Thursday, March 25, 2010

Training Saturday 27th March

Please note that there is no official DU Training this Saturday due to squad commitments at Open Intervarisities............... Intervarsities 2010 website

Some of the squad may still be seen in Herbert Park running and throwing from 11am.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Come training!!

The weathers brilliant, the pitches are playable, springs here and the season is about to get spicy. Fancy some training? Bloody right you do.


When? Saturday mornings @ 11am - 1:30pm
Where? Herbert Park
Who? Al Dublin-based Open players welcome
What? New drills, competitive training
Bring? Water, discs, snack, light & dark jersey

See you next weekend!
Dublin Ultimate

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Pint of Guinness on your face?

St. Patricks Day brings the best, the worst and the tackiest out of most of the Irish population, and not necesarily in that order. DU met up with LMS Ultimate to facepaint in Temple Bar at 10:30am for the guts of 6 hours and we saw a lot of each of the above!

Our face painting skills were solid, - Blonde's were exceptional - our charm turned up to 11, - Dave Ferguson & Keith Coleman deserve a special mention - and we put in a great days effort to raise lots of money! The girls might've been better at the actual painting but classic lines like: 'Pint of Guinness on your face', 'We can fix that face of yours', 'Book of Kells on your face' and '5 - O' won the crowd over repeatedly.



All in all, great fun and very worth the effort! Big thanks to everyone who made it out, to Liz for her great organising and to LMS for their help and efforts. This should be the first of many events we run together :)

Monday, March 15, 2010

Facepainting on Paddys Day

DU is taking to the streets! Keep an eye out in Temple Bar on Wednesday as we join forces with LMS Ultimate to raise some funds for WUCC with a bit of St. Patricks Day face painting. Expect Niall 'Picasso' Harbourne, Roger 'Yeats' Beatty and Kev 'le Brocquy' Timoney to lead the way with everything from, well flags to, eh, pints of Guinness!

Happy Paddys Day!




Monday, March 01, 2010

DU team from EMO Invitational


Front (L - R): Kevin Timoney, Niall Harbourne, Dominick Smyth, Brian Henderson & Louis Free.
Back (L - R): Sam Maehigan, Oisin Flanagan, Darron Costello, Roger Beatty & Seamus Murray.

DU's first tournament

The muddy fields of Loughborough in late February 2010 will be remembered as the venue of Dublin Ultimate's competitive debut - and what a setting!



With strong winds and snow forecast the trip was not the most inspiring prospect. And then our low numbers took a further hit the day we flew out, with Mathieu pulling out with a knee injury and Louis straining a muscle 'doing core' the previous day. The decision to play an early season warm-up tournament was looking about as clever as a cross pitch hammer by Niall*. Still, the 11 of us met in Dublin and over we went in the Ryanair tin can, somehow arriving 10 mins early despite leaving 20mins late. Rental cars, a cheap hotel (for the bright ones amongst us) and off to bed.

Our group was one of two strong groups (it would provide 3 of the top 8 teams) with Brighton, DU, GB Juniors and Manchester. First up were Manchester who we beat 11-2. It was a relatively one-sided affair that saw us implement the new offensive system with a mixed degree of success against a team who struggles to keep up. Game two was against the GB Juniors - a potential banana skin - who had 20-24 players, warmed up for 45-60mins before each game and looked like they were ready to run us into the ground. Looks can deceive however and they decided to practice their zone for entire game which played right into this 9-man tema's hands. Our offence was assured throughout and one break in the 3rd point saw us win out 7-6. Last game of the poo stage was against 2nd seed Brighton on pitch one - the heaviest pitch I've seen in a long time. We started the game brilliantly, trading the first couple before using some blocks to go 2 up, a lead we'd hang on to until the final 10mins of the game. Unfortunately, tired legs and minds coupled with tighter handler D from Brighton saw the game slip from our grasp. 10-8 was the final score - a game we should've won and would've with one or two more pairs of legs...


Last game of the day was a crossover against the ever-friendly Newcastle lads, Brown. Seeded 9th (a seeding they held), the Brown team were slow out of the blocks. Coupled with the fact that we were both very keen to watch the rugby and playing pretty well, the match was never a competition. 8-0 at half-time and 15-4 after 55mins were gone - even that hammer from Nialler couldn't disrupt us. Kev cracked out a suspect hammer too, but at least his was completed! Great bumch of lads, Brown, but not at their best in this one. Straight to the cars and off to find the game. Apparently Loughborough's pubs prefer score reports and no TVs to international rugby so after an irritating 20 minute search we all legged it back to the hotel for the second half. Tension, stupid ref and a glorious Tommy Bowe = 11 lads shouting very loudly in one small hotel room!

Showered, napped, refuelled and off to dinner with us. Eventually we found a small Italian beside the pub where the 'party' was set to go off. a table for 11 on a Saturday night? No problem. In we piled and Iznogood (our quarter-final opponents, 1st seeds & then title-holders) were already eating there. A little bit of banter then down to the ordering. 1 hour later, still no food. This was bad news. As Darron 'my dad owns 10 restaurants' Costello said 'Everything about the restaurant disappoints - the dated decor, the laminated menus, the next to non-existant wine list - don't even get me started on the the service front of house. I mean how long does is take to get a decent Cosmocello around here'. Food arrived in drabs and was alright, but ultimately it wasn't enough ans we were all left wanting more, much like... no, I'll let that go. Luckily, the pub wouldn't let us in (Niall's luminous green trackies not deemed en vogue enough for Loughborough's finest) so we could go home guilt free. Match of the Day with the lads and off to bed.



Sunday was windier that Staurday but the rain held off for most of it. Our first game was at 10am, against the Frenchies of Iznogood on the 'it's like cutting on sand only you get stuck' pitch. We started well, trading to 2s before going a break down. We kept running hard though and as the match wore on the mistakes started creeping in from their end. A few misthrows from both teams made the match a real dofight, especially given the state of the pitch, but we always managed to keep a lead of 1 or 2. Finally it was a game to 9 with us 8-6 up. They put their offence away, despite us getting an upwind turn and then Dom took a great layout catch for the win. The work ethic and team support in theis game was waht won it for us. From the sideline it was clear who wanted it and that we'd learned from our loss vs. Brighton.


The semi-final was against Team Shark of Oxford fame. Last year they had a great season at Tour (9th) and are a tall, hard-running team lead by a few excellent handlers. The difference in this game was clear - they had 13 or 14 players, we had 9. They didnt stap running and despite us tearing out of the blocks to go 2 up they dominated the middle section of the game. We turned in areas we'd not turned before and the 50/50s were only going one way. A late rally wasn't enough and after leaking 5 points without reply in the middle run we lost 10-7 in a game that was quite literally a step too far. In the other semi-final Brighton beat the 7-man Tooting Tiger so it was 9-man Dublin versus 7-man Tooting. The Tigers are a smart, solid team with good experience and plan on cememnting their top 8 A Tour finish of last season. Much like our squad, they were suffering and despite a decent start couldn't keep up with our offence. Tired bodies lead to mistakes and we ran out 10-6 winners to take 3rd place. 

To cap off a fine weekend's Ultimate we were awarded the Spirit prize (€100 Lookfly vouchers) - delighted! All in all, this was a brillinat start for us. We got to use our new systems, we got an early season run, we blooded players who've not played at this level an most importantly we set a marker for DU players of the future - this team is strong and it will fight. We'll be fit and we'll work hard for each other. If we do that much, the results with look after themselves. Well done to all who travelled and thanks to the lads at EMO, especially Brummie for running the tournament. Much appreciated. 


MVP - Roger Beatty
- Rarely put a foot wrong. Excellent on offence when he seemed to get free at will and took down some great Ds when we really needed them. More of the same Podger!

MSP - Oisin Flanagan
- A late addition to the team, Oisin was enthusiastic, encouraging and fair for the whole weekend. A great motivator and showed belief when we all needed it.

For more photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/dublinultimate/EmoInvitational2010

* i.e. not clever