University Outdoor Nationals 2018
Our recap of Uni Nationals brings you a summary of what went down over the weekend, and also gives you peek at the weird and wonderful that we see between games when the players let their guard down…
Let’s start with the serious. Here’s a quick glance at what went down:
Scotland dominate once again. You’ll have heard this time and time again on the uni scene, and this year has seen the success continue. Scotland brought home the UWON title, UMON div 2 title and had three teams in the top 4 of UMON Div 1. Not too bad a return.
Across the board, Scotland seemed to be defensively strongest in all their games. However, something that we can learn from the ladies of Bath and Edinburgh is that it’s depth that brings success. Having watched a decent amount of footage of the weekend, these two were dangerous because every single player was happy to throw 20 yards, open or break, in the windy conditions. That gave them the advantage against teams who didn’t trust every player to make those kinds of throws. In previous years, teams have been able to rely on one or two star players to carry them through, but this just wasn’t the case this year. Particularly in the windy conditions, teams like Edinburgh and Bath women had a clear advantage as their whole squad were strong and confident.
Seems simple to train, but it brought home two titles against all the other teams who have realistically had the same time to achieve the same things. I remember speaking to one of the Bath players last year, and depth has been their mantra for the last 3 years. No superstars, just do the basics better than everyone else. I think the results speak for themselves.
On the more locally relevant scene, Strathclyde handed out hefty defeats to Glasgow in both categories, following this year’s trend. For the women this came early on Saturday; and the men met each other in their final 3v4 match – aggregate score line 26-6. It’s hard to believe that this academic year brought Strathclyde men’s first defeat of their Glasgow counterparts in meaningful competition for 5 (+?) years; the tide has turned. Congratulations to Strathclyde for totally outclassing their rival. Years of pent up rage have led to an absolute demolition derby that Glasgow must recover from in the next year.
I’ve been told that this year there were less surprises than in previous years and in general the results tell the rest of the stories.
Mens:
Flatball – 2nd
Dark Horses – 3rd
Farflung – 4th
Ro Sham Bo – Div 2 Champions
Dundee – Div 2 7th
Blaze – Div 3 5th
Flatball 2 – Div 3 6th
Womens:
Ro Sham Bo – Champions
Farflung – 4th
Dark Horses – 5th
Flatball – 16th
Blaze – Div 2 11th
The other side of the disc.
As ultimate players we always see the top of the disc, and in the same way we always read about the results and what’s happened after a tournament. This time, we decided to take a look at the flip side. What happens when we delve deeper, what else goes down at tournies?
Well, have a watch: