Biddy Murphy Tour 2 Report

Team: Liz Schaffalitzky (c), Fiona Mc Donald (vc), Sparky Booker, Emer Mernagh, Ciara Fitzpatrick, Dayne Ortved, Sandra Murphy, Yvonne Halpin, Sarah Jane Monaghan, Sinead Flemming, Catherine Gainey, Dee O'Breasail, Linda Barry, Lorrain O' Donnell, Laura Mc Grath.

After an night either under canvas, woken up by the rain, or in a comfy bed for the lucky ones, Biddy Murphy met up at the lovely soft and grassy pitches of Mansfield to begin their Tour 2 experience. With a group consisting of 1st seeds Iceni 1, 3rd seeds Iceni 2, and 8th seeds Strange blue, we knew it wasn't going to be ans easy weekend, but at least an enjoyably challenging one.

Game 1 saw us stepping out against Iceni 1. After a hard fought, but enjoyable game against them at Tour 1, we were hoping to get into this game, play well, and enjoy ourselves. And that we did. The sun was shining, and a gusty wind brought us the opportunity to test out our new style of zone, which panicked them and worked out quite well. We pulled ahead by about 2 points in the first half, but they managed to get it back and ended up taking the half 8-7. After the half they were rejuvenated and set out to punish all our turnovers the way the 1st seeds should. They knocked in a load of scores and we were left chasing them to the last point, which was 15 but at the end of the time cap. I think the final score was 15-10 to them.

Having finished on the time cap, we had to go straight into our next game against Strange Blue from Cardiff. We started off slowly, and they capitalised by going 3-0 up. Not the best start to the game. They had one very good player who could huck it long from a number of different heights, and would throw breaks with ease, which was really punishing us as a team. After calling a time out, we started to pull the game back, scored a few points in a row, and ended up taking the half. We found that we could poach long and under, as well as covering their main handler, to cause some upsets. We finally started to pull ahead by a decent amount of points and ended up winning by maybe a margin of 6 or 7.

Last game of the day saw us up against Iceni 2. We went into the game very sluggishly after lunch and found it very hard to get into it. They put on a zone that was difficult for us to get around, and we didn't help ourselves with some unforced errors and a dropped pull (the shame!). A very disappointing game saw us lose by about 15-6 as we found it harder and harder to get our offence off the endzone line.

After an amazing dinner of spaghetti bolognase minus the spaghetti (how foolish to presume spaghetti was part of that dish!) and frozen mushrooms and peas, we all retired to our respective beds or thermarests in the warm mansfield air.

Sunday brought rain, rain and more rain.

First game of the day saw us facing 12th seeds Discuits to keep our 6th seed. After an amazingly intense 10 minute warm up we went full strength into the game and ended up 15-2 winners after about 50 minutes. They has improved since we had played them at Tour 1, but we were by far the stronger team.

After a long break, we then started to warm up for our 6th v 7th game against Swift. After losing to them at tour 1 and having not played our best game, we were determined to start this game as best we could and had psyched ourselves up to quite a high level! Meanwhile the rain came pouring down, and the pitches, most notably the sidelines from all the pacing up and down, were deteriorating as a fast rate into swamp. Still, we soldiered on with the game and traded the first few points of the game before we started to pull ahead to win the half 8-6. A strong start in the second half saw us play much the same, and our fitness helped us to win the never-ending long points. We started to pull away with a significant lead thanks to some hard D and to some amazing grabs and long throws as we brought our long game to the fore. Final score ended up something like15-9 after an unbelievably intense game.

We then had to go straight into our MU 1 game to try and play for 5th place. At this stage the state of the pitches were a joke. It had been raining solidly since about 8am and there was no sign of a let up. We came into the game off a high from the one before and tried to play as well. Unfortunately the state of the pitch and the slippiness of the disc meant that for the first few points we ended up trading til 4-4 as both teams watched discs slip out of normally competent handlers' hands straight out the side of the pitch or straight to the ground. Lay-outs were the order of the day (intentionally or not) as we literally slid around half of the pitch, ending up covered head to toe in muck. Finally the rain stopped, and the game progressed with us pulling maybe 4 or 5 points ahead. We then realised that we hadn't heard the hooter for end of play, and so called a hard cap to 13, as we were 11-8 up. We converted 12-8 and with only one point to score til we got to the showers, started to lose some momentum and MU pulled back a few more score til we finished on 13-10. A tough but enjoyable game to finish on as we all tried to deal with the ridiculous conditions and just tried to tone down our intensity a bit (didn't really work!).

All in all a really successful weekend as we once again beat all the teams we should have, pulled out some amazing games and some amazing intensity (still have "Ireland's Call" ringing in my ears!) and managed to put some fear into the top teams as well. Moving up to 5th seed was also a bonus, and we now find ourselves seeded 5th overall in the Tour 2007. Too bad we couldn't care less about Tour 3...Roll on EUC!

MVP: Catherine - played very well over the whole weekend as a solid receiver and mid. Won a very tight vote.

MSP: Linda and Yiv - another tight vote, with these two managing to nicely balance Spirit and intensity better than the rest of us.

Liz Schaffalitzky