Chilly and Wildcard take the titles

I'll have to leave it to someone else to write the full story of the finals, or wait for Dom's video to come out, as I was somewhat distracted during the games with some admin tasks. I can therefore only provide some snippets of the action.

In my book, Team Box (Melbourne) came into the Women's Final as favourites against Wildcard (Sydney), as Box had shown more consistency throughout the weekend, and despite Wildcard's head-to-head win in the round robin. The low wind conditions probably suited Wildcard slightly, as that meant a large majority of their experienced throwers were huck threats. Wildcard had certainly accounted for Manly quite comprehensively in their semi. As a former Wildcard coach I'll probably always regret not putting my head as well as my heart behind Wildcard.

Anyhow, from my perspective, Wildcard's dominance was a story of defence. Playing a quite straight-up defence, they managed to force Team Box's throws wide, and opened up the inside lanes for their defenders to come through and get the block. This happened umpteen times.

The other story of the final was the rise of the youth players. Both teams were carrying a bunch of young players, most of whom had played at U19 Worlds in Boston last year. Of particular note from Team Box were Michelle Phillips, with her incessant cutting and committed defence, Arwyn Cartledge, seemingly open all day, and Amanda Eastwood, who hit the ground like it was a trampoline on offence and defence. Wildcard had Tara Carraro cleaning up on defence, Ju Birchall's solid handling, and a particularly spectacular chest-high layout block by Ellie Sparke, that I sadly missed witnessing but heard recounted numerous times over the next two hours.

I should also mention Tom Brennan's coaching role with Wildcard, he was no doubt a fount of knowledge and analysis for the team and seemed to be working as hard on the sidelines as the players were on the field.

Final score 15-10.

The Men's final was expected to be all Chilly (Melbourne). Fakulti S (Sydney) had just come off a very tough semi-final, and their top players, in particular Pete Gardner, Anthony Dowle and Andrew Glover, were noticeably exhausted in the final points. They had a couple of hours to recover and refuel for the final.

Both teams traded for a couple of points before Chilly got the break. It was a very offence-dominated game, with both teams relying on mistakes or over-confidence from the other team to create the turnover. Chilly in particular has developed its long game to near perfection, and there are a number of competent huckers and a bunch of solid receivers, which make it very hard to shut down Chilly's open game.

Chilly opened up a bit of a lead through to half, and then after half decided to put the foot on the accelerator by taking Tom Rogacki out of the cotton wool and sending him deep to dominate the endzone. Fakulti S tried to stop the momentum with a couple of points of zone, but it was not enough and Chilly converted blocks in the last couple of points to run out eventual winners 15-11.

Pete Gardner was inspirational for Fakulti. As far as I could see, he played every point in the semi and final, and although he often looked exhausted, he just kept running and getting blocks. He was pivotal to Fakulti's offence, and his backhand was a constant threat, regardless of the force. His miraculous snaffle in the endzone over Steve Campbell was an exemplar of his complete talent, the Federer of Australian Ultimate.

But it was Chilly's year again, it will be interesting to see if Sydney launches some kind of response next year; I feel it's well overdue for a real mix-up of the Sydney men's scene, but I wouldn't like to see a super-team emerge.

But, thanks to the youth program, Victorian ultimate is only getting stronger, so we may be seeing Melbourne teams on the men's podium for a few more years yet.