Out the Back with Stefan Rappazzo

A quick look outside at the brilliant sky this morning was all the inspiration we needed to decide it was time to load up the Dojo combi van. So with our pre-dawn kendo practice finished we set out for Slamtown, that famous fantasy land where ladies in golden bikinis pay for your parking and Ultimate players wear orange shorts.

Of course, there's always plenty of time to sit out the back at D-bah, waiting for the next set to come through. And it was in precisely those moments of sundrenched calm that we turned to Stefan Rappazzo, the don of Gold Coast Ultimate, for some reflection on last week's match between DojoMojo and his Slamtown Flatball Club:

DojoMojo Blog: Spaz - thanks for taking a sickie and joining me for a surf & a chat. After the late cancellation of our planned pre-season clash, that first game between the new-look Dojo and the largely ex-Dojo Slamtown FC teams was a long time in the making. How do you think it lived up to all that anticipation?

Stefan Rappazzo: Well, poorly from a GC point of view. It would have been great to have played ya in the preseason as the SFC is very much relying on developing some chemistry together, and there is really no other way of getting that done than getting more games played together. The Dojo were good on the night, and I think some of the lads that are a bit newer to the competition may have been a bit rattled by the pregame banter whilst SFC were warming up, and the Dojo were excelling at their usual pregame rituals.

DMB: Ah yes. In fact I spent most of my pre-game moments pestering Becky to shoot that video for us (thanks again Becky). I noticed a second video camera in use on the sidelines - can we be expecting some footage with more of a Slamtown focus to be popping up on the SFC blog soon?

SR: Video is something we are only starting to experiment with, and in all honesty our footage from the other night will not likely make it to blog, but we're hoping that future games will begin to find their way online. I've always been a fan of the video, win or lose, it's great to watch how things unfolded and a great way to continually improve. With nearly every BPL team represented via 'blog', it would be great to see this become the standard and you could have every game video documented. I can't put any firm time lines upon this becoming standard procedure, but I can tell ya it's a work in progress.

DMB: Yep - it certainly would be great to see all three BPL games getting video coverage each week. Anyway, back to the questions. What differences did you recognise between the 2010 Dojo unit and the team that you and so many of your Gold Coast colleagues were part of over the past few years?

SR: Well, height for one. In losing myself, Mike, Phil and Lee, and then gaining Pete and Jon G you definitely gained in the sky department. Getting Wallsy, Watto and Ryan back also helps. That said, short or tall, the Dojo continues to be the deepest team in the league with a solid roster of players who play nearly every position on the field. The real difference will come if you can get the finals monkey off your back... besides that... it seems business as usual for the Dojo.

DMB: Yes - winning the big game always takse a little more than business as usual. And speaking of outstanding efforts, does any one moment stand out in your memory as last week's "play of the night"?

SR: Hmmmm.... tough to say. Not much of a highlight type of an evening, no layouts that stand out, and no 'particular' throws that do either. During our post game discussions we spoke of the fact that we were very flat, but how the Dojo played nearly flawless O... I don't recall too many turnovers once you guys got the disc. The amount of crossfield hammers was uncanny, and Fatty's lefty breakmarks were disheartening. Not that it was highlight material but Darren Shi's foul call away from the disc to nullify Jody's endzone D was a heartbreaker. Daz had his revenge on us with his hard working game, and I think that call should have been made by Pete... or not at all.

DMB: Interesting that some sort of foul call has been included in the answer to that question two weeks in a row now. Anyway, looking ahead - you've got a big game coming up this week against UQ Passion. Do you think it's fair to describe JMac and Julz as "the new Jason & Mike"?

SR: No. I think JMac is much more of a dynamic player than just a pure hucker, and as much as Jules is an amazing receiver/player, I don't think he has as dominant a persona as Mike does. That said, they could very well be the hottest combo in the league right now, but I wouldn't go so far as calling them the next bromance. Speaking of hot combos, Pete and Fatty both being able to huck and both taking discs high is becoming a lethal pairing in itself...

DMB: Right again, Spaz. And with this swell starting to pick up again we should probably leave it at that...

Eight Was Too Many...

DojoMojo's run from nowhere to Premiership contenders came to an end on Thursday night against a very charged UQ Passion. Seems beating them with six last time was akin to beating a rather large nest of wasps with a flaming stick...

But all credit to the boys in pink - they got stuck into the game VERY hard and capitalised on early Dojo errors, of which there were several (more on that shortly). Perhaps UQ's masterstroke was sending home their captain Johnny Mac with a rolled ankle just before the start of the game, giving Dojo about 5 minutes of false security before Buzz "The Cornerstone of Queensland Ultimate" Burwell arrived to put things back in serious doubt, just moments before Game On was called.

Thankfully Marijke Walls (you're a lucky man, Dan) was on hand to film some of the action for us, and on reviewing the footage a pretty sorry tale emerged of a stagnant, hammer-dependent Dojo offence struggling to make yardage against a (frequently double-teaming but rarely called) UQ puppy/fence zone. This first video exemplifies just how hard Dojo had to work just to get the frisbee anywhere near UQ's endzone:


44 passes! And of course we weren't helped by a vast number of unforced errors.

Some of these I'm-okay-you're-okay establishments don't like to single out individuals for either praise or punishment, but here at the Dojo we take a more "traditional" approach a-la John Kreese. Whilst watching the video of the game, we couldn't help noticing that one player had more turnovers than the rest of the team combined, and this player was Lee "McLovin" O'Dwyer. We had considerable pleasure in producing this little compilation of Lee gold:


Great grab by Dan Walls at the end there - seemed unfair not to include that one... But at least Lee does it with style, right? More mojo than dojo, and obviously not big on reading emails. For this writer the funniest bit is Coopers shrugging his shoulders at 1:02... Not sure why there's no sound, but things rarely work properly the first time.

There's no denying however that the boys with the worst shirts in the league (kind of like musk sticks, and even worse when combined with the apparently fashionable white shorts) deserved to win through to the Final. Burwell of course generated most of the play around the disc, but everyone was involved around the middle of the field and the defensive intensity was high all over. It certainly seemed that the zone D suited the style of the UQ yoofs much better that their man-plus-one from last time around, and they seemed very successful at stopping the Dojo developing any real flow.

On offence they were simply safer than the Dojo, with very few risky options (this writer only recalls one long shot all night) and they always had the single-malt smoothness of Buzz's break throws to call on under pressure. Here's how easy they made it look at times:



So that's it for the season. Next week UQ Passion take on Messy Bugs in the Final and it's going to be a cracker. Will big Jules take his A-game to Brisbane's "dominant player at the moment" Mike Neild? Will Buzz and Jason spend all night trying to out-huck each other? Will John's ankle be the right way around again, and will Wetnose really wear a mankini? And what feats will the other 20-or-so guys pull out in the big game? Perhaps someone will make us an offer we can't refuse to film the action...

There's one final MVP poll on the right (voting for multiple players is fine as usual), but the outcome will have no bearing on the fact that this season's MVP winner is Matt Eastburn. Matt can expect his fabulous prize to arrive about the same time the tracksuit he won for the inaugral Dojo blocks comp back in 2004 does...

Waving the Gunbai with Johnny Mac

Scholarly as ever, John McNaughton arrived at our Dojo "Sumo Showdown" over the weekend with textbooks in hand and could be seen between bouts busily memorising what appeared to be the notes from his elective subject in pre-Socratean sophistry. Not sure what that has to do with his course in Human Movement (or some such Phys-Ed pursuit), but those ancient Greeks did invent the Olympics after all...

And as if that preamble isn't obscure enough, once the winning Rikishi had been awarded we then got down to dissecting last week's game. Here's what John had to say:

DojoMojo Blog: John, as usual it's a privilege to have you join us here by the Dojo Dohyo. It's hard to believe that's really Dave Watson and Dan Blacklock wearing Mawashi and grappling each other, isn't it? Anyway - onto last week's game. When you looked to the other end of the field before the first point and saw just the six Dojo guys standing there, how did you expect the game to play out?

John McNaughton: The six were no slouches, most having played several Nationals, but I thought we should take the game comfortably. The Dojo didn't look very fired up, Passion had recently been talking about getting more fired up and playing better, and we had essentially our full roster present. I thought it should be a comfortable victory against a team that probably wouldn't fight hard if they started going down.

DMB: That's funny, because we've already admitted that we were thinking the same thing. But something strange happened and we quickly started turning the run of the game in our favour. A few points in, it seemed that the quick disc movement from the Dojo offence was actually rushing the numerically superior Passion D. Is this how you saw it?

JMcN: You were certainly rushing us, but I feel that our D positioning was quite average. Dojo has become excellent at taking short opportunities, maintaining possession, and looking to create flow generated by handlers, and our poor handler marking certainly didn't help us to defend this. I think your perception is true, but for analysis' sake, I would add that one of our D weaknesses (inexperienced handler defenders) played into your strength, allowing this to happen.

DMB: Sounds about right John. And then you tried something I don't think we at the Dojo have ever seen before - a team doing drills at halftime (admittedly doing drills anytime isn't really a key part of the Dojo Way). What were you trying to change about the way your guys were playing?

JMcN: Really? I think more teams should try it. We ran a very simple defensive drill, one on one, to try to teach people to play proper man on man defence. We'd been getting roasted open and under all game, so I was trying to get people to wake up and learn to cover a position. Unfortunately, it didn't help a lot - we came out with a couple of quick points (playing junk) and then didn't change after that.

DMB: Indeed. Perhaps you should also try our own patented email-warmup technique? At the very least no-one can say it doesn't work... Still, there was plenty of first-rate action on field, and it was a shame we couldn't get any video from the game. The Buzz Burwell / Dan Walls collision would have provided some excruciating viewing afterwards... Any other moments stand out as particularly memorable from the night?

JMcN: I actually missed that moment... I thought Dan's IO backhand huck, length of the field past a poaching lane defender, was one of the best throws I've seen this year. Sensational. A good D from Andy on a Buzz scoober that saved a goal, Dan Walls taking a couple of excellent catches under pressure, Matt E had some excellent throws (low percentage but accurate and completed).

DMB: Yep - we certainly got away with more than our share of low-percenters. It was also clearly evident to us that a fair degree of frustration was building in the Passion camp through the game, and Buzz Burwell, that purveyor or fine entomological anecdotes, had some interesting words to say in the post-game huddle which seemed to sum up the Passion sentiments quite effectively, if somewhat less than elegantly... Without giving everything away, what will you guys be changing next week to avoid having that happen again?

JMcN: I think our warm up (or lack thereof) is a problem. We've talked about it for the last few weeks, and haven't actually changed anything. Most people do some stationary throwing before a game, and that's it. We may institute a team warm-up, including both the physical and skills-based, and see if this brings results.

DMB: Well, with a born leader of immense charisma and magnetic manliness like you at the helm John, we've no doubt that Passion will be back playing your famously dangerous style of Ultimate very soon. Thanks for taking a few moments out from your studies to discuss the game with us. Sorry you also had to endure the unpleasant sight of Andy McLean getting a wedgie and a slap in the face from Lee O'Dwyer here at the Dojo Sumo Hall...