2006 Australian Nationals

Top New Zealand players cross the ditch for Australian Nationals

Saturday 22nd April – Tuesday 25th April

Top New Zealand players joined the Australian National event and all 3 teams finished within the top 6 with Tumeke (NZ Women’s team) winning gold.

NZ Womens Teams: Tumeke and Oma Rapeti

NZ Mens Team: Eastern Territories

A group of keen women took it upon themselves to motivate enough women from across the country to form two "all-star teams" for Australian Nationals this year. They were looking at it as a development tournament with a view towards top placings at Club Champs in Perth in November, where over 90 teams from around the globe will come together to battle it out on the field for the world title!

However our teams bonded so well at Aussie Nationals that Tumeke brought home gold despite the shocking weather during the final! As a team that had never played as a unit before, they found their flow more each day and really stepped it up for the final game. Every player put their body on the line throughout the tournament, especially Ali Scarlet of Dunedin, who laid out on the hard dry dirt so many times in the final that that she looked like she was born in a tanning bed!

The second team Oma Rapeti, initially seeded 10th out of 16 in the Women's division, finished strong with a streak of wins to land them in 5th place. Piers Truter had some kind words for our ladies, saying the bunnies consisted of "Polly, Ingrid and a bunch of lasses who can run, throw and catch."

Ingrid Kaptein of Christchurch helped to steal the show by winning female MVP of the tournament, and she without a doubt deserved it with all those layouts. Congratulations! With Tumeke’s win and Ingrid as MVP it's safe to say that NZ's women are well on their way to competing at World level.

Eastern Territories (NZ Open team) had a good weekend both on and off the field, finishing 6th out of 18 teams in the Open division. With a mix of men from all over the country their O gelled more and more from day one to day four, while their D was tight throughout.

One game that will be forever burned into our memory is their 5th-8th semi finals versus Victoria's B-team Hot Chilly. Both teams were playing hard but ET was outscoring Chilly 2-to-1, giving them a 12-5 lead when the time-cap horn went. Unfortunately Chilly didn’t give up, and after more than 30 minutes of overtime with the light getting low, Chilly had done the unthinkable and scored 7 points in a row to level the scores at 12-all. Both teams were now facing a sudden-death match-point.

The final point was one heck of a nail biter. Everyone’s hearts stopped as Justin Thirkell of Wellington nearly caused a turnover in his own endzone when he attempted to catch the pull at the start of the point. Luckily the disc didn’t head straight for the ground, but instead was macked towards Tom Webb of Auckland, who dove for the disc, caught it, and will now be remembered for the biggest save in history! With the evening light fading fast, Eastern Territories worked the disc down the field one last time, and with a “hammer” throw from Callum Thirkell to Marc van der Poest (both of Wellington) they got their win.

For all three teams the weekend was a huge success in many ways. It was a great time playing high-level Ultimate against new faces, and proving to them that the calibre of Ultimate in New Zealand is gaining height at an exponential rate. Our performance in Sydney bodes really well for the World Club Champs in November, where our teams are sure to once again put NZ’s Open and Women’s Ultimate on the map.

Article by Bethany Hine