London winter league 2007 started off in classic fashion: early morning bus rides, and shitty weather! But isn’t that what we all love about winter league? The team for the day was an interesting mix of old school thrown, young blood and a dash of US pickup
just for fun!
Our first game was against Thundering Herd 1. We arrived with minutes to spare and started out cold and not a little bit sleepy. The wind was strong and we struggled to maintain possession. We tried man defence to get us running and for a bit of a warm up but soon realized that zone was probably a better option. This slowed the game down and stopped their heavy scoring, eventually allowing us to score our single point of the match, TJ with the assist to Kaleigh for the score. The game ended something like 8-1, a score that both teams agreed was not really reflective.
Thankfully there was no break between our first and second games and we went to play Curve feeling warm and hungry for a win. The beginners in our side seemed to have picked up the brownie zone pretty well so we wasted no time in throwing it, in classic thrown fashion, on our opposition. The zone was tight and we got the turnovers we wanted quickly. Some good hands from Jessie, and a bit flow through Tim and Robin helped us build up a nice lead. Curve did make a resurgence of sorts but we managed to hold on, scoring most of our downwind points. We closed out the game to record our second win of the season against Curve – the score 9-6 (maybe?).
Game three was against Overthrow (the ARUP company team FYI). We only knew a couple of their players, one of them Manny, always a threat. We went into the game after a good warm up and with the spark of confidence we needed. Once again the brownie worked like a dream. Hard forcing from me and Kaleigh, the impenetrable wall of Stella and Nick, and Tim flying high in the long position made sure that Overthrow didn’t make much use of the little possession they had. On o we took our chances –memorable scores include Tim skying Manny and Robin’s break force scuba to me. This was definitely Thrown’s best game of the day, with stifling d and sharp o. The final score 10-2. This win secured our 4th seed but the day was not over yet and our hardest game still lay ahead. We were to face Brighton in the 3rd/4th playoff.
Brighton put out a very strong team with the likes of Ham and Roach on the line. We went out with nothing to lose and our first point was slick (and downwind) as we managed to get the score, bringing with it a bit of confidence. On D our brownie looked stronger than ever. We worked so hard, with everyone putting in 100% effort. This soon reaped rewards in the form of turnovers. Unfortunately the wind had picked up again, and was soon joined by some driving rain. This was ultimately to be our downfall on O as we struggled to maintain possession in the up-field and found adjusting to man offensive difficult as they mixed it up on D. Brighton started to edge away, using their experience to slowly break our zone. Our other point came in the form of a calahan score – proving the strength of our zone d. The final score was a respectable 5-2 to Brighton.
So overall we held seed, which is great. We also proved that when it comes to shitty weather we can still zone it with the best of them.
More importantly I had a great day and I hope everyone else did too!