2023 Club Season: Alba

Alba coach Leo Micklem has summarised Alba’s 2023 season for The Release Point. Alba was captained by Cameron Mackie and Joel Terry.

2023 was one of Alba’s most successful seasons.

The year began with a change of leadership within the club. Joel Terry stepped up for his first season in charge, filling the boots of departing captain Camy Agnew, along with Cameron Mackie for his final season as captain. 2023 also saw the appointment of Leo Micklem, as Alba’s first non-playing coach, fresh from a European Title winning run with Ranelagh in 2022.

In addition, 2023 saw the introduction of our Young Bucks program. This initiative gives young players the opportunity to train with Alba at an earlier stage in their development than they might have done otherwise. By inviting younger players to train with us, we hope they will develop to become valuable members of the team. We took on five young bucks, with four of the five picking up with first Alba caps during the season. The team set lofty goals for themselves from the outset: win a national title, make quarter finals in Europe, and develop the Alba stars of the future.

With new leadership and new coaching ideas to implement, our big focus at Tom’s Tourney at the start of the year was to focus on ourselves. With split lines and all players encouraged to test out different roles, there was a steep learning curve that allowed us to keep pushing our minimum standard. 5 wins and 3 losses left the team in 11th place, so we knew there were big improvements to come.

Due to GB Mixed and Open both training the same weekend as Nottingham Windfarm, and GB u24 Open competing, we sent a developmental team with plenty of opportunities for younger squad members to play in bigger roles. There were some tough lessons on day one, taking losses to GB u24 Open and Bristol Open. However, things started to click for this young group on day two, with 3 wins from 3 and a 5th place finish.

Windmill Windup, in Amsterdam, was the third outing of the year. Again, this gave real opportunities for players to stand up and be tested by the gruelling schedule and Dutch heat. With GB and Ireland Mixed both in action, the squad was without many of the regular stars, and their coach. Thankfully, a couple of pickups from Chevron and Bristol helped bolster numbers, particularly when some friendly fire resulted in a busted nose and bleeding elbow for Phil Webb and Iain Lindsay, respectively. The Swiss Draw format of the tournament meant that despite having a winning record, we finished in 17th. These hard fought wins would stand to us later in the season.

As we headed towards the business end of the season, we were again without most of our GB players for Regionals, taking place just one week after the European Ultimate Championships. The team continued to work on improvement areas, knowing that tougher days and more important challenges lay ahead. Alba finished 2nd with Chevron ultimately proving too good in the second half of the final.

UK Nationals saw us take on our primary goal for the season: win the UK title. The team was without key players Andrew Boxall (travel), Mark Simpson (injury), Iain Tait (injury), and Andrew Cleary (work). Fortunately, the return of incoming 2024 captain Ali McNeil bolstered the squad’s spirits.

Day one saw a clean sweep for the stags. This set up a semi-final rematch with Chevron. There were early opportunities for both sides with Chevy taking an initial lead. Both sides gave up breaks through the middle of the game, which left Alba needing a late run to win. Unfortunately, we fell short, losing 15-13, while Chevron would go on to win their first national title. Huge congratulations to them for that. Day two required a shift in focus to secure our European qualification. The highlight of the day was a universe point win over reigning European Champions, Ranelagh, securing us the bronze medal.

Our final tournament of the year was Euros in Wroclaw, Poland. Our initial pool saw us take down Czech champions 3SB and Panthers Bern to top the pool. This took us straight to pre-quarters without the need to play a cross-over. We came up against European powerhouse Bad Skid for a chance to achieve our goal of quarter finals. Alba started fast, breaking in the first point of the game with Andrew Boxall crossing over to the D-line to assist Camy Agnew.

A run of breaks for both teams saw Alba take half 8-6, after an assist from Cal Easton to ‘young buck’ Lucas Johnston. In the second half, the wind that had previously been so kind to our deep shots, turned, helping Bad Skid bring the game to 13-13. Alba held and then sent out a killer line to try break for the victory. With the turn secured, Joel Terry came down with a speculative hammer to the endzone, from XVI guest star Jack MacNamara, taking Alba to the quarter finals.

In the quarter final, BFD La Fotta proved too much (going on to win the bronze medal), putting Alba into the semi for 5th against local rivals, Chevron. A couple of well-timed breaks for Chevron proved the difference in the end, as both teams coped with playing under lights. This left Alba the opportunity to take 7th and their highest ever European finish in the final game against Belgian opposition, Jetset. A run of 4 breaks leading into and out of half saw Alba win 15-11. This tournament also saw European debuts for 8 players with every player racking up at least one stat.

We are hugely proud of our efforts during the 2023 season, and are excited for the 2024 season ahead. We’ll be continuing to push for our first national title and for a European Semi Final. Thanks to our European finish, we’ll be competing at Elite Invite for the first time, and will continue with our successful Young Bucks program. If you are interested in being a part of our life-enhancing journey, please sign up at the EOI here.

Finally special congratulations and kudos to all our players involved in national teams in 2023:

• Adam Sweeney: GB Open Indoors
• Andrew Boxall: GB Mixed Grass
• Andrew Dick: GB Mixed Grass
• Ben Tang: GB u24 Mixed Grass
• Camy Agnew: GB Mixed Grass
• Gregor Forster: GB u24 Open Grass
• Iain Tait: GB Mixed Beach
• Joel Terry: GB Open Grass
• Jonny Evans: GB u24 Open Grass
• Leo Micklem: Ireland Mixed Grass (Coach)
• Leon Williams: GB u24 Mixed Grass
• Mark Simpson: GB Mixed Grass
• Phil Webb: GB Masters Open Grass

Don’t limit your challenges – Challenge your limits.

Photos:

Likkan Chung https://www.instagram.com/lkc.ultimate?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

Rosie Hudson (featured photo) https://www.instagram.com/rosie.does.photos?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

@ultimouat https://www.instagram.com/ultimouat?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==