we chatted for a while about our semifinal last week and the upcoming BPL Grand Final between his team - UQ Lovers - and Messy Bugs. Here's a sample of the insights Pete had to offer:

DojoMojo Blog: Beautiful work with the rake as usual, Pete. It's understandable that a man with your delicate touch finds using the power flick grip a little tricky sometimes... Now - let's firstly discuss our game last week. Try as we might, we just can't actually remember Lovers scoring 15 goals in that game. It's like you guys won without us really noticing! Can you explain that???

Pete Allen: I can’t really explain that win at all last week, the first half was pretty terrible on our part in terms of offense but the defense really kept us in the game, along with some dodgy offense from you guys as well... The second half is where we really got away with a few breaks, slowly building the lead. I’d like to think that the telling off from Buzz during one of the huddles struck a nerve with the whole team and made us play a heck of a lot better (I believe it was mainly directed at myself for multiple wayward short flicks at the start of the game *cough* flick powergrip sucks *cough*).

DMB: Yes, there was only 1 point in it for a long time there, but as the legs (and brains) of the kenshi started running out of steam the big plays started to be less and less successful. No doubt the many easy turnovers and errant hucks from the Dojo were a welcome gift?

PA: As unusual as it is to see Dojo turn the disc over it did happen a lot during the game. And yeah it was a little bit of a gift. Maybe this is why Dojo hasn’t won a semi-final this year. But that is the game of ultimate - you can have the best game ever one day and then not catch a disc the next. I reckon the main reason that can blamed for Dojo having a plethora of turnovers was that you warmed up. You should have stuck to the old faithful Dojo email warm-up.

DMB: Hmmm - well, that'll teach us for spending too much time at The Cultimate Opinion. And with that loss we've clocked up a hat-trick of semifinal losses for the Dojo this year. As much as it may not be in your best interests, is there anything in particular you think the kenshi need to work on to redress this situation?

PA: Losing a hat-trick of semi-finals is not ideal but when you keep playing UQ in the semis it is bound to keep happening. They don’t lose semi’s that often (or is it that Dojo doesn’t win semi’s - I’m not too sure). What I envision for next season is a semi-final where UQ doesn’t play Dojo and we end up with a Dojo vs. UQ final. That is what the people of Brisbane want to see. For you guys to pull this off though, you may have to think about getting some younger blood into the team sometime in the near future. It may hurt to do it, but then you’ll at least make sure the Dojo Way continues in the years to come.

DMB: Yes, well we've got some plans in motion on all of those fronts. And if only Dojo hadn't been handed a penalty forfeit earlier in the season then that dream of a Dojo v UQ final may indeed have been realised tonight... But no matter. Can we expect to see more of the "strong silent type" of play from Lovers in the big game tonight, or will you perhaps be letting your long game off the leash? It's only Wetnose guarding the Messy endzone, after all...

PA: Not quite sure what you mean by “strong silent type” of play, if you are referring to the improved short game we have this season and the fact that we don’t talk much then maybe we will see more of that this week, but it will be intermingled with the massive long shots we are capable of even if Julz decides to go to Sydney early (Wetnose doesn’t really phase us, even if he has become quite a force in the air). I’ll be doing my best to woo the opposition players into a conversation on the field before suddenly busting long.

DMB: Yep - as far as we're concerned, the "conversation fake" is the primary benefit of a classical education... And lastly, which player from each grand finalist team are you expecting to see something really spectacular from?

PA: My picks for plays of the game on Thursday are: from Messy - Silent George, who is freakishly fast across the ground, and maybe he’ll dive to take a spectacular goal or something; and from Lovers - Al Don will get a massive D to win the match. All in all if the game actually happens then it will be the most spectacular game you will witness this year.

DMB: Then let's hope it does! We'll certainly be at the fields with the video camera at the ready, hoping to see an epic struggle for end-of-year BPL supremacy. Thanks for the chat, Pete.

The Only "Training" We Do

As we glide out of the city headed for the restful Dojo gardens in the hills, reclining for the next hour or so in the the airconditioned luxury (spartan as it may be) of QR's long-distance service, we find ourselves at last with some time to reflect on the win that should have been last week on Field 2 at AJFC.

Perhaps that's not actually a good thing, as thinking back over the game instantly sends the mood of this writer plummeting, and with no video to show from our last outing of 2008 there's plenty of writing to do...

Or maybe there isn't. We could instead fulfil our duty of reporting on Dojo exploits this week simply by confirming that the semifinal between Dojo and UQ Lovers resulted in Lovers winning 15-10 and advancing through to a Grand Final matchup with Messy Bugs. Basically a replay of last season's final except UQ will have Al Don and Bugs won't have Mike Neild - so hopefully a much more exciting game for the spectators.

Anyway, a brief analysis of the lost semifinal would run something like this:

- Dojo makes spectacular play
- Dojo throws it away (or just drops it)
- UQ plays consistent, simple Ultimate all night and wins easily

From memory (this blog hasn't been around long enough to just check through the archives), the last Grand Final that the Dojo appeared in was this time last year - three whole seasons ago. That game was a memorably tight tussle against Messy Bugs, and eventually a 6-man Dojo (after two kenshi were taken out of play with nasty injuries) was unable to keep up the pace and lost by maybe 2 or 3 points. But the dogged commitment that characterised the Dojo play in that game has really only been seen on a few rare occasions since - this season in particular has been characterised by a glamorous but high-risk style that relies more on sheer talent than grit and determination.

So as we go into the Christmas break it could be said that DojoMojo finds itself at a decision point. Come good on the promise of the tall & talented roster by ramping up the commitment or just kick back and cruise knowing that we can still be strongly competitive during the regular season with minimal effort?

Hopefully this decision will be made over the break and the outcome will be made immediately obvious on the field. We can also confirm that a few changes to the Dojo roster will be taking place before the next season rolls out, and these alone will further enhance Dojo's prospects into the future...

And that's about all that seems prudent to divulge right now. We're also keeping up our sleeve the identities of the all-star cast that will be joining the Sensei in the commentary box for this Thursday's Grand Final game, but we can confirm that those invited are very experienced and opinionated campaigners...

Lastly, but crucially, the final A&B poll for Season 3 is updated to the right, and given the way the system works EVERYONE is still in the running! Who will join Matt Eastburn on the A&B Honour Board? We'll know in just a few days.

Secateurs and Beers with Julian Sacre

Yesterday, as we put down our gardening implements and wiped our brows after a long day of tending our rapidly-growing azaleas and black pines, we wandered back to our main Shoin via the bamboo grove with nothing in mind but a long, cold Yebisu beer. Rounding the corner we shouldn't have been the least bit surprised to encounter the unusually large silhouette of a steadily permbulating Julian Sacre.

Pleased to see him, but also keen to quench our thirst, we invited him up to our southern verandah for a drink and a chat about this week's much-anticipated (especially thanks to the rain delays) BPL semifinal matchup between DojoMojo and UQ Lovers. Here's a selection of the spiciest moments from our conversation:

DojoMojo Blog: Julz - who better to share a post-stroll, pre-game beer & a chat with than your immense self? Now - we see the only BUB tipper not actually involved in this weeks semi (Jangles) is backing Dojo to win. How does it feel going into the game as the underdog, despite Lovers' star-laden roster?

Julian Sacre: Its interesting that you choose to give out the underdog tag based on a sample size of 1. And that 1 is none other than Jangles! If we accept that he's representative of the Brisbane frisbee community then we're all in big trouble. But underdog or not, this so-called star-laden roster has been talked up in many circles from the beginning of the season, which I really don't think has been justified. If you compare the two UQ rosters there is very little separating those teams, and indeed the rest of the teams in this week's semis.

DMB: That may be very well be true, Julz. But then we also note that Pete Allen is backing Lovers, his own team. Sure - this is admirably faithful of him, but has he forgotten his uncanny knack of ruining a team's prospects simply by tipping it to win?

JS: I am backing Pete to put in a man of the match performance and reverse his tipping fortunes in the process. He took some huge grabs in last Monday's final squeezed between opposition defenders and is in top form. If he could only start using a power grip with his flick, he'd be unstoppable.

DMB: Well, he certainly says he's been reviewing footage of his flick and has some sort of devastating new move to unveil this week. At least we're hoping it's this week, or otherwise he's already unveiled it and nobody noticed... But now onto a man whose power-grip flicks we could all spend more time studying - Buzza. Who has been allocated the crucial job of escorting Mr Burwell to the fields?

JS: Buzz is so pumped for this game, he's already at the fields waiting. I drove through Annerley this morning and saw him throwing high 50m blades to himself. Rumour has it he was actually unavailable to play last Thursday (possibly due to your aptly timed 4:59pm intervention), so that storm may have been a really bad turn of luck for the kenshi.

DMB: Actually Julz, all our strategies rely entirely on Buzz being on the field - we'd be more lost without him than you! And speaking of key contributors, who do you think will make the biggest (successful) layout grab/D of the night? Not Andy Lankowski, presumably?

JS: Andy who? Nah... Dan Walls is the man.

DMB: "Andy who"? Perhaps three replays of Coopers' stunning layout attempt from our last game against your pink-shirted colleagues wasn't enough for you? And when it gets down to the semis it's a shame we can only video one game at a time. So what about the other semi? No doubt it'll be a tough tussle between the two Bug units, but which one do you reckon will still be standing at the end of the night?

JS: A 'tough tussle' alright. Based on recent history with those teams, we can only wonder whether those words might describe the game literally. If Wetnose calls a foul on Mat Ryan for breathing too loudly, we should all be on high alert. Assuming the game concludes in a manner that resembles a normal game of ultimate, I would expect Messy to come out on top. They've had a very consistent season and have a very experienced roster.

Hmmm, well then we'll leave the trash-talking of Liam and the Messy boys for next week (that's if they can get past their Slippry flipside tomorrow night!) - mostly as it would also implicate your teammate Stu Austin, and we wouldn't want to upset his delicate composure this close to a big game...

Another beer, Julz?

Straight to the Point With Liam

It's 4pm on the day of the BPL semifinals, so we thought we'd sneak in a quickie with that most balletic of Ikebana (and sometimes Ultimate) masters - Liam "Wetnose" Gillions.

This is despite him making some rather "pointed" comments on our previous post, but we love that stuff.

So - while Liam was placing fresh orchids about the place we asked him to make a few quick tips in relation to tonight's semis. Here's what he had to say:

DojoMojo Blog: Righto Wetnose. Let's get straight down to it. Which teams are you tipping to win tonight's semifinals and 5/6 playoff, and why?

Liam Gillions: Teams to win: Messy, Dojo, Double forfeit.

DMB: Which of tonight's games do you expect to be the closest and most exciting, and why?

LG: The 5/6 playoff will be very interesting to watch. I don't know if a 4 man Rawhide will really have what it takes to beat a 3 man Passion. Should be an interesting zone defence set up though.

DMB: Which player(s) do you expect to make the standout contributions in these sudden-death matchups, and why?

LG: Whilst obviously Julz with be skying Sensei in the Dojo/Lovers match up, I think Mike Neild (if his ankle is alright) will stand up, like he always does in the big games.

DMB: Which player(s) do you expect to rack up the highest number of throwaways, and why?

LG: Throwaways will be a tie between Jason Ray, and Matt Eastburn. Tony Ross to throw the most hammers.

DMB: Who would you pick as your 3-person "dream team" to put in the commentary box for the Grand Final coverage?

LG: Obviously you would need to have myself in the commentary box (if not playing) but also would need M Ryan and J McNaughton for some good trashtalking and actually well informed commentary. Keep Sarah Sandford & Will Churchill well away from the commentary though.

DMB: Very interesting, Liam. It's always good to know that a spot in the commentary box awaits those that don't make it through to the big game - we'll be sending out our invitations as soon as the finalists have been confirmed!

*As we publish this post the terrible news has come through that tonight's semifinals have been postponed to next week, presumably due to the rather fearsome electrical storm currently passing through...

Last Ride Into the Sunset?

It's Monday. Four full days after the rain stopped for just long enough to allow the final round of Brisbane Premier League for 2008 to be played (without completely destroying the fields) and yet nothing until now here at the DojoMojo blog.

And it gets worse - there's no video this week. With no Marijke, and just the one wobbly-handed sub available on the sideline at any time, the camera stayed sadly stowed in the kitbag. Luckily we've got last week's highly gratuitous, failed layout attempt from Andy Lankowski to enjoy over and over again until the finals get started this Thursday night...

So, in the interests of providing quality (if not quite up-to-the-second) Dojo-related BPL reportage, let's quickly look back to that last regular season game against Rawhide. Hmmm... Well, what sticks in the mind from this distant vantage point is that it was a reasonably perfunctory win for the Dojo. The highlight of the night from this writer's perspective was without doubt the precision hammer for a goal from Matt Eastburn to a full speed receiver flanked by a pair of defenders, neither of whom were more than a couple of steps away. Sadly that set a precedent which many others attempted to emulate (without success) later in the game... Final score was 15-7.

The Rawhide compadres were as well-spirited and keenly competitive as ever, but not unlike UQ Passion from a few weeks back they just don't have the depth of numbers to tackle the Dojo this season. In fact, they may very well not have the numbers to even take the field next season - a very unfortunate state of affairs. It seems those UQ and Bug mega-teams just keep gobbling up all the fresh new talent, like the Microsoft and Apple of Brisbane Ultimate. If there are any entrepreneurial youngsters (or oldsters) out there wanting to step out of the shadows and shape their own team, now would be a good time.

Anyway, the A&B poll is updated for voting as usual on the right and most importantly - vote for us in the logo battle over at The Cultimate Opinion. As this post goes online we're just narrowly in front of team "AIR", about whom we know very little.

The Scottish Play

Our worst fears were realised on Field 3 of the Annerley Junior Football fields last Thursday night.

Sooner or later, we knew that all this video coverage would lead to trouble. You know what we mean - amongst us there are always going to be some with that certain disposition, that little weakness. They see the reaction that one little layout can cause and they can't help themselves. They yearn for a taste of that adulation, that feeling of heroism, that sense that they may be high-fived at random in the street by someone who happened to witness the feat.

The game started out sensibly enough, and DojoMojo quickly moved out to a comfortable lead with a combination of good choices on offence and strong commitment on defence. Here's how the first half went down:



But with a chunky lead in the bag, those suffering from Macbeth-style personality flaws saw their chance - especially when our fab filmographer Marijke Walls decided to try a new camera angle from the back of the endzone... The free-for-all that ensued was thankfully only brief, and to extend our Shakespearian analogy (this one's for you, Roger Church) Birnam Wood was kept well away from Dunsinane Hill, but it was long enough for Andy Lankowski to make his fateful bid at fame and fortune. It's buried in the middle of this second half footage, but we've repeated Andy's moment of near-but-so-far-from-glory a few times to make sure it can't be missed. Here we go:



So that's it. With that lengthy gag at Andy's expense we've pretty much neglected to mention that the game was a fairly straightforward success for the Dojo, especially once we got the message that Chris Cunliffe was going to pull down pretty much anything thrown long unless it was deadly accurate. But Chris and the Passion boys really missed the services of John McNaughton and just didn't have the throwing depth to keep pace with the Dojo on this occasion. They certainly made up for that with their high-spirited and unrelenting workrate, spurred on by Mr Armpits himself, Piers Truter.

Anyway, that's it for another round of BPL. Two rounds to go until the finals, with Dojo set to play Messy Bugs and Rawhide in the remaining regular season matches. Previous form this season is a 15-10 win over Messy (or a Dojo forfeit if you believe LD Stu), and Rawhide failed to field a team. Plenty of motivation there for cracking Ultimate all round then...

And as usual, the A&B poll is ready for voting. Ryan, Stefan and Mike, the guys who seem to have access to the most computers, all took sickies this week so we should see a rare round of voting that is entirely reflective of on-field play...

It's Japanese for "Rice"

Yes, that's right. It's no coincidence that a man of unstoppable determination such as today's guest has a surname more commonly used in the Dojo to describe our favourite source of carbohydrates - and that man is Alistair Don.

Whether it's Unagi-don, Yasai-don, Katsu-don or Tempura-don, there's no staple accompaniment of which we at the Dojo are more enamored than some perfectly steamed "Don". But just look at the video from our game against UQ Lovers last week and you'll see that Al himself remained ice cool throughout - throwing bladey swing passes and zipping the disc through "informally arranged" Dojo fences with a noticeable sense of detached abandon.

So after leaving nearly a full week for the air to clear we invited Al around for a chat on our Southern verandah, where a most pleasant view over our gardens can be had, especially late in the afternoon...

DojoMojo Blog: Good to have you here again, Al. Whilst we enjoy the reflections of the setting sun off our rocky-shore-style pond onto the needles of the black pines, let's consider our game from last Thursday. There was some very clinical Ultimate from Lovers in the first half, Al. Of course most of us know this season's Lovers as a team of big throwers and big catchers, but many mightn't have noticed just how much depth of handling ability your team has?

Al Don: Yeah it was a pretty good first half of the game last Thursday. The Lovers team this season is tall and certainly looking pretty good in terms of strike throwers and receivers. But along with that pretty much everyone on the team is more than capable of moving the disc around and maintaining possession... Most of the time at least. We did have a few unfortunate examples of how not to do just that later in the game.

DMB: Yes - it seemed like a little bit of miscommunication or lack of time as a team (or both) might have crept in there. But normally you wouldn't have to worry about these trivialities if you could stick with your normal gameplan, which we recall Julz describing as "letting Buzz look after the offence"... Have you organised for someone to finally get Dr. Burwell some driving lessons? Or found him a regular chauffeur?

AD: I've been offering to teach Buzz how to drive for years. Had a funny encounter with a certain South American lady [Al is referring to the longsuffering Mrs Burwell here, for those unfamiliar with the entomologist in question - DMB] in Indooroopilly Shoppingtown one Saturday last year after she'd found out that I'd made such an offer... But up until this point in time he hasn't actually taken me up on it. So the status quo remains and I'll continue providing a limited chauffeur service for Brisbane Ultimate's man most knowledgeable about the local insect life.

DMB: Well that does sound rather annoying Al, especially given the lengthy drive between Chez Burwell and the AJFC fields. Must've also been annoying for the Dojo to finally take your very own strategic advice (i.e. just huck it) and put it into use against your own team...?

AD: Annoying? Probably not the word I'd choose first. Like I said in the huddle at the end of the game I was absolutely gutted that we managed to throw away a 12-9 lead, give up 5 straight points and go on to lose 14-12. But the way you went about doing it was actually pretty exciting. The first half of the game you went for quite a conservative offence, completing a lot of passes, recycling the disc well but giving up enough turns to enable us to get the jump on you and take the lead. Second half you came out, backed yourself to take some more of the big shots you're capable of on offence and kept up enough mongrel on your defence to keep on getting the turns you needed.

DMB: Yep - it certainly felt like the right way to be playing at the time. Any stand-out moments from the game stick in your memory (it's okay to use the video as a refresher...)?

AD: Dan Walls...

Hmmm, yep - Dan Walls... Think he might have scored 4 of 5 of that last ditch run for the game. A couple of big grabs over a couple of our big defensive receivers. We just didn't have an answer for it on the night. Great to see him back in the game and playing like he'd never left it.

DMB: It sure is, especially as he brings our resident cinematographer to the field with him every week as well...! Okay - lastly, we're now more than halfway through the season. How do you reckon the finals favourites are shaping up, and out of the non-Grand-Finalists, who do you think should be providing the video commentary in the big game?

AD: Finals at this stage are a tough call with, for my money, no team set apart from the pack of the top 4, even top 5 teams. I still think that passion have a chance to put together enough wins to make it to the Semis. Both buggers teams are playing solid ultimate and always get better when it comes down to the pointy end of the season. While the Lovers haven't really been managing to put it together for whole games for a large part of this season I think that we've got the roster to do the job and are going to feature on finals nights. And if the Dojo maintain the intensity you showed last week I think that you're the other team to beat. Still reckon we're going to be looking at a Lovers v Dojo final...

Commentators for the night? Personally I'd love to see Messrs Sean Flanagan and Tony Ross, two of my favourite Brisbane Ultimate stalwarts, get just a little boozed, take the mic and heckle like there's no tomorrow.

DMB: Well, that would certainly keep our post-production crew busy for weeks bleeping out half the commentary for general consumption, but it'd be worth it... And great to hear your own post-game comments as usual, Al. Now, how about some nice steamed rice?

Okay, okay!

Yes, we're aware that it's now Tuesday - five days since our rip-snorting game against UQ Lovers. But when one takes into account the rural situation of DojoMojo headquarters and the positively Heian-period telecommunications technology it's serviced by, these little delays start to seem quaintly charming rather than plain frustrating... Don't they?

So let's not muck around with lengthy descriptions of the game. Here's how it went down:

The first half saw Lovers score more or less two goals for every one of the Dojo's. They played some really, really smooth Ultimate, throwing sharp passes to just-open receivers and capitalising on Dojo mistakes brought on by committed defence, mostly of the man-on-man variety.

The second half? Well, at the very least Dojo managed to hold the game to a points-trading situation for the first 4 or 5 changes of end, but then with time fast running out things took a significant turn. But before we go too far, let's show some video highlights from early in the game (and be thankful that the steady-handed Marijke Walls was back behind the camera):



As we said, lots of quick, precise disc movement in there from UQ, contrasting with a pretty static sort of dump-n-huck offence from the Dojo (not to mention some fairly casual defence!). No wonder things were looking grim. Here's some more action:



Starting to look a bit more fluent for the Dojo now, with a trademark grab from Dan Walls at the end there. And what about the hangtime Ryan got on that high grab over Stu? And as much fun as it'd be to speculate that the wildly errant pull earlier on from Pete "The Kiss of Death" Allen was a pivotal moment, it's more likely that the multi-turnover point which Dojo finally managed to grind out was where UQ started losing a bit of belief and Dojo did the opposite.

Anyway, the video never lies (especially with our factually-faithful editing), and what you'll see below is a Dojo team in vintage form with the long throws and big grabs flowing freely. You'll also see (or moreso hear - time for a language warning!) a few Lovers' tempers start to fray (if they weren't frayed already by pre-game shenanigans) as the Dojo serves up the style of play that the Lovers themselves are usually notorious for:



And there it is - Dojo claws its way back from 9-12 down to take out the game 14-12 in pretty supreme style. Yes, UQ were missing the unparalleled throws of Buzz Burwell, but Dojo were also missing the non-stop mongrel of Gold Coasters Mike and Stefan, so we're calling it a fair fight at the very least and a very satisfying win. Especially considering we were in UQ's shoes this time last week...

That's it for now, then. As usual, the Above&Beyond poll for this week is ready to accept your votes for players that trumped their usual game (please only vote for yourself once this week, Ryan), and the current A&B standings have been updated below that.

Also of note is that if you scroll down you'll now see links to all the official Ultimate organisations that are relevant to the game we play here in Brisbane, and for those needing a rules refresher the latest WFDF Rules of Ultimate are linked below that.

Check back shortly for a chat with that most Wolverine-esque Lover, Alistair Don.

Sipping the Sake with Mat Ryan & Mike Neild

Some people eat lots of chocolate or ice cream when they're anxious or down about something. But here at the Dojo, on the rare occasions that misfortune strikes and gloom prevails we find instant comfort in the familiar flavours of a big bowl of tofu miso, served up just how we like it at our sushi bar.

And it seems we're not the only ones who enjoy pulling up a seat at the Dojo sushi bar and asking our ex-sumo sushi chef to serve it up "omakase onegaishimasu"... Stepping through the half-height curtains we immediately noticed Mat Ryan and Mike Neild busily knocking back the contents of a very large sake tokkuri while they tucked into a fabulous array of sashimi. And we thought Jon Good had a big appetite!

So we placed our order and joined them at the bar for a little recap of last week's game. The discussion went something like this:

DojoMojo Blog: Mike, Mat - it's great to see you chaps here. No doubt we've all spent a fair bit of time thinking back over our last game during the week, and it'd be good to hear things from your perspective. Firstly - how did it feel coming away from that game with a win when moments beforehand a loss looked inevitable?

Mike Neild: That was a famous victory and it felt great. It is the obvious closeness between towering success and crushing defeat that makes sport such an emotional experience. I think we were right up towards the top end of that continuum of emotion due to the narrowness of the win and the highly unlikely nature of the result. We've been talking about it all week.

Mat Ryan: Indeed we have. You know those rare and special moments when everything falls into place just perfectly? Like the time when Miss Alexander's blouse popped open in English class in Year 11? It was kinda like that. It was like we snuck in, pinched the crown jewels and got away with it. That said, a lot of the euphoria was due to the fact that the team played as well as it possibly could to steal the win. Everyone was totally focussed and played the perfect game at the perfect moment. You could just feel the focus and intensity. Magic.

DMB: That sounds very familiar - if only that focus & intensity was something that could be reproduced on demand... Now - coming into the game, all looked pretty normal with the Slippry warmup. No special strategies formulated to deal with trademark Dojo tendencies?

Mat: Mike's probably got more to say on that. I don't think we had any special strategies. We recognise Dojo as having a long roster with a lot of throwing strength. I think we spoke about keeping the pressure on and not making it easy... But not much more than that. It's not rocket science.

Mike: We probably talked more about what we wanted to improve in our game than we did about how to combat the Dojo game. We did consider avenues for dealing with a 'German' style set up from you lot, and about the forcing options we would take in our man on man defence. Things have changed in the Dojo with the addition of the height, throwing power and experience of David, Ryan and Daniel and so some defensive adjustments are required. But the reality was that the strategy that worked the best for us was something that we didn't plan to use at all.

DMB: It didn't seem planned from our end of the field either, but it was certainly effective! And what do you call that Zone D you played against us when you were down to six?

Mike: I've don't know what that zone is called. I was a bit dubious when James was explaining it at half time, but my goodness did it work.

Mat: That zone is called 'got no other options'. But somehow it seemed to work. It actually felt far better than many other 7man defences I've been involved with. To be honest, I think Dojo might have won it if they'd played a bit closer to their regular gameplan. It was almost like you expected to just walk it in, so you didn't take any chances, and we were able to build pressure and finally get a turn.

DMB: Yes - that much is also very clear on the video footage. And dare we suggest that dropping down to six players actually worked in your favour, as the six you ended up with had proven to be the most dangerous on the night?

Mat: As above. Part of the success was the focus that our 6 applied, but maybe part of it was due to the change in mindset that happened to the Dojo. As Phil Jauncey says "If you've only got plan A and plan B, don't try plan C". I dunno. A combination of total focus from our 6, a bit of luck and a seed of doubt in the minds of the opposition, all converging at the most propitious moment...

Mike: Look it was a turning point in the game however it is difficult to really believe that playing with one less person on the field could be an advantage. I'm inclined to agree with Mat on this one, and I always agree with anyone involved in the 3 time premiership winning phenomenon that was the Brisbane Lions of the early 2000s. Maybe the Dojo just got a bit too comfortable with the position they were in - it seems in line with what I understand of the vibe of the Frisbee Dojo.

DMB: Perhaps we did start to cruise a bit, but that mess-in-front, Mike-at-the-back zone is one you guys should really develop. And talking strategy, we noticed that you recently had a win over the UQ Lovers, next week's opposition for the Dojo. What sort of gameplan would you be taking into this match if you were calling the shots here at the Dojo?

Mike: Put your guns on Al, Buzz and Stu and make them get it going backwards rather than forwards towards their line. Be enthusiastic and energetic on both offence and defence. There is a bit of a weakness of connection that occurs when all the Lovers players are closely marked. They should be the best team in the comp based on their list however something just hasn't clicked yet. The rest of us have to keep up the pressure on them because if we let them and they do connect then it will be troubles for us.

Mat: I'd say just do what you do best. Play your own game. Perhaps send Ryan streaking long a bit more, because you're not getting the full value out of him in a dedicated handling role. That long cut from a handling position can be very effective. Particularly when you've got another tall threat to worry about in Dan Walls. It can split the defence. But hey .... Work it out yourself!!

DMB: Thanks chaps - we'll do our best. Now, would you mind passing the wasabi?

* 06.11.2008 postscript - Turns out we've been spelling Mike's surname incorrectly all these years. Sorry about that Mike - it's now been set right (at least in this post...).

Group Therapy...

Here's the scene: The alarm signalling the final point of the match has just gone and the score is 12-12. The team to score the next goal will win, and DojoMojo is in the advantageous position of starting the point on offence. All that needs to be done is to weave the disc past an opposition that has recently been reduced to six players after a string of injuries. But it's their six most in-form players, three of whom are current Australian representatives, and they've managed to claw back a two-point deficit thanks to gritty determination (and some poor Dojo play), in the last four or five points played...

The pull comes down, a few passes are thrown and some yardage is gained until a fuse in the brain of Matt Eastburn blows and he hucks it high in the direction of Slippry's dominant big guy Mike Neild (and apparently a Dojo receiver running long as well). The inevitable turnover sees Slippry work the disc steadily back towards the Dojo goal. But with only six players on the field (of whom only 3 are really taking an active part in play), it's not easy to get into the Dojo redzone and an impatient pass is thrown just out of the reach of a typically desperate Mat Ryan...

Play then resets where the point started – on the Dojo goal line – and this time the Dojo are patient and smooth, making good progress with open cuts up the field. So open in fact that a Dojo receiver is standing stationary in the Slippry endzone completely undefended when the disc goes up – the win is in the bag!

Apparently not. The catch isn't completed, heads hang, and Slippry move the disc back easily past a demoralised Dojo defence to score the winner... It's still a very painful memory 4 days later.

But that was just how the game ended. On the way there there was a lot of sweet, sweet Ultimate played. Dan Walls and Mat Ryan both went horizontal in spectacular style, the usual big Neild grabs were in plentiful supply, Jangles was poachy as ever and plenty of long Dojo bombs found their targets. And it's all on video thanks to the injured but still present Stefan Rappazzo. Check it out (please excuse Stefan's shaky handheld work - it took him a few points to work out that walking is not compatible with stable filming):



The second half had just as much action, not to mention the disastrous conclusion described above (but not to be seen on video due to a shortage of battery lifespan...) - here are the highlights:



So that's it for this week. Dojo lose out to Slippry 12-13, but do so knowing that a different result is well within reach in the finals and with plenty of motivation to draw on when the time comes... The Above&Beyond poll is updated to the right, and we should see some interesting movement in the standings this week.

And now that we've put all that on paper and let go of the disappointment we'll hopefully be back at our conversational best with a Slippry Bug in the next couple of days.

Preview From the Bamboo Grove

Most people would agree that having Wetnose as the most recent DojoMojo Blog interviewee for 10 days is long enough. Many would also note that seeing the Dojo anywhere near the bottom of the BUB blog list (presently occupied as usual by the Buggers blog) is a situation needing immediate rectification.

As it happened, our usual posting pattern was interrupted last week by a non-starting game against a forfeiting Rawhide crew. No game played, no video recorded, no post-game discussion to be had - what to do? And the answer of course was to be found wandering around the Dojo bamboo grove on a Monday afternoon as usual - big Julian Sacre.

So we strolled together for a while, chatting off the cuff about the work of Sun Tzu, and instead of analysing a previous encounter we contemplated the match-ups ahead for our respective teams in BPL Round 6 this week. Here's an excerpt from the conversation:

DojoMojo Blog: Julz - I see you're tipping a Slippry win over Dojo in Round 6. Why is that?

Julian Sacre: Well despite the spanking you gave them earlier in the season, I think they've really got their game together since then. They were quite impressive with a close win over us last week, they have a lot of depth and consistency across their roster and of course, the gun player in Mike. I think they're the more formidable of the 2 Buggers squads this season and the team to beat this league.

DMB: That's a big call Julz, especially when you consider that Pete Allen has put the kiss of death on the Slippry team by tipping them this week... But okay then - if they're such a threat, let's say you were asked to come up with a couple of strategies to take the Slippry Bug wearing the #1 shirt out of the game on O and D. What would those strategies be?

JS: Not a new strategy by any means, but I think putting maximum pressure on the gun throwers who will put it to him is the way to go. Mike will always do his thing in the endzone and there's not much you can do about it, but you can definitely do your best to shut down the strike handlers.

DMB: Our thoughts exactly. Now - who are you tipping to top the Dojo's "Above & Beyond" voting for this round, and why?

JS: Dan Walls - MVP for a reason.

DMB: There you go Dan - another member of the ever-expanding Walls fan club. And lastly Julz, you're playing the other Bug team this week, and the tips on BUB are going each way. How do you plan on following in the Dojo's footsteps and beating Messy?

JS: Going either way? Pretty sure only Wetnose and Will Churchill have gone for Messy so far. Wetnose is hardly an unbiased tip and Churchill... well... enough said. Last time we played Messy it was a tied game, however given that we were down 8-3 at half and it was the first time the new-look Lovers were playing together, I'm pretty confident we can come out ahead tonight. After much pondering of strategy over several visits to the bamboo grove this week, I believe that hard running on D will be required to generate blocks. Buzz will then take care of the offence. Easy.

DMB: Sounds like you've got it all worked out Julz. Thanks for the chat.

Liam Gillions Adorns Our Tokonoma

Anyone familiar with the art of serving tea would know that no teahouse is complete without its Tokonoma, and the Dojo's garden teahouses are no exception. Of course, the Tokonoma itself is just an alcove, a “place of beauty”. Without a decorative feature it's just a void waiting to be filled. And naturally, who would be more up to this task than that inveterate void-filler himself – Liam Gillions (known more frequently, and rather obscurely, as Wetnose).

Many local Ultimate players know of Liam primarily as a deep-end danger and keen scholar of the game, never afraid to make the big calls. Few would ever have suspected that in his spare time he is also the Dojo's go-to guy for the Ikebana arrangements that so often adorn the otherwise vacant Tokonoma of our various garden teahouses (Johnny Mac chips in with the occasional calligraphy scroll as well). And it was while Liam was doing the rounds with his basket of sparsely-but-elegantly arranged flowers that we invited him in for a freshly whisked cup of green tea and a chat.

DojoMojo Blog: Liam – as usual the delicate beauty of your floral arrangements is inspiring. How you manage to play a tournament all weekend and still come up with this Ikebana genius the very next day is mystifying. Now - thinking back to last Thursday night, the game started out tight for a while, but once the Dojo saw the chance to take half it pretty much pulled away from there (late run from Messy aside). Even though it never seemed one-sided on the field, why do you think the second half went to the Dojo so convincingly?

Liam Gillions: We just did the simple things wrong. It doesn't matter how many turnovers or fouls you can generate, if we can't catch a disc then we aren't going to win the game. We had at least 3 uncontested drops in the endzone during the night, and when you add to that the numerous cold drops and cases of people pulling out of discs that they could clearly have caught you have a recipe for disaster.

DMB: Phew – tough! Sounds like there must be some Messy Bugs out there quaking in anticipation right now, wondering what sort of captain's correspondence you'll be landing in their collective inboxes over the next couple of days... Care to say exactly what you'll be emailing your team about during the week (and working on in your famous pre-game training sessions) as performance issues to address in the leadup to your next game?

LG: Like I said before, it is just the simple things that let us down. Our systems were good and our D wasn't awful. We were generating blocks, but just turning over simple catches.

DMB: Sounds like nothing to fear after all – just a gentle “please catch the disc”... Speaking of which - everyone knows that Jason Ray isn't a happy man unless he's got someone to huck it to. Any new guys stepping into that high-pressure position this season?

LG: Doesn't everyone want to cut long? Isn't that where the glory is? I am stepping out of that role a bit this season to give the other guys a bit of the run. Guys like George Salisbury (aka Silent George) and Damien Wong are guys that tend to fly under the radar, but certainly have the legs to go long and go there quickly. The whole team, with maybe the exception of Nandor, are young and quick and can all move, so I don't think it will fall onto the shoulder of just one or two people.

DMB: Well, at least that's one person we won't have to worry about marking long then... And Nandor – if you're reading, Liam asked us to make sure we clarified that he meant those comments in the most positive way. No doubt you'll sort out your differences in your own time & fashion... Anyway Liam, sticking with the topic of people you don't want to mark long - now that the option of just hucking to Mike when all else fails (or even straight away) isn't available, how do you see the Messy gameplan changing this season?

LG: We have a more experienced line up on Messy this season. This Buggers split this season was to put some top end players with our rookies on Slippery, and put a fairly experienced and well rounded line up on the Messy roster. This allows us some more options in terms of our reliability with our throws and knowledge of the game and positioning.

DMB: Well, whether that means you're using this season to build for the future or not, everyone playing BPL knows that neither of the Bug outfits are ever going to be easy opponents. So lastly, it'd make a pretty good story if Messy could make the final this season despite losing its erstwhile leader. Which other team will you be expecting to face if you make the distance?

LG: It'll be great if we can get there, and we will certainly be putting all our efforts into doing that. Obviously UQ have decided that they are sick of Mike having the trophy at his place, so have stacked the Lovers team and left JMac and the Passion boys a little short. I think the four semi finalists will be Lovers, Messy, Slippery, Dojo. I just hope that Dojo don't face Lovers in the semis, as you don't seem to have much luck against UQ in semi finals do you Sensei?

DMB: Ahh - good to see the pre-finals trash talk starting before we're even halfway through the season, Liam. And strangely unsurprising to hear it coming from yourself, an otherwise gifted practitioner of an art form as subtle and understated as Ikebana... Talk to you again when you next come by to refresh our suibans.

Lessons in Foul Calling

It's been a while since DojoMojo defeated a full-strength Messy Bugs lineup, but Round 4 of the current BPL season saw the Dojo return to form and roll in a pretty straightforward 15-10 victory against the old Bug foes.

[To those that have complained about this post being too long in the making we do extend our apologies - normal service will be resumed shortly, and with Mixed Nationals happening over the weekend we figured few would notice...]

So - what to say about the game? Well - on reviewing the footage it has to be said that there were only very few flashes of real high-quality play (and several instances of the opposite...). Most of the 80 minutes was spent in the conventional manner against this tough Bugs team - struggling for psychological, rather than physical superiority. Just witness the finals coverage from last season to see how normally-great players (and even Julian Sacre) can crumble under the mental pressure of the red-shirted Bugs.

But not the Dojo. At least not this week... Cheeks were turned and implosions were avoided as the goals just kept on being caught (barring the odd Wetnose block). To make up for the slightly lower-than-usual spectacle of athleticism that last week's game was, we've taken a few editing liberties to ramp up the controversy a bit instead. The handy film work was as usual done by Marijke Walls, who as you'll hear is able to carry out a conversation about home decorating and film a game of Ultimate simultaneously. Looking forward to receiving the comments on this one:



If the title of this post didn't make sense before then presumably it does now? Some interesting exchanges there, especially the sideline comments from J-Ray and the response from Stefan, but most were resolved in the well-spirited manner typical of BPL play. In fact all this video coverage has got us thinking that knowing the world may be watching is a sure way to keep the Spirit bar high.

We couldn't resist scrutinising at least one Wetnose call either - hopefully he'll drop by shortly to share some of his own views on the game.

And that'll have to be it for now. To the right you can see that we've devised a new voting system that we're calling "Above & Beyond". It's similar to the old MVP system, but it differs in that it rewards individuals for exceeding their own standard of play, rather than that of their teammates. So vote for whoever you thought had a cracking game, regardless of whether they were the best on the field or not...

Will Churchill and the Sea of Tranquility

With the night sky over the Dojo's wooden garden pavilions illuminated by a full moon these past few nights, we knew that Will Churchill (known to BUB readers as will-i-am) would drop by for an evening of serene moon viewing. No doubt it comes as a surprise to many that Will's lunophilia is of a purely celestial, rather than puerile nature, but there you go.

While we sat by the edge of our reed-lined pond observing the reflections in the water we delved into a discussion on our game last week and some of the big issues surrounding the Brisbane Premier League right now. The conversation went something like this:

DojoMojoBlog: Will, as usual it's a delight to spend a quiet evening composing lunar haiku and discussing the finer points of Ultimate with you. I'm sure you'd agree it was a tough game for the new-look Passion crew last week. It seemed like your team (which now appears to consist of mostly young/inexperienced guys) ran hard early but quickly lost interest once the Dojo got its game together and started crunching the goals in?

Will Churchill: I do agree Steve. What made Passion a killer unit last season was that our team had a lot of depth once the disc got past Cheeseburger and Buzz so we'd keep moving and score. Albeit that we did have a tendency to become complacent with our wins and let some games slip out from under us (ie: losing to Dojo when you had 6 players was a real wake up call).

At the moment I see it that Passion has gone back to square 2 (never 1). When we started with ole Bretty Matzuka and Pottsy the rest of the team was greener than a fresh recruit being sent to war, or an over ripe cucumber. For the immediate future at least I see the Passion working to rebuild our strength and skill base and come next season, with the return of some of our players, we will be a force of reckoning once more.

DMB: Sounds ominous! Speaking of which, any Johnny-Mac-special grillings between games this week? Or maybe you'll be rolling out some new sort of half-time drill?

WC: Funnily, no. There was no grilling this week, the loss hit the team in a pinching sort of way and being the resilient youth we are we shall bounce back (great layout by the way, how's the... entire upper half of your body? Bouncing back? .... that was cheeky I admit :)

Actually, Johnny has taken the backseat for this season opting to lend his experience leading teams to a new player who is up to the role of challenging himself to manage the Passion. Nat (never Nate) Litzow has taken the reins so far and is doing a swell job. John is around as an encyclopedia of Ultimate related knowledge and strategy on field but the man running us is Nathan.

DMB: "Manage the Passion", eh? That can't be easy with a team of undergrads. Okay - here's a hypothetical: If you could poach one player from any other team in the league to come over and bolster the Passion roster, who would it be and why (don't be boring and say Mike Nield)?

WC: Well straight out the window are Buggers players. A leopard doesn't change its spots and a crustacean will never be a cool creature like a Unicorn or a Cherub that the club so diligently bases itself around. So I'm left with 3 teams to choose from. I'd probably grab the 'Big Guy' Julian Sacre and bring him home to momma. The man is a unit on the field and a difficult player to stop. Couple with Jmac and there is a game winning deal there.

(Let it be known though that as boundless as my love for the big guy is I still want it public knowledge about how I took Julian to school and tore down a contested disc in the air against him in the YUFL final on Monday. Honestly, I was awesome.)

DMB: Happy to take your word for it, Will. Perhaps Julz will like to contribute his thoughts via one of his legendary post comments...? And speaking of defectors like him, we've been hearing rumours that all those guys betrayed their Passion roots between seasons simply because Al Don promised them nice shirts. Any truth in that?

WC: UQ is pulling itself under a single banner starting this weekend at Mixed Nationals and we shall be touting our bitchin' new colours and strips. The plan at the moment is to integrate these strips into our 2 YUFL teams (3 come next year if everything goes ahead) and then try to garb the BPL and womens team in the same. It'll be some work but we're confident enough that the price is right and we have instilled the right kind of pride and fellowship in the club that such a move would work.

As for how Al is getting credit for this I don't know. Props go out to Gref Goranson for his l33t photoshop skillz and design f1air. As a preview, it might be a downer to see another dark team around Brisbane but I ask why the Buggers are red instead of the more aquine blue and black of their aquatic environs? That's just n00bish (ok, enough of the leet speak).

DMB: Whoa - we weren't really following much of that Will, but hopefully those "leet speakers" out there were, whoever they are. We here at the Dojo pride ourselves not only on our oldskool (is that leet?) style but even moreso on our extensive merchandise range. Surely a man with your unusual perspective on life can suggest some interesting additions (including to this blog)?

WC: Sweatbannds! Frisbee players don't wear enough sweatbands. Heck, I've played with 4 one game and it wasn't enough! That and caps, no not the crappy GAIA caps that you shead a tear over for lost potential. TRUCKER CAPS! The line outside my house of people wanting to borrow my Decepticon Cap is nothing short of the attention that the self referencing egotistical all round winner I am deserves (yes, I just said that). Caps and sweatbands baby - that's a money maker (coming to a UQ fashion outlet near you).

As for other things... you guys could really use a unicorn in the zen garden here. But you'll need a dozen stableboys or so. There is a price that comes with magical creatures. But you can at least sell it for $5 a bag.

DMB: Not quite sure what it is we'd be selling for $5 a bag, Will, but you'll be glad to know that there are already Dojo caps in existence (circa 2004 Nationals), and headbands too. They just don't get a lot of use these days, now that we're a primarily night-time team...

Anyway, enough about Ultimate - let's get back to those haiku. Thanks for the chat, Will.

Lovin' It Sick

Poor old Johnny Mac. Last season his UQ Passion team were in the final, then most of them migrated over to UQ Lovers and now suddenly they're on the receiving end of a 15-4 hammering by pretty much the same Dojo team that they narrowly beat in the semi last season. Okay, we didn't have Lee O'Dwyer with us this time around...

Anyway, there's very little to say about the game other than it being an early tussle for the first few points before the Dojo got its game together and asserted its dominance. As so often happens in games with these sorts of scorelines, UQ scored most of their goals early while Dojo were using the first half-dozen points as a warmup and it was pretty one-sided thereafter. So let's allow the video footage to do the talking (thanks & credit as usual to the delightful Marijke Walls) n.b. very infrequent coarse language ahead:



Yes, some of those points aren't in chronological order but we've exercised our directorial privilege to arrange them in favour of a more interesting storyline. "Never lays out", eh Johnny? Does falling over count? Also included there was a rare insight into the mensa-grade strategic machinations of a Dojo halftime huddle...

But the Ultimate coverage from last night doesn't end there. Once Dojo and Lovers had wrapped things up on Field 2 there were still a few points left to be played in the Field 1 derby match between the two Bugs outfits Messy & Slippry. So in the interests of providing maximum Ultimate entertainment for nil cost we thought we'd include some of the highlights of the last few points between these two now-evenly-matched teams. Our in-house post-production team has been working by lamplight through the night in their tatami-floored rooms to bring you this coverage...

But before we press play on this, it's also worth noting that there were some highly controversial moments in the dying moments of this match which, thankfully for the generally well-spirited cause of the BPL, occurred off camera. We have no doubt those unfortunate incidents will be discussed widely elsewhere, so we're sticking to our policy of providing only the most hard-hitting Ultimate entertainment and BPL commentary here (n.b. a little more of that occasional coarse language ahead):



Yes, once again the batteries in the Dojo video camera ran dry with just moments remaining. And once again it didn't really matter - the match ended with Messy scoring to save a draw against their Slippry pals. Is "pals" still the correct term?

Anyway, enough about them - back to the Dojo. The MVP standings have been updated to the right and a new poll is ready to receive all the automated votes Stefan and Dan keep getting any computer near them to send in...

Al and Julz Spin the Yundo

Alistair Don and Julian Sacre were deep in discussion about the geomantic importance of a strong Blue Dragon when we joined them under the deep eaves of the Dojo garden's Eastern Gate on Monday afternoon. Naturally, they weren't inclined to give away too much about how their interest in Feng Shui informs their zone D strategies, but they were more than happy to have a bit of a Q&A session about our game last week and indulge in some idle conjecture about the season ahead.

Here's what we discussed whilst enjoying the outlook and the melodic birdsong:

DojoMojo Blog: Julz, we know how much you enjoy a wander around our gardens between games, but Al - we had no idea you shared his enthusiasm. It's a pleasure to have you both here. Let's briefly discuss the game last week. Despite the score being very close for most of the game, in retrospect it never looked like the result would be anything other than a Lovers win. What do you think was the most critical difference between the teams?

Julian Sacre: Well, as you say there wasn’t much in it. I think it came down to taking the right options with the disc in hand. I recall Dojo forcing a few throws close to the endzone which weren’t really on.

I also think the reason why a Lovers win seemed inevitable was because we seemed to have a few more scoring options with the hucking and break-side throws of aL and Buzz combining with receivers like Will Larkin and Gref.

Al Don: I think there's a couple of critical differences between the teams. The choice of sky blue shirts for the lovers is probably the most important of those though. A serene feeling comes over you when you pull one on and I think that transferred itself pretty well into an approach to the game that helped us to stay calm and take the opportunities presented at the same time as not stressing too much over the numerous turns that occured during the first half of the game.

DMB: Hmmm - now your interest in Blue Dragons is becoming clearer, Al. It also seemed that your receivers were pulling down the hucks with ease most of the night, and yet Dojo had to rely primarily on Dan Walls doing something spectacular/silly/dangerous to make the long throws stick. How much of this do you put down to differences in defensive pressure?

AD: Yeah - I was pretty happy with the defensive pressure we managed to bring out last Thursday. The Lovers this season, with a couple of notable exceptions, are young and hungry for anything they can pull down on defence or offence. One of the advantages of playing a team full of students is that I think they really are lacking a little on the nutrition side of things. So when I told them to get out and get hungry on D some of them may have taken that a bit literally, thinking perhaps that some of the Dojo discs may have been weighed down with something edible. Tasty little morsels of sushi perhaps?

JS: Mmmm - sushi. But seriously, Dan Walls had an incredible game. Easy to see why he scored the MVP title from last season of BPL.

I think the defence did make a big difference. When Dojo (ie: Dan) did get some effective connections with long cuts to the endzone, Lovers switched to a straight-up force and I think this was enough to put a little bit of extra pressure on those hucks.

DMB: Okay - let's cut to the chase then. This new roster - Al claims it just "sort of happened", but this mass migration to Lovers seems about as coincidental as the fact that there are 24 stubbies in a carton and 24 hours in a day. Just what inducements did Al offer in building this new UQ super team?

AD: Inducements? Nothing more than the offer to play on a team with the potential for more beards. Who would have thought that would be as attractive an offer as it seems to have been?

JS: I'm not at liberty to say. aL put a clause in our new contracts that forbids us from speaking publicly about it.

DMB: All very strange. Beards? Contracts? And what about these rumoured new shirts? Will you be sharing with Passion (we all know they need some help)? What do you say about the speculation that fluoro orange may be the new UQ colour?

JS: Can’t say, sorry Sensei. We’ve been designing them for at least the last 8 or 9 years. But I shouldn’t even be talking about them - they’re nowhere near ready.

AD: Well I can safely put that rumour to bed right now. I at least would rather play nude than shell out for a fluoro orange team uniform. And if it comes down to it then thats what i'll be arguing for...

DMB: Let's all hope sanity prevails then. Perhaps yellow Hypercolour? So lastly, it's early in the season and most team rosters (not least your own) have had a big shakeup. But assuming you'd rate yourselves as Grand Final contenders, which other team do you expect to see at the other end of the field come December 11th, and why?

AD: It's always hard to write off any team with a certain lanky Australian rep in the mix but I think thats exactly what I'm going to do here. For the first time in my somewhat unreliable memory, there will be no Buggers team in action on finals night. My money's on a Lovers v Dojo final. After a few seasons now where the Dojo have started strong and looked to be the team to beat I think they're actually going to go close to putting it together for an entire season this time round. The injection of a few strike throwers from the depths of history combined with a bit more of the mongrel that players like Stefan exhibit will see the Dojo cruise through most of the season, win a semi and then go on to make a spectacle of it for the crowd in the final. I'll even go as far as to predict a 14-12 Lovers comeback victory...

JS: Yep - when we line up on grand final night, I expect to be standing opposite the kenshi… of course!

DMB: Amen to that. Al, Julz, thanks for your time.

When the Batteries Go Flat...

We've been putting off writing about last Thursday's game against the all-new UQ Lovers team for a few days now, partly due to other pressing matters but primarily out of denial.

You see, just how Dojo lost to this all-star UQ team isn't exactly clear upon first examination. The score was pretty close throughout, the teams pretty much evenly matched on a pound-for-pound talent basis, but somehow the formely-maroon-clad, temporarily-in-light-blue and soon-to-be-in-who-knows-what UQ lads simply managed to quietly and inexorably pull away from a mildly implosive Dojo team.

Perhaps the scars on every bony surface of this writer (no doubt Dan Walls is still festooned with bruises as well) are a clue to how things seemed to fade away toward the end of the game. Whereas the Lovers played a smooth, full-field game all night, it seemed that the Dojo players were constantly forcing themselves to do something special to score goals or even just retain possession. As the game wore on, coming up with something brilliant every point proved more and more difficult and eventually the inevitable just sort of happened...

But let's not sell the game short - there was some absolutely first-rate play from both sides throughout the night. From UQ it was mostly sweet, sweet long throws from Buzz and Al into the wide-open hands of Big Julz or Gref, and from Dojo it was mostly Dan Walls putting his body in danger catching heavily contested discs and going horizontal to save an overly-ambitious Dan B throw for goal.

Given that the kenshi spent most of last season learning to overcome this self-defeating style, it's a little disappointing to see it re-emerge so soon. But no matter - it will only be a matter of time before the Dojo style adapts to the return of old guns Ryan Black and Andy McLean and the rhythm returns. For now, let's just say that next week's opponents UQ Passion can expect to have their deep defences severely tested...

We're also pleased to advise that Big Julian Sacre is out strolling the Dojo bamboo grove at the moment, and today he appears to have some colleagues with him. We'd better rush out to catch them by the Eastern Gate for a quick chat about last week's game and the season ahead.

In the meantime, our usual MVP poll is to the right, and the MVP standings have been updated below. Vote for as many players as you think deserve it!

So You Think You Can Pull

Another season of the Brisbane Premier League got underway at the Annerley Junior Soccer fields on Thursday night, and DojoMojo came out in force with subs to spare.

Dojo's Round 1 opponents were the new-look Slippry Bugs, or at least they would have looked new had their latest pickup, former Messy CEO Mike Neild turned up for the game. Come to think of it, we distinctly recall seeing big-haired youngster Reece (thanks for the correction) on the field in the Season 2 final last week as well...

In fact the sheer quantity of unexpected team defections (mostly of the incestuous bedhopping variety within Brisbane's two mega-teams UQ & Bugs) has taken many by surprise this season, especially given that it all happened in less than a week! And no-one would have been more surprised than poor old Johnny Mac who arrived at the field to discover that the top half of his Passion roster had suddenly decided it was playing for Lovers instead! On top of that, new LD Stu Austin deemed his moment of ascendancy an appropriate one to also ride away alone from the circled wagons of his old Rawhide compadres and follow the Lovers trend.

Yes - it's going to be a tough start to the season for the tipsters (don't think anyone tipped a Lovers/Messy draw), but as ever there's one team with a roster that can be relied upon season after season - and that team is DojoMojo. Okay, so it's never certain which (if any) of those rostered players will actually play in any given fixture...

Anyway, all this guff about the weirdness surrounding the new season must be a subconscious attempt on the part of this writer to avoid the main subject of this post, that being that Dojo simply cruised through to a very easy win over a 6-man Slippry team, eventually taking out the game 15-5. There were a few stutters early, and a few noteworthy efforts from both sides. Jangles must have got at least half a dozen run-through blocks on stationary receivers during the night.

To make it all easy to digest, we've collated the highlights of the game (and a few full points to give them a nice rounded flavour) into a single video. As usual the credit and thanks go to Marijke Walls for the camera work:



That last point on the video was also the last point of the night - interesting to hear Dan Walls behind the camera hoping for a turnover so he could get back on the field before the game was over... And on reviewing this footage we were surprised to discover just how much smack talking Matt Eastburn does throughout a game, at least one where he's not running so hard he can't see straight... Makes it all the more enjoyable to watch him drop that push pass over and over again.

But we've saved the best moment of the night for last, and it involves a brand new concept (creative direction by Dave Watson) that the Dojo will be progressively rolling out during the season - the choreographed pull:



That should do it for now. With any luck we'll soon have at least one of the top Slippry thinkers around for a few games of Go and a chat about the season ahead. In the meantime, feel free to vote for this week's Dojo MVP in the poll on the right. As usual, voting for multiple players is a-okay. Oh - and this season we're changing the MVP scoring system so that every vote counts, rather than the one-winner-per-week system we'd used previously. So vote carefully!

(Not Quite) Live and Exclusive

Here it is at last - the Grand Final from BPL Season 2 2008 between Messy Bugs and UQ Passion.

Some will already know the outcome of the game, but for the sake of the story here we're going to leave that until the end. So let's set the scene:

A vast crowd had assembled on the sideline of the centrally-located field, set up specially for the occasion with extra space for beer drinking and even a nice little table with cupcakes (courtesy of Beth Rougier, and possibly friends, as far as we're aware). People had come from all over Brisbane to see two teams packed to the rafters with tall timber and disc-slinging sharpshooters fight it out for the title, and here's how it got underway:



UQ seemed nervy, and starting every point on offence gave them little time to set up their defensive strategy of getting Big Jules in Jason's face and having Johnny Mac chase Mike all over the field. On the contrary, Messy were cruising along with quick counters whenever they got the turnover. We pick up the action again with the Messy boys going into a huddle when UQ called a much-needed momentum timeout:



As the game went into halftime things were looking, well, grim for the men in pink (and a bit of white on this occasion). The commentary team kept on drinking though, becoming more & more loquacious as the game wore on. We hit the field to get some comments from a few local legends of the game, and here's what they had to say:



So, a unanimous verdict against UQ making any sort of comeback. But would they? Could they find the intensity that saw them overcome Dojo in the semi? The second half was about to get underway:



Hmmm - not looking good for the Passion boys, but from a Bug perspective the game was going completely to plan. The ever-reliable Jason-to-Mike connections were complemented by smooth flow with everyone on the field involved in every point. Things started getting a bit sloppy toward the end with Messy knowing they had it in the bag and UQ getting more and more desperate to score quickly, and this produced several multi-turnover points of the sort we don't expect to see in a regular BPL game, let alone the Final.

But we'd all come this far with it, so we decided to stick around to the bitter end:



Okay, not quite the bitter end. With all those stoppages and a few gratuitous interviews with members of the audience we found ourselves running out of mini-DVDs with a couple of points still to play... But no matter - the blowout win to Messy was never in doubt and no matter what Dan Young will tell you about UQ finally playing some decent ultimate in the dying moments the whole thing ended pretty anticlimactically. Okay - Wetnose's layout goal for the win was reasonably watchable. Much more so than Will Churchill's outrageously unnecessary (and unsuccessful) airborne bid from earlier in the game...

So there you go. From recollection the final score was something like 18-9, and for us it seemed that the biggest difference between the two teams was consistency on the night. The Messy boys bring the exact same game (not to mention pretty much the exact same roster) to the field every week and they execute their well-known gameplan with the same effectiveness game in, game out. No other team in the league seems able to do this, and it's hard to imagine Messy's reign coming to an end any time soon unless the other teams can match their reliability. If only Mike would update their blog from time to time...

But the best news of all is that BPL Season 3 starts up THIS THURSDAY NIGHT under the iron-fisted leadership of new LD Stu Austin. Early signs indicate that Stu will be running the league strictly on a need-to-know basis with a similarly dictatorial style to his predecessor Jon Good. Coverage here on the DojoMojo Blog will be uninterrupted, of course...

It'll Be Worth the Wait...

For those waiting in eager anticipation to see the footage of the BPL Season 2 '08 Grand Final from last Thursday night, all we can say is that we've reviewed the footage in its raw form and it'll be worth the wait.

We're currently experiencing some technical difficulties editing it all into watchable format, which translates into "Windows Movie Maker is the most useless, bug-ridden, hopelessly incompatible-with-everything, time-guzzling program ever to be automatically installed onto a computer as part of a Windows update". So we're off to acquire some software that actually works and will, with any luck, have the game and associated commentary from JDR, Special G and the Sensei posted right here in a day or two.

In the meantime we've got some news that's much worse than a slight delay in our exclusive BPL coverage. And the news is that Steve Hjelm quietly announced (as is his way) that he won't be taking the field for DojoMojo in future as he's moving to Sydney. This is very sad news not only for us here at the Dojo but also for Brisbane Ultimate at large. Hjelmie has been throwing a disc here in Brisbane longer than most and is a past BPL MVP winner - the guy is fast. Let's hope he doesn't wind up playing for Fakulti or someone like that...

Oh - and speaking of MVPs, DojoMojo's "Weapon from Antiquity" Dan Walls took out this season's BPL MVP title, beating the likes of Mike Nield and Buzz Burwell with an average tally of over 1 vote per game. Dan joins Hjelmie and Dave Watson in the select group of kenshi to have their names engraved on the stupendous BPL MVP trohpy.

Prime Time Ultimate with Big Jules

Something very few people know about Julian Sacre is that he loves nothing more than taking a stroll around the DojoMojo bamboo grove on a Monday afternoon. Apparently it's during the time he spends there, alone with his thoughts of leaping high and running long, that he hones his unique and devastating mind-over-body approach. We joined him on his meditative perambulations yesterday to contemplate and discuss last week's SemiFinal between our two great teams.

DojoMojo Blog: Good afternoon Jules - it's always a pleasure to share our gardens with a connoiseur of serenity such as yourself. Let's give some thought to our game last Thursday. You chaps were clearly on a mission right from the outset (you even arrived on time!). Had there been some harsh words said between our previous game and this one to get the team fired up?

Julian Sacre: Absolutely! No disrespect for what was a very impressive Dojo performance that night, but to get beaten by 6 guys was a very humbling experience. In light of that recent history and the fact that you’d had a few weeks to recruit for a full team, we knew it would require a big step up to get over the line. And yes, perhaps my turning up before the first point of the game for the first time this season was a reflection of that. Still not early enough to have a pre-game run and throw with the team, but I think JMac’s little incident is proof enough that the so-called “benefits” of warming up are a complete myth. Of course, from what I’ve seen of Dojo before a game, you’ve known that for years. I imagine some Sensei-led meditation would be your favoured method of preparation?

DMB: Indeed it is. It's no secret that the kenshi spend long seconds meditating over their weekly emails from the Sensei before each game and, thus prepared, simply step onto the field ready to play... But it seemed you had a real plan this time around. Passion went with a zone D pretty much all night - was this a deliberate strategy to contain the free movement of the disc we'd had last time?

JS: You obviously moved the disc with ease in that famous (infamous?) 6-man win despite the efforts of a poacher in the lane. So yea – zone D was the defence we chose from the outset, and based on its success throughout the first half, we obviously kept at it all night. I think Nat suggested that we switch to a man D at one point and got his head bitten off pretty severely.

DMB: That'll teach him for questioning your strategic brilliance Jules - and it must be said that you were wise to ignore Nat's suggestion. But enough about you - let's talk about us. How would you say the performance of the Dojo team you beat in the Semi differed from the team you lost to in Round 9?

JS: Apart from the obvious disadvantage of having not just 7 guys on the field, but also a sub (what the???), I thought your disc movement was much less free-flowing. Your handlers seemed to keep the disc in their hands for an eternity, allowing our zone to set and reducing your options up-field. Maybe it was also just one of those nights – everything you touched in round 9 seemed to turn to gold, but there did seem to be that little bit missing in the semi-final.

DMB: More than a bit - the video shows that we basically dumped-n-swung our way to the endzone all night! But that wasn't the case for Passion - it seemed that not having JMac this time actually brought more of your guys into play with the disc and made for a more (new)Dojo-like offensive setup i.e fewer long hucks and lots of solid retention. Will you be asking John to stay home for the Final as well?

JS: Yea, I’ve always thought his pin-point hucks were holding us back. Nah… seriously though, we may allow him to play – as long as he promises not to do that foolish thing called warming up. I guess losing his handling did force some other guys to come back, but I'm not sure it really caused us to reduce the number of hucks and change our style of play. I think your zone D covered the deep threats pretty well, so there were very few opportunities to strike long.

DMB: Fair enough. And lastly, how much longer until the Passion team gets some proper shirts? Some people are convinced that your faded pink look is the only thing stopping BPL getting primetime TV coverage...

JS: I don’t think I've ever read about Passion on the Dojo blog without a reference to the faded pink shirts. This actually makes me suspect that your consistent criticism is not out of dislike, but more driven by a subconscious jealousy? If you are looking to get your hands on one of the jerseys, I think there are a few still available in women’s sizes. I could see it as a very fashionable addition to Sensei’s office at DojoMojo HQ. We could even arrange it to be signed by all team members and framed? If the result goes our way in the final next week, it could turn out to be a pretty good investment.

But you mentioned TV coverage – I was actually thinking that your success in broadcasting games on your very own blog could be the start of something big. Perhaps you could upgrade your coverage to include all games and offer them on a subscription service? I would definitely be one of the first lining up to buy a platinum membership to “DojoMojo Blog Pro”. If our sense of style is what’s holding you back, we can try harder in future not to drop the bright red undies in when we're washing our whites (for the record, I can’t take credit for that joke – I first heard it from a heckling Buggers supporter during last season’s final and thought it was pretty good. Look forward to more of that next week!).

DMB: All good ideas there Jules - we're really looking forward to receiving that souvenir signed Passion shirt, and at the very least there should be some exclusive coverage of the BPL Final here on the Dojo Blog (pay-per-view of course). Thanks for your time, and feel free to let yourself out the front gate once you're finished wandering...