Hi. I am one of the GB Open players and coach. Interesting
thread. All thoughts are mine alone.
Firstly, we blew it. Hugely. We were all in the game of
our lives, and the nerves clearly got to us. Anyone who had
seen previous games would have realised that we are not the
kind of team that drops gut passes routinely; USA rarely had
to get a block against our O line, we were just giving it
away. Once that doubt set in, we just could not recover. A
few spirited individual fighting performances could not hold
back Revolver; only playing as a team at our best would we
expect to win that one. Maybe next time.
A few thoughts while I am here. Firstly, we watched USA in
previous games, and were fairly unimpressed frankly. Yet
when we played them, we found them to be the most athletic
team we had met; far above Australia, Canada, or Japan.
USA`s O line got the disc back with a number of really nice
blocks, and I suspect they are the kind of team that saves
themselves for the big games and were only really coasting
previously, or at least warming up slowly in some games.
They played great shutdown defence that forced us into high
stall turns that we had not struggled with all tournament
long. Credit where it is due, they are a true champion and
well deserve their title.
All of that said, if we played catch a little better then
you may have had a game on your hands.
To those saying "sloppy game"; the wind was really strong.
I mean, fierce. More than on Thursday (quarters), when
Sweden beat Japan in an upwind-downwind contest. A few of
the upwind pulls made it into the other half, that kind of
wind. The stadium also resulted in some choppy and
unpredictable winds. So yeah, sloppy game, but USA proved
themselves to be stronger in those conditions. Same as
Sweden proved they are better than Japan, GB proved they are
better than Australia, etc in the strong winds on Thursday.
Talk of "true contenders" is pretty nonsensical IMO. If
Australia gave USA a close game in pools, that means
absolutely nothing (although it does sound like a good
spectacle and I will get around to watching it when I return
to the UK). But - Australia did not win, so no effect on
the matchups in quarters. Japan beat Canada in pools, which
(potentially) robbed Canada of a matchup with USA in the
final instead of semis. But Canada know that it was in
their hands, and they lost when it mattered; same as Japan,
Australia, etc. Whether or not you think a team is "better"
than another really doesn`t matter, because sport is not
fair. It does not matter who is "best", it is about who
wins.
Believe me, everyone in GB Open is disappointed with the way
we represented our country in the final at Worlds (if you
can read that statement without understanding the
significane of the moment, then you probably don`t
understand where I am coming from). It is a huge honour to
wear that shirt, and no other GB team has ever achieved what
we did. We have a team of young guys, and they will learn
from this; in four years time, maybe we will get a result in
the final we can all be proud of.
Finally, I would like to say that I was thoroughly impressed
with the way that our opponents played with regards to
Spirit of the Game; we had tough battles with Japan, Canada,
Sweden and Australia that all ended friendly, and USA also
proved themselves to be great ambassadors with fair play in
the final. It is great to see such high standard play
without the need for 3rd party officials, even with some
cultural differences. A true victory for the sport.
Brummie.