Thanks Emma!

Who is Emma? She's the partner of one of the Messy Bug players without whom DojoMojo would have had to forfeit last night's BPL round. And that would have been a tragedy because the game that unfolded turned out to be an absolute classic.

How classic? So classic that some were comparing it to the finale of the recent US Masters golf (just without the plaid pants, massive prize money and huge audience). Looking back, it was a game that unfolded in 5 parts:

Part 1 - Dojo has 4 guys ready to play at 7.29pm, and it looks like the night's going to fizzle out before it's even started. There's only one person at the field not already spoken for - a young lady by the name of Emma who thankfully doesn't even hesitate when invited to join the kenshi quartet on field. The forfeit is narrowly avoided, but 5 players are always going to struggle against 7, and the Bugs score 3 or 4 unanswered goals before late arrivals Piers, Matt and Coopers (who would believe a grown man could take so long to tie his shoelaces?) are ready to play.

Part 2 - The Bugs continue as if they're still playing against 5, relying heavily on loopy hammers and floaty hucks to Mike, and the kenshi take advantage, quickly hauling in the deficit with all 7 players making equally top-shelf contributions. By the time the Bug boys are up to speed the Dojo has taken half and is on a serious roll.

Part 3 - The Dojo roll continues into the second half, and the lead gets out to 13-10 with 15 minutes left to play. With both calves cramped solid, the Sensei calls a breath-catching timeout (against the advice of game momentum mystic Andy McLean) and spends it lecturing the kenshi about how easily the Bugs could score the 5 goals they need to win the game, and how the Dojo has "all night" to roll in the 2 they need with solid completions and no risky hucks. Of course, the following 3 points see the Dojo throw 3 wild throwaways on the second or third pass, and the Bugs, who couldn't have asked for more, return fire with quick completions to Jangles and Mike.

Part 4 - Another Dojo throwaway, Bugs have the disc and work it into the redzone where predictably Jason looks for the hammer to Mike. Only this time it's a bit stray and Stu Austin is also looking to get on the receiving end. Mike leaps and gets just enough of a touch to knock it clear of Stu's grasp. Sometimes you don't need to be Andy McLean to know a change in fortune when you see it...

Part 5 - Knowing they've been let off the hook, the Dojo steadily works in the next score (a flat hammer to a backpeddalling Sensei who makes the catch in a somewhat inelegant fashion that Matt Eastburn later describes as looking like a falling tree). Some good old-fashioned man-on-man defence brings the turn on the next point before the Bugs can get it halfway up the field, and the kenshi don't waste their chance to close the game out with some quick, short passes, scoring in the front centre of the endzone... And just like that it's all over bar the speeches, and Mike Neild delivers one of the classics - dogged and determined in defeat as he is in victory.

So that's it - our best effort at communicating the feeling of the game (from a Dojo perspective) in lieu of any video footage. A&B voting is ready to roll on the right, and sadly there's no game next week due to Nationals in Perth. Good luck to all the Firestorm chaps heading to Perth - we have no doubt you'll do a lot better than your unflattering seeding and give quite a scare to several of the southern teams. More soon!

Return of the Video

That's right viewers - the top quality video footage you'd become used to last season and had been missing so badly is finally back. With Dan Walls on a covert Dojo mission in Hong Kong (sharing the night-vision goggles with sidekick Dave Watson) our resident filmographer, the longsuffering Marijke Walls, was also absent. This left it to the Sensei and a mystery man we found on the sidelines, known only as "Matt", to grab the footage of Dojo's Thursday night triumph over a rookie-laden Messy Bugs.

With the word count getting pretty stratospheric here of late, we might change it up this week and let the moving pictures do the storytelling:





So that's it. A nice, comfy 14-8 win for DojoMojo, keeping the early perfect record for the season at 2-0-0. Lots of Zone D and free-form O was the order of the night, with special kudos to new signing Piers Truter for driving the defensive setup and spending all night doing the Ninja assassination on Mike & Jason, and also to our new German rookie Stefan Schmidt for stepping right up to top-flight Brisbane Ultimate fresh off the plane.

Above&Beyond voting is underway again to the right, and because it sadly didn't turn up on the video we thought we'd make special mention at this point of the very large block Andy McLean got on Mike Nield in the endzone...

Perhaps we'll have a Bugger over for a stroll through the gardens shortly.

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...