Millennium Series 2012 – Round 3 – “London Masters”

... And our take on how things need to be improved ...

It took me over a month to write this – because A LOT has been going on - and A LOT had to be digested, discussed and thought about regarding our home event, the London Masters from the 29th June - 1^st July.

In short – it was not what we expected to be ... 

• Was it us?
• Was it the strange groups they created in Division 3, where three groups of 6 teams and one group of 10 teams, where each group had the top 2 go through???  
• Was it a terrible and inconsistent reffing?

… everyone will have their little story to this event -  but in short, we felt it was like a slap in the face.

However, since we can’t change the actions of others,  we might as well focus on US and see what WE CAN DO in the future to improve things. At a later stage we can hope that, with constructive feedback, which we will be providing to the Millennium Series end of this season, maybe there will be some thoughts on other peoples minds on how things on "their end" can be improved and done as well. So let’s get started with the event and what we are talking about …

Saturday & Sunday:

Division 3 prelims Saturday, as usual, we are the first team on the field. Other than in previous events, we did not stay together for the weekend, but some arrived in the morning coming straight from home, others spent a night in a hotel on their own in the area …

It was a bit of a strange disconnect compared to all other events we had played domestically and internationally. So this is something that we will NEVER do again …

First game on, was against the top seeded team in our group Argonauts Hellas Athens 2. Following a vicious battle with 2 “no point” games, we decided the first game of the day for us 2:1, which meant we played 4 points to decide that one match for us. Later that day Argonauts Hellas Athens 2 were disqualified due to a higher division player having played for their Div.3 team, but that all didn’t really matter anymore then, since it all went downhill from here.

Within 4 matches that day, of which we lost all following matches after playing the Greek team, we received NINE 1-4-1’s, of which, if you want to be very critical, you could have given 3 - the other 6 penatlies were just shocking bad decisions and worst of all ABSOLUTELY INCONSISTENT.

I base the inconsistency on the fact that players with hits off the break STOP firing their guns and end their run in the bunker, stop to check themselves and get called out with a 1-4-1, while the same referee will be watching a player in the next game with an obvious hit running and gunning to their bunker and then when in the bunker checking themselves,  leaving the game and no penalty is called. Shocking – but unluckily true.

This inconsistency and non-existing procedure of constructive feedback (besides talking to the event staff hours later about what happened) is something major that this sport needs and causes much frustration both on player and officials’ side.

Since the unthankful job of being a referee for 12 hours on 3 days and receiving verbal abuse from players (which had to be controlled by harsher approaches and decisions on the field), now have swung the oposite way and players are confronted with “gods in black and white” with some power complex that decided the outcome of games, rather than enforcing rules as they “stand in the rulebook” (which is an entire other topic I don’t even want to start).

If you are one of the few people that actually continued reading to this point (congratulations by the way – for giving me a chance here), it might start sounding like this is a “they are whining because they have lost” post. This is not our intention at all – rather the opposite actually!

I believe we (the players) need to work together with the Millennium Series to create an environment where feedback can be given, referees don’t have to fear abuse after potenitally having made a bad call – however if done consistently after receiving feedback, have to be “removed” from their spot on the field, since they need to “know the rules and apply them consistently to all players”.












This could be achieved by having referees with jersey numbers, to identify them better and then give feedback to the ultimate or event staff on concerns of reoccuring mistakes or bad calls. If there is a consistent feedback (not just a “one off whining”) then actions to improve the referees understanding and performance can be put in place and athletes don’t feel that they are “victims of bad calls” anymore, but rather a part of improving the reffing situation with educatino through the EuroRef staff. Alright, enough of that then … back to the results:

In a nutshell our Saturday looked sad and dreadful, not to mention that we had lots of things on our minds – in front of a home crowed that wasn’t able to travel with us the first half of the year and now that they were there and able to watch us live on the field, we delivered this performance. I personally saw it as an absolute low for this season:

Preliminaries	Argonauts Hellas Athens 2	0:2	London Samurai MV
Preliminaries	London Samurai MV	0:2	Ashby Onslaught
Preliminaries	London Samurai MV	1:2	Stavanger Mayhem 2
Preliminaries	Basingstoke Ratz	2:1	London Samurai MV
Preliminaries	London Samurai MV	0:2	Ipswich Unwanted

On top of the beating we received from whomever was beating us (other teams, referees or even ourselves), we also were informed that we were going to be the first team on the field AGAIN on a Sunday – which allprevious events were more along the lines of “If you play early Saturday, you play late Sunday and vice versa - so you have one day early and the other day late.” … nope, First Game on both days, we almost thought we might have just pissed someone off and they were trying to get back at us ...

We left the field Sunday morning, right after our game. I needed to step back from it all quick and cancelled 2 appointements I had with a vendor and an official from the Millennium Series – because I was just in a “naturally” bad mood. The team sat down in the car park and discussed that we will not let this demoralize us as a team and that we will analyze the situation and take learning’s  away from this - which we now have and they are:

• You don’t separate the team during an event – you eat, sleep, play together from departure to event until return.
• Keep your head low – since confronting a referee with a question (after a game) will only put you on their “shit list”, at least until a feedback procedure that is constructive and effective is in place
• Don’t blame people for information they give you – you accepted the information which means you took the source as trustworthy, next time get the information from the source –not a 3^rd or even 4^th party
• Always remember – it’s a game and we are doing this for the ride, with the outlook of potentially getting some results in the future. The only people that are putting pressure on us is US – enjoy the event.

On a positive note and bottom line:

THIS IS OUR FIRST YEAR in the RACE TO format … and for that being ranked 12^th in the Div3 – I don’t care what people say, that is a small achievement of its own. We have one more event in Paris coming, which gives us the potential chance to even improve this ranking before the season is over. So let’s go visit Mickey Mouse and give this another go.

See you all in France!