The Royal WEfnuk: Week I

Last night we played "Offshore Swilling," a team featuring Vince, Pauline, Jason T. and a relative newcomer to the area Damon (whom I think is SWEET and other people don't quite appreciate appropriately yet). And the most germane fact is that they feature more or less only those people - their captain Roland had an advantage in the draft (getting the first pick in EVERY round) and he intentionally used his lower picks to grab players who would be showing up sparingly. While that's a pretty shrewd move in the win-at-all-costs mode, it's not entirely in the spirit of things, but to each his or her own. Suffice it to say that they are quite a juggernaut team anyways, but when they are playing only their top players the entire game, they are that much more impressive.

To that end, we were missing one of our top pics Justin and our top female pick Teri. But we had all of the rest of our players (minus Amber), so we had to split playing time accordingly. I think we did a good time being egalitarian about that, but maybe to a bad "win the game" effect; we routinely ended up with some relative newbies guarding their superdudes, and that caused a lot of problems for us.

The game can be summed up quite simply - we turned it over within 20 yards of our own goal line far too frequently, and they capitalized really well. They basically just didn't turn it over, and when you've got advantages at every spot on the field (and a bunch of guys who know how to get open and not turn it over), that makes for a pretty brutal and disheartening game. We ran hard, but didn't do the world's best job of holding the mark, playing defense or making cuts on offense. Combine that with a few bad decisions, and you've got a recipe for a blowout; a blowout it was.

We lost 15-8, and considering an 8-2 start, that wasn't actually so bad. (You'll notice we played them 7-6 in the second half). We just had trouble getting things going and as mentioned, they were brutally efficient. They're going to be the team to beat if you ask me. We need to be vastly more aggressive on making cuts and otherwise just get a little better on our D technique - again, the bulk of their scores were quick, transition points coming from our bad short field turns, so avoiding that will be paramount as well.

I played okay myself; had one bad turnover on a windblown disc and a couple on emergency stall 9 hucks, but otherwise took care of things on O just fine. Had at least four Ds that I can remember and one super "not my guy" D that I unfortunately macked up - he caught it for a score as the rest of our team seemed to have given up on the play. Ah, well. Caught a score, threw four, but really my accomplishment of the day was hanging reasonably well on defense against the likes of Vince, Damon and Jason - they didn't get open easily and I don't remember getting burned (though admittedly, at least part of the time they just took themselves out of the play, recognizing that their other matchups were better. Smart dudes).

So, self-centered score on the season: 4 goals thrown, 1 goal caught, 3 turns, 4 Ds. We'll report this type of things as 4/1/3/4 from here on out.

Captaining wise, I think G and I did a good job - met before the game to discuss some basics, ran a drill, worked with the new players. As the score got more lopsided, people seemed to get a bit dejected, but we picked up the energy as we went. We conveyed some info, kept things positive, and despite getting blown out, kept our spirits up. So that was cool. We've got a brand-newbie in one of our women, Alex, and she just did a fantastic job of staying positive - I'm not sure she even got the disc in the game, as we were having trouble getting it to anyone let alone someone just learning that cut. To try to at least get her a taste, I called a play for her on one of the last points of the game; of course Damon came flying in with a poach D on her. Sigh. Oh, well, we'll keep working; she did have a great aggressive go at a D and seems to have an intuitive grasp of cutting, so that's cool.

So that's about it - a little disappointing opening week, but we had a good time and can only get better from here. We did get a little revenge during the cheer by busting out our clever stick. Here it is for posterity:

We are the Funk that's oh-so-Royal
We're tired of dependance on foreign oil
You really worked us with your forehand force,
But now it's time for an alternative fuel source
Fusion? Solar? Cool windmillin'?
Aw, funk that: Offshore swilling.
Swill. Baby. Swill.