Jabba

Jabba Now Recruiting!!

2012-01-06T13:55:00.000Z

Are you looking for an ultimate club to play for? Come join Jabba!!

Jabba will be holding an open training session this Saturday, 28th January from 1:30pm to 3pm in St. Anne's Park, Raheny for any guys or girls who would like to come along and see what its like to play for Dublin's only Open, Womens and Mixed club.

The session will be made up of a few light drills, mainly throwing, catching and cutting and we will round it off with some games. It will be a great chance for us to get to know you and for you to get to see what playing for Jabba is really like. We're looking for players of all levels so please don't be afraid to come along and join in.

Jabba runs trainings every Wednesday and Saturdays and will be entering a large number of domestic and international tournaments throughout the year. The club is coached by Ian French and Fiona Mernagh, both of whom have represented Ireland three times, most recently at EUC 2011 where they won Male and Female MVP respectively. Coupled with this is years of coaching and captaining both their college teams and Jabba.

If you are interested in coming along then please email me at adamwyse2@gmail.com for more information

Have a Jabba Yabba Christmas!

2012-01-02T04:33:00.001Z

The annual Jabba awards saw festive mischief and merriment! A big thanks to FLaG (Foxi, Louise and Graham) for hosting the awards and party after!!

This year’s awards were as close andhard fought as ever with 9 of the 26 awards being decided by onevote! As well as the usual categories of MVP and MSP, theold favourite categories like Comedy King of the Year, Mostuseless Person and If you had to get stuck in an elevator witha Jabba player, who would you not want it to be? made a welcomereturn plus all new categories such as Break up of the Year,Manliest Woman and Girliest Man. With 3 awards each itseems Fintan Darcy and Celine Campbell are Mr and Mrs Jabba for 2011.

Male MVP: IanFrench

Female MVP: FionaMernagh

Club MSP: FintanDarcy

Party King: FintanDarcy

Ya Big Social SocialMess Ya: Celine Campbell

Jabba's SexiestMale: Liam Fletcher

Jabba's SexiestFemale: Emma McGahey

Comedy King: AdamWyse

Quote of the Year:“I hate Spirit” - Celine Campbell

Couple of the Year:Keith Mernagh and Helen Hobson

Break up of theYear: Eamonn Monaghan

Most Useless Person:Glen

Most Lovely Person:Emer Staunton

If you got strandedon a desert island with a Jabba player, which Jabba player would

you like it to be? :Daragh Bourke

If you had to getstuck in an elevator with a Jabba player, who would you not want itto be? : Jay and Fiona

Best Male Newbie:Philip O Duffy

Best Female Newbie:Aiste Guobyte

Most Improved Male:Liam Fletcher

Most ImprovedFemale: Emma Mc Gahey

They took our jobs(foreign player of the year) : Kelly Mulholland

Jabba's GirliestMan: Alan Breathnach

Jabba's ManliestWoman: Celine Campbell

Photo of the Year: >>>

Moustache of theYear: Ian Fox

The moment of theyear: Grabba di Butte

Dick of the Year:Eamonn Monaghan

Overall Person ofthe Year: Fintan Darcy

Cork Open

2011-10-25T19:44:00.000+01:00

Cork Open

Cork Open was the last outdoor tournament of the season for Jabba and another trip down to the Rebel lands.

The team went down with a number of players missing through lack of funds, working body parts and playing for their colleges.

Jabba were put in a tough group with BUG, Milano and Rebel.

Saturday started off against BUG who were big, fast and threw the disc pitch-length with no effort.

There wasn’t much we could do against them as all our really tall players had fecked off elsewhere. A

little downhearted, we went into the Rebel game and got fired up as we knew we were better than

we had shown and that losing the Rebel is a pain in our ass. We came out fighting and went toe-to-

toe with them for nine or ten points. Unfortunately, their class and fitness began to shine through

and we went down but with a good fight. Entering the Milano game we knew we needed to win to

get some pride back and to give ourselves an easier crossover. Unfortunately, nothing we did in this

game worked and we again fell to a defeat. Milano’s call gave us the best laugh of the day as our two

non-drinking captains, Adam and Fiona got their mouths filled with Sambuca and had to swallow

it. This lead to a funny half an hour of a drunk Adam ringing Celine three times for no reason and

standing on a table waiting for his boots to arrive back from a different match. The crossover was

against UCC2, a team who on a normal day for us we would have beaten. Just like the Milano game,

not much went right and this was compounded by the disc getting stuck on Adam’s finger and going

arseways into the ground as he was trying to throw a game tying open goal to Bourkey. The very

next throw lead to a huck down the field followed by a goal and a defeat by Jabba 10-12.

Sunday rolled around and Jabba were playing for pride by then. A tough morning match against a

pick-up team of young Irish Juniors and some Germans awaited us and again we were sloppy and

lost 8-6. Adam went to find new boots as his were now talking and the team decided that they

needed a win to keep him from losing his sanity in his first tournie as captain. Unfortunately, this

didn’t come in our next match as we lost on universe point 11-10 to a team of old fogies that we all

knew. The final match against Trinity 2 was one which nobody wanted to play due to the weather. However, we finally managed to get a bit of offence going in this game and took it comfortably in the end. A good finish to a tough weekend!!

We Be Balln'!

2011-10-12T04:30:00.000+01:00

Jabba classes it up at the annual IFDA awards ball.

The IFDA awards ball always promises to be a fun event and this year did not disappoint! Jabba started the night in Fag and Amy's new place for some pre drinking. Then we went straight onto the classy hotel which was hosting the ball. One sit down meal later and we all looked forward to the awards.

Congratulations to Fiona Mernagh for winning female player of the year, and to Emer Staunton for winning most spirited female player of the year. A special shout out goes to Ian French and Liam Fletcher for being shortlisted as male player of the year, and most spirited male player of the year respectively, as well as Amy Moffat for being shortlisted as female player of the year. Also a big thanks to all the work put in by the Jabba community over the past year which was shown in the shortlisting of the club as club of the year and also as tournament of the year for hosting indoor nationals.

After the awards, the night got messy and i really don't remember much - apparently it was a great night though!!

Oh Captain, My Captain!

2011-10-11T04:28:00.000+01:00

Jabba's AGM hands the reigns to Adam Wyse.

With the year coming to the end it was time to nominate a new committee for 2012. A huge thanks goes out to the committee of 2010/2011 for putting in a huge amount of effort in driving Jabba forward.

After nominations and the annual AGM which in particular saw very tight competition for captain, here is the new committee:

Committee 2011/2012

Captain: Adam Wyse

Ladies captain: Fiona Mernagh

Secretary: Alan Breathnach

Treasurer: Ian Fox

Coach: Ian French

Weblord: Fintan Darcy

Members at large: Siobhan Abrook, Kelly Mullholland, Louise Mc Keown

We look forward to the next year with our new overlords!!

Pizza, Pasta, and Piss Takes

2011-10-05T15:20:00.000+01:00

'Grabba Di Butte' make a spicy meatball of Galway Open 2011.

A tournament which had promised much fun and madness lived up to its name. A strong performance by both teams both on and off the pitch showed the irish the true power of the Italian stallion!

With many Jabba players feeling extremely tired after a long summer with Ireland, we decided to

give Galway Open a miss and invited our Italian cousins Grabba di Butte to take our place. Captain

Michaelangelo Donatello and his team rocked up to the Friday night party with all the suave and

sophistication that any Italian team would have – namely eating lots of pizza and shouting very

loudly at the slightest of irritations. Grabba made themselves very comfortable in Galway by

invading playgrounds and partying til the early hours of the morning.

Saturday morning arrived and Grabba set off on its mission to have its two teams play in the final.

Grabba 1 started out playing a good UCC2 side, dazzling their opponents with their deep pink

jerseys and shiny gold shorts, and then a very hard fought game against UL where the Italian passion

was needed to get out a win. So with 2 wins from 2 Grabba 1 were faced with a very strong and

accomplished UCC1 team to finish their group. Grabba warmed up by finding a garden with three

lovely dogs in it and spent 10 minutes petting them. The game itself started well for Grabba 1 but

then jetlag set in and UCC1 finished the game comfortably.

Determined to show the Irish that Italians could party without coming on to other people’s

girlfriends Grabba went out to the party with gusto (and a full bottle of Calpol in one of the player’s

upset tummy). Black t-shirts and gold shorts were the order of the day in the hottest club this side of

Italy.

Sunday started with a spicy encounter between Ireland and Italy in the Rugby World Cup where

Grabba made their voices heard for the Azzurri. After the game there was the matter of playing a

tough NUIG team in the quarters. Grabba put in a great offensive performance and pushed into

the semis where they played UCD. This match was high paced and caught the eye through lots of

hucks and layouts (intentional and unintentional) that led to slide marks of 10 feet. Grabba took

an early advantage and never let go of it and entered into their first final at a two-day tournament.

Unfortunately they came up against UCC1 again and went down by a few points early. It looked as if

the game would be a one-sided affair until the Latin blood began to boil and Grabba pulled the game

back to within two. Sadly, they had left too much to do and went down 15-13.

Second place was not to be sniffed at and Grabba celebrated in typical Italian style by grabbing the

nearest ass they could find. A great weekend and a great tournament.

The Huckers Rock HOTI

2011-09-27T15:20:00.000+01:00

Jabba's huckers perform strong to finish 2nd.

A huge performace by the Huckers saw the first team secure second place and a well earned spirit prize, and the 2nd team battle hard to claim 3rd at Huck of the Irish this year.

Huck o’ the Irish was set up in 2010 by the IFDA Women’s Coordinator in a bid to promote Women’s Ultimate in Ireland. It started off small with just 3 club teams and a semi-complete pick-up team but Jabba the Huckers were raring for it.

The women’s team had only formed that same summer and with small numbers to begin with, they knew the tournament was going to be a tough one. From the offset their rivals LMS had the upper hand, with a full year of training behind them and a recent foray into a World Clubs competition. In the end, Jabba’s girls overcame the force from Cork and the pick-up team but suffered a 17-3 defeat in the final to LMS.

However, none of the experienced and true Huckers on the team were put off by this. They all knew in their hearts what the club was capable of, and were determined to prove it the next year. What followed was a season of relentless recruitment strategies, fierce training and some big international experience for 7 of our players and the results of HOTI showed the fruits of their labour almost perfectly…

There were four teams entered again but this time two of them were Jabba teams! Altogether, Jabba had twenty-two players out and this to us felt like a victory in itself. However, the first game made it taste all the sweeter when we scored a win over LMS in sudden death after going three points down at the start. We continued throughout the day on that thread, beating our compatriots, Huckers €2, who were putting up big fights to the other teams, and the Irish Junior Girls team (plus coaches). However, as we gathered steam, the weather gathered gusts. Gale force winds were hailing the grounds of Santry, as they often love to do, and the fate of the final between ourselves and LMS turned into a flip of the disc. Our proud captain Amy stood nervous on the edge of the battlefield against the LMS captain; each holding a disc in their hands, they flipped- Amy called one way, it went the other, and alas! LMS took the end with the wind. Though we tried our hardest to work the disc up to the opposite endzone with patience, steady throws and clever tactics, there was always that fatal turn that cost us the point. In the end, the score was predictably in LMS’s favour at 6-5.

Jabba the Huckers 2 had a great day out and made the club equally proud. With some relatively inexperienced faces on board, it was up to some of our more senior members to step up to the plate and lead the way through. They did this with unabated enthusiasm and excellence. The team put it up to LMS to give them a terrific scare and they gave the Juniors a run for their money in two extremely tight and intense games. They beat them the second time around to take bronze.

To sweeten things, Jabba 1 won Spirit!

The Huckers are hungry again this year to achieve what we did last year and more. Two teams will be entered again and an insatiable appetite coupled with fun training will get us all in gear for what will be another, undoubtedly, nail-biting tournament.

Open Nationals

2011-09-01T14:59:00.000+01:00

A proud weekend for Jabba at Open Nationals.

A huge performance once by by Jabba which saw Jabba 1 coming joint 4th and Jabba 2 playing out of their skins.

Jabba have been working hard on their open team over the last few months with lots of football training. Had it been a football tournament we probably would have come dead last, thankfully it was not!

Saturday morning saw Jabba's first game against Broc 2 - a team of usual faces, with some foreign pick ups. Broc came out hard, tradin with Jabba the first couple of points, but as soon as we started firing we pulled away strong to take a big lead and the win.

Next game: Rebel. Crap. We warmed up and focused on what we had to do. We knew that we didn't really need to win the game and maybe this fed into our game. Rebel showed their class and sent huck after huck to their big receivers with Jabba only taking down a few. We tried mixing the defence up and got turns but just couldn't convert. In the end, Rebel walked out comfortable winners - oh well-no biggy!

With a big break, Jabba 1 went to spoon each other/watch Jabba 2 play Derezzed. It was a good game with Jabba 2 scaring Derezzed (particularly with Celine skying Hogi!), however Derezzed took the game in the end.

Last game of the day for Jabba 1 was the new boys from Galway: Snatch. We came out all guns blazing to show them what we were made of. We didn't want to have the slow start we usually do and we proved in this game how clinical we could be. Snatch found it hard to live with our pace and defence and we took half easily. They had a small come back in the second half, but with Jabba motoring along, we had faith in ourselves and finished the game with a strong win.

Sunday morning saw us in a crossover against Rebel 2: a mixture of youthful fitness and cunning experience. The start of the game was messy due to lashing rain but Jabba soon brought their game and started to move the disc with ease down the pitch, and playing great zone defence, forcing Rebel back to their endzone on numerous points. Jabba took the win by a decent few in the end. Moment of the game was Frenchi nutmegging Leo for the score - what a dick!!

At this stage, the weather had gotten even worse and the pitches were cutting up fast. The TD's made the decision to call off all games except the semi's and finals. Probably a good decision after seeing the end result of the pitches.

Jabba 1's semi final was against Broc. We knew this game would be tough - the wind had picked up and they had some handy players on their team. The start of this semi was a messy, angry, callfest which I'd rather not describe. However, after both teams had calmed down, the game went on to be scrappy (due to the weather) but very competitive. Jabba pressurised Broc with some huge man defence which they couldn't deal with for some time. The only problem was that our offense wasn't firing and constant fouling by Broc players on the mark didn't help matters. Broc took the lead and kept putting points on the board. We simply had a few too many drops and couldn't find our magic. Broc took the win by a few. We weren't happy but held our heads high as we gave it all that we had.

At this stage we had a 3/4 place game with Belfast but due to pitch conditions we decided on joint 4th.

A great performance by a small Jabba 1 team who showed their class and showed the future of the Jabba open team. Particular congratulations goes to Liam for taking both MVP and MSP of the team!

Jabba Meets Ireland

2011-08-18T13:13:00.000+01:00

Jabba had a great representation with Ireland at EUC 2011 - find out how we got on!

Jabba the Huck had 18 current and former players over in Maribor, Slovenia at the European Ultimate Championships 2011, playing on the women’s, mixed and open teams. After a series of trials Louise, Amy, Emily, Claire, Courtney and Finola got selected for the women’s team, Foxi, Fag, Megan, Emer, Celine, Fiona, Jay, Frenchi, Keith, Buggy and Shimbo were chosen for the mixed team and Conor was picked for the open team. This was a great chance for us all to play with different and more experienced players and to learn from them. It was a great season with some lows (fitness, Emily getting injured) and even more highs (the women’s team beating GB, the mixed team placing higher than any previous Irish teams, not to mention the mixed team collectively falling in love with James Finn) which ended at a well run tournament and some pretty epic parties :D

Cake and Keg 2011

2011-05-26T19:35:00.000+01:00

The annual Cake and Keg day returned again for another day of Jabba fun and debauchery!

For those of you who don't know about cake and keg, it's basically a tradition of Jabba for everyone to bake cakes and brew beer and then get fat Jabba-style!!

Keith Mernagh had kindly donated his abode for this wonderous of days and we started early with the first people arriving at 1pm. We decided to make this year a competeition - who could get fattest during the party. This involved pants off weigh in's on the scale - gotta take these things seriously! While the girls went off for a short training session the guys decided to get their man on and crack on the barbeque. Needless to say that when the girls had come back we were no closer to cooking.

The day went on with lots of food and dodgy-to-acceptable home made alcohol until everyone was nicely fat and drunk. Cue the village people coming on the stereo and clothing disappearing in the blink of an eye!! sweaty naked dancing to such classics as "In the Navy" and "I'm too Sexy" really got the night going. After this lots of drunken scoring and puking followed, with general Jabba stupidity.

Moral of the story: cake and keg is always messy but amazing!

"Half Time"

2011-05-12T19:49:00.000+01:00

On Monday 20th June Jabba The Huck were invited to play a 12 minutes half time show game at the Bray Wanderers vs Bohs Airtricity League match.

Very wet weather, coupled with a slick yet pristine pitch meant perfect layout conditions.

Jabba Green faced off against Jabba Blue in a game of shall we say, relaxed defence.

At first the crowd were unsure with chants from the Bohs fans of "What the fuck is this" & "You don't... know what... you're doing!"

But soon they all got really into it and come the end we were clapped off by both the Bray and Bohs fans.

Here is a selection of comments that we have found on various football forums and live commentaries.

‎45' - Half Time - Some interesting half time entertainment here with a game of ultimate frisbee taking place on the pitch!!

‎"Ultimate Frisbee at half time was the big winner though!!!"

"Greatest half time show of all time"

"that little asian lad playing Frisbee should be signed up"

"The girl missing the frisbee and getting a smack in the face in the face was brilliant"

‎"Half time frizbee match was fantastic,really really good laugh it was and made for a nice change."

"Frisbee at ht was worth the admission price alone"

"The frisbee was unreal though"

Thanks to Al for organising this for us and for all who played the show game!

Mixed Nationals

2011-04-30T19:33:00.000+01:00

A great weekend of high level mixed ultimate with lots of "weather' thrown in for good measure!!

As usual, Jabba had set Mixed Nationals as their tournament to peak and this year we were pumped to give it everything we had. Months of preparation had gone into training with the month before involving 3 sessions a week.

We appeared at the pitches saturday morning with our eyes on the prize. Hugely focused and determined, we couldn't wait to get going - even with the gale force wind blowing in our faces. Game 1 was against a Trinity team of current and alumni players who looked promising on paper. Jabba started strong going up a couple of points. Trinity came back hard but our training shone through and it was won comfortably in the end - although there was signs that this team would grow in strength throughout the day.

Next up was Rebet 2 who we were confident we could take. Fag injured his back in the warm up and couldn't play, however Jabba had a feeling this game would be won easily. How wrong we were. It's often seen how going into a game with the wrong attitiude can be the comeuppance of a team, and this was almost true here. Rebel 2 were out for blood and even with Jabba taking the lead early on, Rebel fought back hard with some impressive grabs by their younger players. A time out and a kick up the ass later, Jabba scrapped a win, but had been given a shot of reality.

Next up was Binge?, the team we needed to beat to top the group and give us an easy crossover. We warmed up properly this time, and knew we had it in us to win. The game started - 3-0 to the Binge?. We fought back hard with a couple of zones set up to pressurise their main handlers and traded the whole way. However the Binge? saw the game out by taking the last 3 points - Blonde, Pete, and Seamus helping them seal the win with very solid throws in the wind. Heads down, we finished the day knowing we could have taken them, but conifident we still had it in us to make the final.

Day 2 saw more lovely wind and a crossover against Belfast. As expected, Belfast had strong male players with big throws so we decided to use our girls and it worked a treat, winning comfortably in the end.

This set us up for a semi final against Rebel 1, the tournament favourites. We had to play them at some point so we figured we had nothing to lose and came out storming. As usual, Rebel were clinical and we had a few too many mistakes. We also had trouble dealing with Brian T's ability to huck perfectly upwind! To our credit, everyone played out of their skins and the middle of the game saw outstanding play by all jabbers and great pressure causing Rebel turnovers. However it was not to be and Rebel took it home to book their place in the final.

Our last game of the day saw Jabba play Trinity again. As predicted, they had started playing well together and we didn't go into the game properly prepared. Trinity went a couple up at the start with some great hucks. A timeout and some new tactics later saw Jabba come out with a 2-3-2 FM zone, forcing Trinity into hucking the disc to Keith and Foxi - happy days! We fought back as Trinity tried to deal with our zone and took the win in the end.

Not an ideal finish as we had aimed to make the final, however, everyone played well during the weekend. Lesson learnt: need more work on throwing in the wind.

The Final standings were:

8 - Total Discheads

7 - Rebel Ultimate 2

6 - Jabba The Huck 2

5 - BUG

4 - veteres trinitatis

3 - Jabba The Huck 1

2 - Binge?

1 - Rebel Ultimate 1

Mixed Tour 3 - The Empire Strikes Back

2011-04-27T19:33:00.000+01:00

Mixed Tour 3

Taking place in Cheltenham a team of 16 went to take on the challenge of tour again, this time without our Irish Womans team players who were being held captive in Dublin.

6 games and 6 wins!!!!

Jabba's first ever perfect tournament and giving us a 12 game win streak at UK Mixed tour.

Jabba finished 13th out of 40 teams.

As usual with these tours we flew into Bristol on Friday night which had become a second home at this stage. After landing, we WALKED down to the car rental office to find out which tarmac cruisers would be ours for the weekend. Kelly decided an upgrade was in order and grabbed himself a beast of a Volvo 4x4 which would become his pet for the weekend!

After the hour or so drive from the airport to Cheltenham which mainly comprised with messing with all the gadgets in the car and listening to a certain break up cd, we pulled up to our very swanky apartments for the weekend. A big thanks to Stein for organising probably the finest tournament accomodation i've ever seen!! We settled in, waited for everyone to arrive, ahd a bit of craic and hit the hay for the night knowing we had two massive days ahead of us.

Saturday morning appeared in its usual way: alarm clocks going off, dreary eyed people hastily throwing on gear, and of course Cormo holding up tradition of being the last to be ready to go!!

After a short drive (complete with lots of Anastacia!), we arrived at the somewhat hilly, and very windswept pitches. From the outset it was obvious this was going to be a hard weekend with less than ideal conditions. This was reflected in a dodgy short warm up with everyone trying to get used to the blustry wind. First up was Light and Dark, a team stacked with some very strong male handlers and a couple of really good female receivers. We started well and threw everything we had at them to take the lead. Soon though, they started to show their class and we had trouble shutting down their swings. To counteract their big plays to the girls we switched to huck and zone d and this worked a treat. This was mixed in with some aggressive give and go plays to run through their female cup. The game went down to universal point but after a couple of turns we ripped down the winning score (13-12). Huge credit to Frenchi and Fiona for punting it deep all game!

Next up was Bear Cavalry 2. We had played their 1st team at tour 1 and had our asses handed to us. We were out for revenge. Brimming with confidence, we went into this game strong and really showed our experience against a younger team by shutting down their handlers and walked away wit a convincing win (13-4). The notable moment of the game was Fag laying out full stretch and landing with his mouth hitting the top corner of a metal scoreboard - a lot of blood, and gum loss followed!

BAF 1 were next and we were pumped and ready to go! We had already played BAF1 in tour 1 and beaten them well. This time they were out for revenge with a stronger team. This was a fairly scrappy game from what i can remember with a lot of hard running but Jabba started to pull away at the end (12-7).

Hugely satisfied with our accomplishment of making the 13-20 playoffs for Sunday, we drove home to get clean, grab some food and beers and settle down to a night of eurovision. Eurovision night lived up to its name as always and involved stupid levels of heckling, politics and learning new dance moves!!Think some of the girls enjoyed a sneaky rest too!

Sunday morning saw us up against Thundering Herd 2 which contained some very handy players. We started slow and they came at us hard. They shut down our reset and for the first time our male cutters found it very difficult to get free. After a time out and a hastily thrown together 2-4-1 zone set up to shut down their quick cutters, we came back from behind to take the win on universe point (12-11). Moment of the game may have been Buggy lofting a pull into the wind and barely hitting our own brick mark!

ABH were next and this was to be our big game. Full of very tall experienced players with big throws they showed their dominance early on sending the disc deep at every opportunity. We had probelms getting our offense firing in this game but after isolating Fiona in the cutting lane, things got a lot easier!! The girls in particular played out of their skins and Phil played an absolute stormer. They started to tire, and we came at them even harder. Then it was universe point. We got the turn. Fiona (i think) gets the disc and releases a huge punt into the wind which Phil takes down under pressure. A couple of short passes later and the disc was in Siobhan's hands and we were celebrating (11-10). Now for the 13/14 place final game!

Last game of the tour and we were psyched. We warmed up and focused on the win. We were playing Glasgow, a strong team with a couple of great players. However, we knew if we could shut down their best players we were in with a shot. We threw everything we had at them and it showed. Evryone played great and we didn't let Glasgow into it once (13-4). Cue celebrations from Jabba!!

Afterwards, we chilled out, watched the final, had a couple of beers and went home. A perfect end to a perfect weekend!!

Mixed Tour 1 - Return of the Jedi

2011-03-30T18:45:00.000+01:00

Jabba the Huck decided firmly that we wanted to attend all three UK Mixed Tours in 2011. Unfortunately, we had to concede Tour 2 to the Irish Mixed Team since half our squad was on it. However, we still made it to Tours 1 and 3 and made some impact…

For Tour 1, we had more interest from players than was reasonable to bring so a first team was chosen of our strongest, most committed players.

The tournament was being held in Weymouth so we flew into Bristol airport and rented cars. We were staying in a hostel in Bristol that night and trusted Google Maps to guide us there swiftly - BIG mistake. Never, ever trust Google maps. We drove around lost for hours before eventually arriving at our hostel, struggling to find a place to park and then finding out we had chosen for our first night’s rest a party hostel. Cue no sleep on rock hard beds with lumpy pillows and loud music.

With that awful ‘sleep’ done with, we were up early the next morning to drive to Weymouth. With a lack of rest and plenty of grumpy faces (particular from me as a driver) leading us into our first game, we were left feeling even worse as we got our asses handed to us (13-5) by Brighton 2 - 30^th seeds! However, this ‘second’ team ended up finishing 6^th so it was pretty clear we got screwed over. Not knowing this at the time, we were all kicking ourselves.

If that wasn’t bad enough, we had up next the best team of the tournament – Bear Cavalry. Though we tried everything we could, they trampled us even worse than Bristol 2 (13-2) and we were all very glum. L We lay about like useless human beings not worthy to play the beautiful game of Ultimate but, being Jabba, we inevitably returned to our normal joking selves. Amongst those jokes was a bet. Some genius thought it would be a great motivator for the team to make me (a near-Pioneer) drink a shot for every positive point difference we finished up with. Well, we were on -19 points – I didn’t really see a risk…

For the next game against Lemmington Lemmings we had to change out of our ‘serious’ blue jerseys and into our magnificent, dazzling green jerseys. This game started off differently as we went 1-0 up – hurray! It didn’t end there though; 2-0, 3-0, 4-0 (I wasn’t yet worried), 5-0, 6-0…11-0. Bagel. We bageled them. Everyone was in shock. So we weren’t completely out of our depths after all!

With a win sealing grins on all our faces, we skipped over to the far fields for our last game of the day. Someone had brought a football and the boys were getting very distracted by it. Amy, concerned for the team, repeatedly tried to remove the offending item for their own good but they didn’t seem to appreciate that. Perhaps they should have been more grateful, as the team clocked up another resounding victory at 13-4! (One little shot wouldn’t hurt me; I didn’t give it a thought).

That night we slept in far more comfortable surroundings and got a whopper breakfast the next morning in a B & B. With our minds more rested and our tummies far better satisfied than on Saturday, our first game wasn’t half as disastrous as the day before even though it had an 8.30 start time. We played BAF (Blue Arse Flies) 1 and won 10 – 6 in a strong wind. I believe Huck and D was our choice of offence.

We were slowly moving up in seedings and I think the next game was to secure our spot in the top 20. We were up against Glasgow who came out strong and were taking an unstoppable lead – until their best player landed badly on his ankle and broke it while catching a score. This, unfortunately for Glasgow, was the turning point of the game in our favour. We were able to match and better the rest of the Glasgow team player for player and came out victors at 10 – 7. I remember this team being very nice, possibly because the next team we played were f*%$ing W£*^!RS!

For the vast majority of teams in Mixed UK Tour, the Spirit is great. They play competitively but are fair, cordial and gracious. MXU were the anomaly to this. Luckily by this game Jabba were feeling strong and we knew how good we really were so we didn’t let them get in our heads and stuck in score after score to clock up 13 points in the end, conceding only 5. Liam stole Ian’s heart in the last point by skying 3 of their players for the winning score.

The last game was to finalise our place in the ranks of Britain and Ireland’s Mixed Teams. We were playing for 13^th/14^th(out of ~40). We warmed up with fire in our bellies (Adam killed a bee he was so pumped) and a fierce focus going into the game. Unfortunately Ian had to sit out due to injury but he had an unbreakable faith in the team to play just as well without him. It seemed Keith however felt the need to step up his game as he played a stormer throughout. We didn’t show our nerves, I think the fire was just too strong. We ended the game at 13 – 7 thanks to the girls being AWESOME. In fact, I can’t remember which team, but one of them said in a call after that there was a rumour going around about the Jabba girls being unstoppable. That was nice to hear. J

So we learned a few things that weekend:

1. We’re deadly.

2. Google maps is shit.

3. Our blue jerseys were cursed. We changed into greens after the first 2 games and never looked back.

4. We play much better when we go into games without any expectations!

And where did we finish in positive points difference? I think it tallied to + 22. I was not a happy camper. However we agreed that we should include Tour 3 so I’d have some hope of reducing that figure. Phew, saved for another while at least.

Thus concluded our second ever weekend at Tour (the last had been in 2009 where Jabba finished 26^th but with a very different set of people). I know this is one of my proudest moments for Jabba but in 2011 it wasn’t going to be even close to my last.

Fiona