UTas team photo, Adelaide, September 2006: (back row) (front row) Missing: Well everyone at the moment!
In September 2007, the second University of Tasmania (UTas) ultimate team to attend the Australian University Games travelled to The Southport School, Gold Coast, Queensland to play the Australian University Games. Unlike previous years, in 2007, there were no qualifying tournaments prior to AUG. The 2006 Australian University Games had 20 teams and two initial pools.
The University of Tasmania qualified in 8th position for AUG on the Gold Coast. The 8th seeding was changed to 7th due to University of Newcastle's withdrawal from the tournament. The teams were divided into two pools of ten, initial seedings based on last year's results. Naturally there were a lot of teams that had changed since previous AUG and put the seedings out of whack. To cut to the chase, Uni of Tasmania landed in the significantly stronger pool (with the likes of UQ, Melbourne, ANU; a significantly stronger Monash and QUT ... and UWA - always a strong contender). We had work cut out for us to hold our 4th place seed in our pool and advance to the quarter finals.
Our first day of play saw us take on the 3 bottom seeds in our pool. None of the games seemed to be "easy" wins (despite the appearance of some of the fairly convincing scorelines below) and we only scraped in with a two point win against QUT. Regardless, a win is a win and we went the first day undefeated.
UTAS (15) vs Latrobe University (3)
UTAS (10) vs QUT (8)
UTAS (15) vs Griffith (2)
Tuesday saw us with two tough games against UQ and ANU. We played ANU first and fell victim to their "height" (Tom times two) which saw them sending the frisbee deep a lot of the time and they won the game 10-8. In the afternoon we ventured to the more exposed "canal" fields for the first time to take on UQ. We were matching the number 2 seed point for point with some strong offence and sold defence. The halftime score was 8-7 (I think - to UQ). UQ showed their strength in the second half taking it away to 15-9. A very respectable score against the ultimate champions.
UTAS (8) vs ANU (10)c
UTAS (9) vs UQ (15)
Day 3
Wednesday saw the aches starting to kick in and Nurofen became a standard part of our warm up from this point forward. This was going to be a tough day. It we had any chance of making the quarter finals and retain our top 8 ranking we had to win all our games on this day - tough ask - as we were facing 3 very competitive teams; University of Western Australia, University of Melbourne and University of Ballarat. UWA, bit of an unknown quantity and having quarter final hopes of their own, came out very strong…and a little bit physical! It was (cliché) a toughly contested game, and even though we came out 5 points in front, never felt like the dominant team. Quite relieved to have that game behind us. Our game against Melbourne was going to be tough and "could" be the decider with regard to making the quarter finals or not. The entire game was close, never more than a few points in it. We were able to finish ahead, taking a 3rd seed scalp on the way. By the time we had to play University of Ballarat, we had just enough in the tank to get us over the line. Not the prettiest of games, and credit to them playing with no male subs. I think most of us were scraped off the field after scoring the final point.
UWA (6) vs UTAS (11)
MELB (10) vs UTAS (12)
UTAS (12) vs UBAL (7)
To secure our spot in the quarter final we had to win against Monash on Thursday morning. Another tough ask. Monash, although seeded roughly 13th were one of the in-form teams and definite medal contenders. We went into this game a little slow and not playing our best, but after a half time game of "mingle" we perked up and fought back to make the score a little more respectable. Due to a three way tie between Melbourne, ANU and ourselves for 3rd spot, we had to wait for the result of the ANU vs Melbourne game to find out whether we made the quarter finals or not. Ideally we wanted to ANU to win which would bump Melbourne out to 5th spot. But that didn't happen. Melbourne won the game by 1 point. Even though Melbourne had won the game, it wasn't by enough to bump us down. Melbourne needed to win by two or more points, so we had snuck into the quarter finals. Commiserations to Melbourne. We competed hard in our quarter final against Macquarie but they were a team just out of our touch. We lost the quarter final 13-6.
UTAS (9) vs Monash (12)
MACQ (13) vs UTAS (6)
Our first game in the 5th-8th playoffs saw us against number 3 in the other pool, University of Sydney. We had definitely renewed our belly fire and wanted to win this game. Awesome play by the whole team saw us win the game 11-9. Now for 5th and 6th playoff. Let's just say we had a fun game against ANU which involved lots of body paint, walking points, hammer points, t-rex points, on-shoulder points interspersed with games of "mingle" and some other "shooting" game…
UTAS (11) vs SYD (9)
UTAS winners over ANU…
Full tournament results can also be found on Andrew Olennick's Ultimate scores website. For the record, the University of Tasmania results were:
| Game | Opponent | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Latrobe University | 15-3 |
| 2. | Queensland University of Technology | 10-8 |
| 3. | Griffith | 15-2 |
| 4. | ANU | 8-10 |
| 5. | University of Queensland | 9-15 |
| 6. | University of Western Australia | 11-6 |
| 7. | University of Melbourne | 12-10 |
| 8. | University of Ballarat | 12-7 |
| 9. | Monash University | 9-12 |
| 10. Quarter-final | Macquarie University | 6-13 |
| 11. 5-8 semi-final playoff | University of Sydney | 11-9 |
| 12. 5th v 6th playoff | Australian National University | 2-1 |
The final team rankings (available at the AFDA website) were:
| Rank | Team | Seed |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | University of Queensland (Qld) | 2 |
| 2. | Macquarie University (NSW) | 1 |
| 3. | University of New South Wales (NSW) | 8 |
| 4. | Monash University (Vic) | 11 |
| 5. | University of Tasmania (Tas) | 7 |
| 6. | Australian National University (ACT) | 6 |
| 7. | University of Sydney (NSW) | 4 |
| 8. | New Zealand | 12 |
| 9. | University of Melbourne (Vic) | 3 |
| 10. | University of Western Australia (WA) | 10 |
| 11. | Queensland University of Technology (Qld) | 15 |
| 12. | Flinders University (SA) | 9 |
| 13. | University of Ballarat (Vic) | 14 |
| 14. | University of Adelaide (SA) | 5 |
| 15. | Murdoch University (WA) | 13 |
| 16. | University of Western Sydney (NSW) | 20 |
| 17. | La Trobe University (Vic) | 18 |
| 18. | Griffith University (Qld) | 19 |
| 19. | Charles Sturt University (NSW) | 17 |
| 20. | University of Technology Sydney (NSW) | 16 |
Thanks to Ash Martens and Tania King for putting together the second UTas team to make it to AUG and to Tania for providing material for this team report!
| Shirt number | Name |
|---|---|
| 12 | Ash Martens |
| 33 | Eliza Burke-Polden* |
| 7 | Shelly Slater |
| 8 | Tania King* |
| 4 | Bruce Hart* |
| 27 | Che O'May* |
| 42 | Dan Eybs* |
| 3 | Matt Platts |
| 13 | Mike Baker |
| 99 | Nick Van Adrichem* |
| 11 | Peter Prial* |
| 79 | Philippe St-Pierre |
UTas team photo, Adelaide, September 2006: (back row) (front row) Missing: Well everyone at the moment!
Congratulations to Tania King and Ash Martens for their selection to the Green and Gold merit team selected at this tournament and to Tania King and Mike Baker for winning the UTas Most Valuable Player awards in the female and male categories respectively.