After a rollercoaster weekend that went from utter dejection, to dogged determination, to convincing domination, we have won the 2003 Phoenix Cup tournament.
Saturday saw us having trouble with the new team and the adjustment to 5 man discipline, and we dropped the first three games to teams that we were expecting to beat. At this point morale was low, and several of us were despairing that we would ever "click" and get the results that we knew that we were capable of, particularly after a recent string of mediocre tournamment results. The next four games we maxed convincingly, against established teams, only losing the last game to the 2002 champions, and favourites for the overall title, Team K2, who didn't drop a game all day. They trounced us and showed themselves a force to be reckoned with- lots of aggression, movement and working the field.
After a good night's sleep and a recharge we headed out with a positive attitude. We had been reseeded to division B, and we absolutely ripped it up, only dropping one game from seven, to win the divison overall.
Now if you had asked us to go home at that point, we would have done so and been ecstatic with the result. However we had qualified for the playoffs by a large margin. We thought anything after the divisonal result was a bonus, so we approached the games with the same attitude and agression. We maxed our way convincingly to the final, versus K2, who again hadn't dropped a game all day, with maximum possible points. We maxed them in around three minutes, winning the event overall
The tournament was a shining example to British organisers. The Marshalls were spot on, the teams, to a man, were clean, friendly, and gracious. As an example, in the final versus K2, we had a two-on-three situation, and I managed to tag one of the opposing three on a knuckle juststicking out from his stand-up bunker. Now in any of the other tournaments in the UK against top teams, I would have expected to see that hand disappear and reappear clean. Not so- the guy immediately called himself out, and sought me out after the game to congratulate me on a good elimination. This sort of fair play and attitude had happened all throughout the day, and made the whole tournament such a joy to play.
As for organisation, the fields all ran with to-the-minute precision and there were even stewards walking the staging areas advising all the teams where they had to be, and in plenty of time. The PA system was put to great use announcing all the upcoming games and results, and the games were even played to music (not so loud that it inhibited communication on the field). It was a pleasure and an honour to play each and every team at this tournament.
And last but not least, the equipment. One thing that stuck in my mind were the comments of some of the K2 players after the finals.... We are all running 'Mags (E and X-Mags mainly, and my Hyper-Retro Mag, and all using warp feeds). Two of the players commented that they saw one eye coming round the sides of bunkers, had expected the gun to follow a second later, only to find that, and I quote "Paint was coming out of your eyes"!! In my opinion the Warp is the biggest advance in technology to allow tightness and freedom of play. Unfortunately for some reason they also seem to be one of the best kept secrets in Paintball! While I'd love to keep it that way, hopefully we can increase the profile of innovative products like this by keeping the results flowing. We certainly had a lot of interest in the markers and warps over the weekend.
Thanks to my teammates Julian (Speedy), Mark (Albert), Paul (Urko) and Steve (Blanche), it was a privilege to play alongside you guys.
I'll post some pics of the trophy tomorrow!
Saturday saw us having trouble with the new team and the adjustment to 5 man discipline, and we dropped the first three games to teams that we were expecting to beat. At this point morale was low, and several of us were despairing that we would ever "click" and get the results that we knew that we were capable of, particularly after a recent string of mediocre tournamment results. The next four games we maxed convincingly, against established teams, only losing the last game to the 2002 champions, and favourites for the overall title, Team K2, who didn't drop a game all day. They trounced us and showed themselves a force to be reckoned with- lots of aggression, movement and working the field.
After a good night's sleep and a recharge we headed out with a positive attitude. We had been reseeded to division B, and we absolutely ripped it up, only dropping one game from seven, to win the divison overall.
Now if you had asked us to go home at that point, we would have done so and been ecstatic with the result. However we had qualified for the playoffs by a large margin. We thought anything after the divisonal result was a bonus, so we approached the games with the same attitude and agression. We maxed our way convincingly to the final, versus K2, who again hadn't dropped a game all day, with maximum possible points. We maxed them in around three minutes, winning the event overall
The tournament was a shining example to British organisers. The Marshalls were spot on, the teams, to a man, were clean, friendly, and gracious. As an example, in the final versus K2, we had a two-on-three situation, and I managed to tag one of the opposing three on a knuckle juststicking out from his stand-up bunker. Now in any of the other tournaments in the UK against top teams, I would have expected to see that hand disappear and reappear clean. Not so- the guy immediately called himself out, and sought me out after the game to congratulate me on a good elimination. This sort of fair play and attitude had happened all throughout the day, and made the whole tournament such a joy to play.
As for organisation, the fields all ran with to-the-minute precision and there were even stewards walking the staging areas advising all the teams where they had to be, and in plenty of time. The PA system was put to great use announcing all the upcoming games and results, and the games were even played to music (not so loud that it inhibited communication on the field). It was a pleasure and an honour to play each and every team at this tournament.
And last but not least, the equipment. One thing that stuck in my mind were the comments of some of the K2 players after the finals.... We are all running 'Mags (E and X-Mags mainly, and my Hyper-Retro Mag, and all using warp feeds). Two of the players commented that they saw one eye coming round the sides of bunkers, had expected the gun to follow a second later, only to find that, and I quote "Paint was coming out of your eyes"!! In my opinion the Warp is the biggest advance in technology to allow tightness and freedom of play. Unfortunately for some reason they also seem to be one of the best kept secrets in Paintball! While I'd love to keep it that way, hopefully we can increase the profile of innovative products like this by keeping the results flowing. We certainly had a lot of interest in the markers and warps over the weekend.
Thanks to my teammates Julian (Speedy), Mark (Albert), Paul (Urko) and Steve (Blanche), it was a privilege to play alongside you guys.
I'll post some pics of the trophy tomorrow!
but here are some pics of the team.
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