Tanzania, October 2004

Tanzania, 2004

Tanzania logo, 2004.

In October 2004, the Tanzania played in the Australian Mixed Ultimate Championships at Raymond Terrace, (near Newcastle), NSW. This was the second year a Tasmanian Mixed Ultimate team travelled north of Bass Strait to play Mixed Nationals, following on from the inaugural Tasmanian Mixed Nationals campaign of WOM in 2003. Tanzania were initially seeded 14th, and drew a tough initial pool of 4 teams. Throughout the tournament, Tanzania was a team of the second half, performing much better in the second half of every game than in the first. Unfortunately, winning the second half isn't always sufficient to win the game!

Tanzania demonstrating their first half game.

Day 1: 4 games

Tanzania's first game was against the team, UQ lovers (University of Queensland: final rank 17) who started strongly. Tanzania were closing fast towards the end of the game but still behind at time cap. The second game saw a similar story with the Scurvy Dogs (Adelaide: final rank 10), running out winners by a couple of points. The last game of the initial pool (seeds 11, 12, 13 and 14) was against Bootius Maximus (Brisbane: final rank 4). This was one of Tanzania's best performances, pushing this strong team in a wind affected game, and scoring an important upwind point in the second half. Tanzania lost the game and hence ended up in one of the "bottom pools", needing to win a lot to get a second chance to finish in the 9-16 bracket. The last game of day 1 was against the Armidale Mountain Women (Armidale: final rank 23). This was a must win game, but Tanzania started this game, against a fast running hucking team, without their heads in the game and lost the first half 7-4, with a couple of upwind goals scored by the Mountain Women. A more disciplined second half saw much stronger play by Tanzania and the first victory of the tournament.

Felix and Ashleigh modelling the traditional Tanzanian ceremonial layout skirt.

Day 2: 2 games

Day 2 saw two morning games for Tanzania, against Sandy Crack (Manly C: final ranking 21) and Project Megamonkey (Sydney, UTS and Macquarie Uni: final ranking 15). Both of these games were tight but Tanzania started to gel a little better and ended up with reasonably comfortable wins. A three way tie at the head of this lower pool (Tanzania, UQ Lovers and Project Megamonkey) saw Tanzania benefit and, with a superior goal difference, winning this lower pool and advancing to the 9-16 playoffs. With the afternoon off, Tanzanians were seen in the pool and at the beach.

Tanzanians at the beach.

Day 3: 3 games

Day 3 was where is really counted. Tanzania's first opponents were UNSW (final ranking 9) and, in a game that could have gone either way, Tanzania's almost traditional slow start saw UNSW take the game relatively easily. This left Tanzania playing for places 13-16, and playing the very experienced Executive Cut (Manly B: final ranking 16). This time Tanzania managed to play a solid first half, and eventually seemed to have enough pace to outrun Executive Cut. The final game was against Slow Down for Roos (Canberra B: final ranking 13). Again Tanzania won the second half, cutting the final winning margin to two points, but giving their opponents a 4 point lead at half time was sufficient for the Roos to hop across the line in the end, leaving Tanzania maintaining their seeding, finishing in 14th place, with 4 wins and 5 losses.

Thanks

Special thanks to Captain Shavawn Donoghue for leading the team and playing the role of soccer mum, and to Mike Baker and Tim Phillips for helping to run training sessions. Also thank to out very well spirited pickup Jo, who ably filled in when Tanzania had a last minute withdrawal. Joe Boyer also deserved mention as the only person to have played in 5 Tasmanian Nationals teams in since 2002, 3 at Nationals and 2 at Mixed Nationals.

Tanzania were: (back row) Dave Cooke, Joe Boyer, Stewart Wilde, Asher Gentle; (middle row), Jo Smuk, Shavawn Donoghue (captain), Ashleigh Martens, Kerryn Herman, Sarah Robinson, Kate Godber; (front row) Mike Baker, Felix Kennedy, Tim Phillips, Jemery Day.

Team list

The 2004 Tanzanians were:

Tanzania demonstrating their second half game.

There are many more photos from Newcastle which can now be found at Charlie's ultimate gallery!