Scottish UMIR Preview

Winter is officially here. The darkness has brought with it indoors: a sport much inferior to outdoors, but one we all seem to enjoy more than we should. “Another opportunity to play ultimate!” some scream, while others grumble in the corner and reluctantly play with their ‘friends’ to earn precious BUCS points – not that they ever actually did anything for anyone. Regardless, we find ourselves on the brink of another indoor regionals this weekend, so we took a stab at predicting what the weekends gonna look like.

Starting with the interesting bit first, predictions –

1st – Strathclyde***

2nd- Glasgow

3rd- St Andrews

4th- Edinburgh

5th- Aberdeen

6th- Heriot Watt

7th- Dundee

8th- Stirling

The rest, with special mentions to Strathclyde 2 and Edinburgh 2.

***Most likely to chump it but will still make semis regardless.

The Logic

Strathclyde have now, in this writer’s humble opinion, had the best men’s team in the UK for the past 3 years but never capitalised on it. They seem to lack that winning know-how, or maybe their top end isn’t as strong as people believe. This year that has changed, they may no longer outright have the strongest men as they have lost some depth, but they should still have enough to top the tough Scottish region. They still have a plethora of quality players, with Mackie being the best known, but word on the street is that two first team players are sitting this tournament out. Rumour is that Ian Tait did his knee in bending down to talk to people of a certain gender (we cannot comment as we would never assign gender to an individual here at The Release Point).

Glasgow have landed in the final once again thanks to the same few players rotating at the top of the roster. Bryn De Ivey leads this outfit, at least on paper, and the team will look to play the same way as they always do. Everyone will be out to stop them, but Glasgow will likely still soar to the final. Once there, they will wait for any Strathclyde chumping and take full advantage of it, as they did to claim National’s glory (well it would be glory if we counted indoors as a real sport). They have lost some depth in the team, similar to Strathclyde, but they are used to relying heavily on a few players late in tournaments. This year, however that may not be enough to land them the win.

St Andrews are looking like a semi-finalist at best this year. They are defined by the return of Jack Lynch to full time employment in the ultimate department. He has been heard describing himself as a tray, carrying the 7 or so other players on his back. Oh, and the evergreen Hannes is still there to help out. Co-captain Aiden Steer is looking to have a big impact this year and really establish himself as a top uni player. The casual onlookers hope that they can upset someone and return to their UMIN winning days, however this looks a tad unlikely as they have lost a lot of talent to graduation, so getting past semis will be a big ask.

Edinburgh come in predicted 4th. Having lost a tall GB U24 in Hab-very-good and gained a small U24 in Gabe, they are objectively weaker. Height means everything and nothing at the same time, but at least you look scarier as a team when you are tall. Classically a bit of a faceless army with less top end talent but little drop off through the team, they should comfortably land a div 1 place with few difficulties.

Aberdeen, well, well, well. The butt of everyone’s jokes a few short years ago, now winning UXIR. Their men did not get enough credit for that victory with jokes and memes flying around about how good Ellie Taylor is. But receivers can only be as good as their throwers people! Wake up to the facts. Andrew Hunter is going to need to be a big boy for this team for them to qualify without sweat, however their defensive unit matched Glasgow’s top guys at mixed so look out for AUU to be the dark horses of the tournament and maybe take some more scalps. If they don’t make div 1 it would be a shame for them to miss out on building on their mixed success.

Heriot Watt – ouch, losing Jonny Ridley and not replacing him, that’ll cost them. Or will it? Coming in at 6th, Fraser Stewart and Gavin Nicholson will be enough to secure them a spot at div 2 but lacking in firepower and experience, they will probably miss out on the top 5. Is this the nationals they miss every year anyways? I mean and it is indoors. It may even be somewhere in the south. It’s likely on hardcourt. Why bother right?

Dundee. How many programmes are so defined by one player, that when he hasn’t been around for a few years, he has left the country, played at USAU nationals and yet here we are, still talking about him. You all know who I am talking about. Another year without Dickers, another year for Dundee to slip slightly further down the rankings. Connor Rock and Nick Byrne should get them to div 2, though they should be pleased about that as a dangerous couple of second teams may fancy a stab at them.

Stirling, I’ve put them in to scrape it to div 2. Daniel McBride is still there. Yes, still there. In the time that he should have finished his degree, his little brother has picked up the sport, got himself onto Strathclyde 2 and will be looking to beat him to div 2. It’s going to be a tight fight between Stirling, Strathclyde 2 and Edinburgh 2 after Ro Sham only just missed out on UXIN qualification. Grudge matches galore. They did beat Aberdeen in the BUCS league though, so look out for the potential to scrap out some good results.

Points of Note

Thank god Scotland still plays on 3G. Nationals seem to have moved even further south, with UXIN practically in London, on hardcourt. No boring 4-3 zone fests in Scotland.

Most likely to chump it: Yes, I’ve already mentioned it, but if Strathclyde don’t win we all know what happened. Their second team might even be at it if they don’t qualify for div 2. Is it a genetic disposition?

Are power pools just a conspiracy to prolong the schedule? Or should we just go straight to power pools? Could regionals just be one day? Or is that no fun?

No matter what happens, it is very likely that all the teams that qualify will still smash it at Nationals. Can the rules be changed so Scotland gets 6 spots? Maybe if all the div 2 qualifiers attend…

I also notice that I talked a lot about teams losing depth. With hindsight, this happens yearly at university and it’s exciting to see how teams manage to plug the gaps and who will turn out to be star players in the years to come.