The Game of Death

Yes - we've sailed the Sea of Japan for the title of this post, but it's only a short trip and over the millenia it's turned Chan into Zen, Penjing into Bonsai and Shaolin Kung-Fu into Shorinji Kempo, so we figured we could safely lean on the analogy for the upcoming Grand Final of the Brisbane Premier League, featuring semifinal winners DojoMojo and Messy Buggers.

Yes - the kenshi have finally climbed all the way to the top floor of the BPL pagoda in their black, red & white tracksuits to find a towering, short-jumpsuit clad Messy team waiting in the dark, shoji-screened room. It's the matchup that everyone had been wanting to see nearly as much as a Dojo v UQ Lovers final, but the huck-happy Lovers (apparently missing several key players through eligibility issues) lost out to a Messy team that has progressed from rookie-laden obscurity to genuine championship contention thanks to the inspirational on- and off-field leadership of one M. Neild, ably assisted by a solid core of experienced colleagues. Will the Dojo manage to poke enough fingers through the pagoda's paper panels to blind the sunlight-shy Buggers next week???

But more about that shortly. The news of the moment is Dojo's 15-12 semifinal win over what we understand to be the now-defunct Old-School Buggers (more on that later as well). In essence it was a tale of two comebacks, with Dojo stretching out decent leads only to ease off or slip up and see the OldSchoolers drag themselves back into range. And the good news is that it's all on video, thanks to Ulrike - yet another first-time filmographer, and ladyfriend of our resident Dojo Deutschlander, Herr Schmidt. Here's all the exclusive action:





There it is. Perhaps more than a little shaky at times but the job was done. Despite playing well below standard as a team, the Dojo still managed to win through without any real dramas. The question is, though - should this give the kenshi confidence in their strong potential going into the Big Game, or should it be cause for concern that when the stakes are raised the easy, natural Dojo game starts to tighten up uncomfortably? And here's another question - will somebody manage to post something this week on the Buggers blog for the first time since last season's semis???

And that leads us to yet another question - what will be the name of the new Gillions/Larkin-led team to emerge from the crashed & burnt wreckage of what was the Old School Buggers? Will Wetnose step down from his gig as guest correspondent on the Brisbane Ultimate Blog to become the regular mouthpiece of his new BPL outfit? Maybe he could even manage both. Either way, it'd be nice to have some new & improved competition both on and off the field.

One thing for sure though is that the A&B table is still wide open to anyone who can muster up enough friends or Google identities to vote for them(selves). Yes, Stefan (the Italian/Canadian one with many friends) is way out in front, but it is the very nature of the internet that anything could happen!!! Vote away on the right.

Buzzing In the Telepod

Yes, it's Tuesday again and we can only cross our fingers that the AJFC fields will be open for play this week. So, with all the world waiting to see if Wetnose really is worth 11 extra points to his team (sounds like there's at least one "1" too many in there, if you ask us), we've come across an interesting little Ultimate diversion to tide us over...

Most will have received their first lavishly-produced and super-glossy edition of the new-look Australian Ultimate magazine well before a copy found its way into the elegantly rusting mailbox that quietly announces the entrance to the Dojo gardens estate, so we apologise if this item is a tad out of date. But as soon as we saw this particular item we knew that something just had to be said...

Flip to page 9 (the centrefold!) of the new AU and you'll find an article on "Australia's Greatest Players". Now, whilst no-one can challenge the top-notch journalistic efforts of the authors, we did find immediate fault with the mention of one Chris Burwell, aka The Cornerstone of Queensland Ultimate, which notes:

"With perhaps the most extensive repertoire of any Australian to have every thrown a Frisbee, Buzz's throws were a thing of beauty. His inside outs, around the mark breaks on both sides and killer hammer meant no marker stood a chance."

All factually accurate except for one thing - the insidious use of PAST TENSE!

Other greats listed therein get the present-tense treatment - Ant Dowle's "pace and agility has made him a top block getter", for instance, but poor old Buzza is apparently past it. Knowing he'd be outraged (this is a man who we can quote as having said "I've never had fun playing Ultimate EVER!") we gave him a call to gauge his response and see if he may be in need of some counselling...

Predictably, Buzza was straight on the offensive, and like most grumpy old-timers started carrying on about all the "young kids these days" who know him only as "the greatest thrower of a frisbee ever to set foot on an Ultimate field", and how tragically one-dimensional this heroic vision is. Okay, he may not have actually said that last bit (doesn't make it any less believable, though) but we can faithfully report that he's taken this insult to his athleticism (which has also apparently taken up permanent residency on his staffroom table at the Qld Museum) as an incentive to get back into the shape of his old days when he was "3 times" as good as he is today.

But it seems it was eventually the write up of one John Greenfield (AU Ed 1 p8) that really got Buzza's cockroaches crawling, prompting him to proclaim:

"If Greenfield can go and reinvent himself from being a 'sensationally athletic block getter and receiver' into a 'high percentage handler', then I'm going to do the opposite and I don't care what anyone says about the fact that I'm 40. From now on I'm going to stop at nothing until I've transformed my game from the usual 'greatest thrower ever' tag to 'unbeatably athletic block getter and downfield receiver' status."

Let's just hope insect-man Buzza doesn't have any Seth Brundle-esque experiments in mind for this transformation. Be afraid. Be very afraid...

Monkey Magic

While the search continues for a monkey to replace the current BPL League Director, the bad news is that tonight's semifinals have been postponed due to the fields being largely submerged after Tuesday night's biblical flooding event. They're now scheduled for next week (28 May), with the Grand Final pushed back to 4 June.

But there's no shortage of Ultimate-related entertainment to be had in the meantime, as there's still plenty of dust being kicked up over the banning of the UQ Passion team from the finals series. In fact, the scene being played out one email salvo at a time is taking on the rather charming semblance of a small-town Western movie. It's got it all - a lynching, some disgruntled locals trying to chase a new hustler out of town, lots of quiet folk trying to stay out of the crossfire, and a sheriff that shoots first and, well, doesn't ask any questions at all... And like all the best Westerns, it's impossible to tell the good guys from the bad guys!

Anyway, it appears that a much-needed review of the BPL will be held during the (very lengthy) break between seasons. Not that there's been any official announcement about that...

This One Goes Right To The Top

Despite what he may tell you, the title of this post doesn't refer to our interviewee. Well, not directly at least...*

You see, the Brisbane Premier League has been thrown into turmoil just as we head into the finals series, thanks to a furore-generating decision on Friday by the League Director to ban 4th-placed team UQ Passion from playing in the finals due to their dodgy paperwork during the regular season. Sounds heavy-handed for a five-team amateur (and, yes, very competitive) league where everyone knows everyone else? But then rules are rules, right?

Well, the funny thing is that it's quite unclear exactly what rules are being invoked, especially when the LD himself apparently didn't see any need to review the team sheets in question after each round, thereby failing to issue a forfeit (as required under the rules) to first-timer captain Will and his team after the first slip-up.

So it's muddy already and we've hardly even got started. And in the meantime, the beneficiaries of all this (due to a similarly elastic application of the rules, or is it really blind ignorance?) are - you guessed it - Liam Gillions and his Old School Buggers team. How is it that luck just always seems to run Liam's way? You ask anyone and they'll tell you that he always wears the visage of a man who has just picked up the "bank error in your favour" card from the Monopoly board...

And now it's we who are lucky enough to have a quick word with him in the lead-up to his team's clash against the Dojo this week:

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DojoMojo Blog: Liam (and team), congratulations on making the semis in the most unusual of manners. Presumably the first thing you'd like to do is thank UQ Passion captain Will Churchill for filling in his team sheets incorrectly for most of the season?

Liam Gillions: Well we have really tried hard to get to this point this season. I made sure that the score sheets were filled in for every game just so we could get there in the end. I will certainly be giving Will a big hug next time I see him. But really, did anyone ever expect both Buggers team to NOT be in the semis? I mean come on, that's the whole reason we got [LD] Stu into the club.

DMB: Well that's certainly paid off big time. But do you think you can pull the OSB team back together and get everyone re-focussed in time for Thursday night? Jimmy Larkin and Mr Chadwick were saying something about the Hamptons...

LG: Well, we have actually sent some of the struggling team members away so that we can get things on track. Seriously though, we need to just forget about everything that has happened in the last 10 weeks. If we do that, then we can pull it off. This is getting back to the old days of BPL when you could lose every regular season game, then win 2 playoff games and walk home with the trophy.

DMB: Ah yes - the old days. Reminiscing just over this season, the last Dojo v OSB clash ended in a fairly emphatic 15-4 scoreline (even with Dan Walls, Dave Watson and Matt Eastburn staying home), so it appears there's plenty of catching up to do?

LG: Well Sensei, you are obviously forgetting that I wasn't there. 11 point swing, you ask? Well, I think it's probably a bigger swing than that. And Dan Walls, Dave Watson and Matt Eastburn? Who?

DMB: Hmmm - actually, maybe you're right and they're just figments of our imagination. We certainly haven't seen them in a while... Good to know you're not immune to mental delusions either though. Anyway, it's been a fairly controversial end to the BPL season, to say the least, and LD Stu tells us there's more to look forward to as well! Do you reckon as a result of all this we'll see some big changes in the structure of the BPL heading into next season?

LG: Would it be the BPL without some controversy? Although, this one has touched forces higher than I have seen before. I don't know if there will be any structural changes. Personnel changes perhaps? One thing is for sure, people will now know that the rules are the rules, and not following them will result in consequences. I for one don't think that is a bad thing.

DMB: Yeah. If only we could work out which rules are being enforced and who exactly is required to comply with what... The rulings to come out this week certainly don't stand up to even the slightest scrutiny. Ah, well - the other semi this week is between UQ Lovers and your sister team Messy. How do you see that one shaking out?

LG: Could go either way, depending on who turns up for each team. Jules will obviously be 15 minutes late, but if Burwell turns up then it could go the Lovers way. Also, it will be interesting to see what injury Joel Smith suffered last week as that could leave the Messy boys one experienced player down. What happened? Well, the pull came up and about 3 passes later, we realised that Joel hadn't moved from the endzone and was sitting there holding his ankle. Initial diagnosis from J-Ray: Torn archilles. And of course, we all know that Jason never makes a bad call in the middle on an Ultimate game. Don't we?

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Well, we think we'll leave it at that for today - this post has got long enough already. The decision to ban Passion has been made and the LD has made it very clear to everyone including the AFDA president that he won't be backing down no matter how tenuous the decision may be. As he says, "If BUDA, QUDA or the AFDA don't want that then they can find someone else to be their monkey rather than an actual League Director."

Yes - the BPL is in safe hands.

* As ever, this is not an official blog and carries no official endorsement. Plus all that usual guff about "the views of the author(s)" not necessarily being held by anyone else...

Block It Every Time

It's never been our MO here at the DojoMojo blog to brag about our exploits, so let's get this out of the way early - DojoMojo have emerged from Season 1 of 2009's Brisbane Premier League as undefeated minor premiers. Yay for us!

And that's all we're going to say about it, especially as there is still the traditional Dojo stumbling block of the semifinals to get through before the Big Game... Anyway, as it happened the last game of the season turned into a 15-4 blowout against the Old School Bugs. Dojo blitzed the first half 8-0 with a seemingly unstoppable offence scoring at will and a defence that capitalised on any sub-par options from OSB. The OldSchoolers managed to keep their pants on though, running in 4 points in the second half despite having nothing seem to go their way all night (well, except for a fumbled disc flipping right into Knotty's waiting hands).

There's probably very little other than that to say about the game (given our aforementioned "no bragging" policy), so let's get into the video. Guest cinematographer this week was a GC chap known as "Wazza" - you can tell when it's him with the camera by the faintly disturbing Darth-Vader-with-a-head-cold sound effects... Still, there's plenty of quality action on there, so for that Wazza we're eternally grateful:



Yes, we really need that QUDA funding for a video scaffold so we can put and end to those awkward moments where a great catch is hidden from view behind people on the sideline...

Anyway, that's it for another round. There's no game for the Dojo this week (the other 4 teams will be playing their final regular season games to settle the end-of-season standings), so as part of our tapering toward the semis we'll be working hard on our Rex Kwon Do moves courtesy of Andrew "Napoleon" Goldstiver. We'll also be watching the votes roll in for the A&B poll - things are getting tight at the top, and a spot on the honour board is still there for anyone to grab, especially those with a whole lab of university computers at their disposal...

A Bit Heavy on the Fizz...

We're tight for time this week, but at least there's video. And at 15fps and 1000 words per image, the paltry two and a half minutes worth of footage we've got adds up to more information than even the most extravagantly long post-doctoral thesis...

Video credits this week go to Suze Lankowski, who managed to acquire a few moments of game footage during the second half when UQ had finally managed to put 7 guys on the field (thanks to Big Julz turning up a little later than his customary 15 minutes...). The result of the game was a straightforward 15-7 win to Dojo, who did most of their damage to a very short-staffed Lovers team in the first half and then coasted home - who would believe that?!



A&B voting is finally up & ready for this round on the right, with pre-season favourite Dan Walls sure to lose his top spot this week after yet another Hong Kong junket.