Cape Town Ultimate

The 2009 South African Ultimate National Championships has come and gone and left us with tired bodies and amazing memories. The 2 teams that travelled up to Johannesburg to represent Cape Town were Zebru and Chilli, and here we have a recollection of the weekend performances from the respective captains. Some great new photos have been added to the gallery, thanks to the various contributors…

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Anyone that has great photos they would like to add to the gallery can email them to me: wildcard.enterprises (at) gmail.com

Steve: Zebru
What a fantastic weekend! Zebru went 2-3 (wins-losses) with close losses to Mozambique and Prawn Bunnies. We were slow starters in both games, but I’m definitely blaming our Sunday morning loss on the fact that we won the PARTY! It may have something to do with the fact that Zebru won the… err… ‘late night’ game of Ultimate. But then again, in games like that doesn’t everyone win?

A quick recap of the Zebru games: We started our Saturday morning out in the ‘Pool of Death’ with Dabique (Mozambique), Long Donkeys (PMB), and Disco (J’burg). Dabique was a first game of the morning, and after a quick breakfast from Spar, we were a little slow to start. Dabique featured a mix of highly, skilled, Ex-pat experience players and new local players. We let them get up 3-0, and then 4-1 on the dry, dusty, hard grounds of J’burg. However, we started to click and played great Ultimate the rest of the way. Finally with the time cap going off, the game was tied at 6-6. We pulled to them and managed to get a D, but then I gave it back to them with a bad swing to Sam on the goal line. They were able to stuff it in for the score. This ended up being the deciding game for going to the semi-finals for our pool since the Long Donkeys were very impressive and hungry. The played a flat cup with three guys an average of 6 inches taller than me, and it ended up frustrating us to no end. We ended the day playing Disco, in which we found our rhythm and let off lots of big hucks. The next morning we played a very muddy game with Prawn Bunnies. They definitely took advantage of the fact that we were collectively hung over from the party and got off to an early lead. Being a brand new team from Durban, they are a great addition to the South African Ultimate scene with athletic play and great Spirit. Plus they had Neal playing for them, so how could they lose? We are definitely looking forward to playing them again and out cheering them – which won’t be easy. Nonetheless, it was a super fun game where everyone got their white Zebru shirts covered with plenty of mud from the rain the night before. We finished up our tournament with a win against a strong yet fun Swaziland team. Everyone was a bit tired, but we played some of our best ultimate of the weekend with great flow and passes and defense from everyone.

There was great play from everyone, but where Zebru really shined this weekend was with our Spirit. Sam and Zak, our king and queen of cheer, had a great tournament, and Zak was giving it his all when he broke his hand on defense. Gig-a-lo, I think now is a Zebru staple cheers and we’re going to have to teach everyone else the words. With the help of the whole team, Sam came up with one great song after another to cheer the other teams with. I think we made a lot of new friends and had a great time. And then of course, we rocked the party out. The girls looked amazing in grass skirts and bikini’s and they definitely put the sexy into Ultimate. The guys also looked great, all in Hawaiian shirts and lei’s. Once again, a fantastic and fun tournament! I don’t think I laughed so much in a 48 hour span as I did then. It was great staying in a house with so many Zebru players and so much fun to be hosted by Lionel. A number of players on other teams did mention to me that they were jealous of just how much fun we were having. So without a doubt, we had great Spirit, great Ultimate, and a great time! It was a fantastic tournament and I can’t wait until the next one!

Ant: Chilli
For Chilli, Nationals 2009 was always going to be about defending the title we won in 2008. In the history of the tournament no team had ever managed to claim the prize two years in a row and when we won in Cape Town in 2008 we made it our goal to become the first team to defend the title.

Months of fitness and skills training, analysis and hard work all culminated in Johannesburg on the weekend, in a tournament, that in truth, could not have panned out better for us.
We opened with a repeat of 2008’s final against Ultitude – a game that was clearly the toughest we would experience in our pool. Both teams showed early nerves in the near perfect weather conditions, but despite some bad options early on we came through comfortable winners 9-5. The game saw us reduced to just two women with Jenna ruled out due to illness. Our second game, against Swaziland, which began less than 15 minutes after the first was really fun, with some great skills on show. A stunning layout grab from Dave Needleman set the tone and although a couple of points dragged on for longer than they should have we ran out comfortable 13-2 winners. Durban was our final game of the day, a match-up that saw us face several former Chilli’s in Neal, Bern, Rebecca and Alix. For those who say Chilli are too serious: our six man cup-a-saurus hopefully went some way towards dispelling the myth. The Durban crew had lost earlier to Swaziland but they upped their game against us to score some classy points against our Junk defence that was becoming more effective with each game. We eventually ran out 13-4 winners.

Nerves were present again on Sunday for the semi’s where we faced the much improved Mozambique who boasted a real international flavour with GB and Dutch internationals on their line-up as well as well as a host of lightning quick locals. We had heard all about their long game and the strength of their women and we were prepared. We knew that shutting down their long game would be the key to success. We varied our defence in the semi mixing the tight man-on-man we had been practicing with several junk points. It worked well, but in truth we won the game with our offence, only turning the disc once as we took the half 7-0. We then traded to 9-2 before we reached the cap, in a game where the score did not reflect the close nature of the battle or the effort that went into winning. Lolly, Jenna and Keren featured in some huge plays with our girls showing that perhaps they were in fact the strongest female line-up in the tournament.

The final saw us face up to Long Donkeys for our fifth encounter in three tournaments. A fantastic rivalry has developed between the two teams and we always enjoy playing them. The Donkey’s always give as good as they get and we knew they were desperate to win. A tricky breeze came up shortly before the final and we after receiving the first pull we were turned and they opened the scoring with an upwind point. We countered immediately with consecutive scores and we traded to the half. Both sides played zone defence. PMB broke us by repeatedly hammering over the top while we got them shifting with some patient dumping and swinging.
We took the half 7-6 and scored a crucial upwind point immediately after the break with Chris sprinting the full length of the field to grab a floater at the back of the zone. We bagged the follow-up downwind point and suddenly we were leading 9-6. Subtle adjustments to our junk meant hammers over the top were no longer an option, while our relentless moving of the disc saw a tiring Donkey’s go to man meaning we could play our favoured direct style.
To be honest, I cannot recall the final score, I think it was 12-8. The final point and the win signaled the completion of our mission, to defend the title and keep the trophy in Cape Town and we were all elated. SA Nationals has now been held on 7 occasions and it has always been won by a Cape-based side. It was also a triumph for high quality, competitive yet spirited Ultimate. I think the final demonstrated how well conflict can be resolved between two competitive sides who are both hungry to win.

A big thanks to all the sides who participated. Those who were there to play hard, those who wanted to party and those who were about learning and building and experiencing all the different facets Ultimate has to offer. For those that fall into the latter category, hopefully, on some level Chilli can be an inspiration. When we put the team together in 2006 we had three experienced players, a vision and a host of beginners. We came last. But the team stayed together and grew and the following year we reached the semi’s. Then came 2008 and 2009 and the wins we had set our sites on back in 2006. The bulk of those new folk that played their first competitive Ultimate back in 2006 are still with us and the core of the team has remained unchanged for several years – it makes a big difference.