It all built up to the final round of the
Millenniums – World Cup in Paris!!!
Since we started this year, we had various
activities and plans, and one was running some charity events including a clinic with
Nicky T from Planet Eclipse.
Nicky, having retired from active duty on
the paintball fields after cementing himself as one of the top international
players in the world on teams like London Nexus, extend his paintball career by
becoming a major industry figurehead and one of the sport's top analyst. We
wanted to learn from one of the best and he was delighted to hold a clinic for
us prior the Paris event.
To make a long story very short – after the
clinic we approached Nicky asking him what he thought about our performance and
also about the issues we had all year without a coach in our pits sharing the
admin, pit and playing duties amongst each other. After a few minutes and a
question if he would like to jump into the role of a coach for our last round
of 2012 – he agreed to the concept once he had the ok from family and employer.
We were really super excited when he got
back to us not even a week later with a “Green Light” from the lady of the
house (thank you Beth!!!) and from the office.
The idea was to have Nicky with us for a
weekend to evaluate our situation and if we were ready for moving up a division
in 2013. All these plans came to an early halt once we started discussing plans
for 2013 amongst the team briefly during our last training prior the Paris
event.
The reason you ask?
A very simple one: the financial commitment - without any real support
from sponsors.
At the prices we were looking at paying and
moving from a “RaceTo2” to “RaceTo4” with a 6 man squad just wasn’t realistic. We
barely had a year of RaceTo2 experience at this point. In addition to this we
had no dedicated coach or own tactical/strategic experience in how to coach and
manage ourselves in an event - nor just a dedicated person in our pits to do
so.
Personally I felt it like a slap in the
face since I was hoping to be playing in Division 2 next year – but we all
agreed in the end that one more year will help us to gel better on the field as
a team and at the same time look for the 1-2 extra ingredients that will increase
the size of our roster for 2014 to then hit the ground running in the Div2.
But lets get back to the “MAIN EVENT” ... Paris.
Nicky gave us some “homework” after the
CPPS since he wanted to make sure we felt in the right mind-set coming to
Paris, so in the car driving to Paris Thursday morning (2 a.m.) we had some
chats and planned our day, since it was going to be long one, we had booked 2
training sessions on Thursday with an opportunity to play against SPL and CPL
teams through the DYE offer, plus another hour on the Division 2 field against
London Impact, which would be our field for our Saturday games.
Thursday
As mentioned we started our trip at 2 a.m.
UK time to make it to Paris, EuroDisney in time for our first training slot at
noon. The big difference this event was that we brought our Pit Crew with us,
no other than Kimi, Francesca and Vicky – all three partners of players, of
which Francesca and Vicky had not been to any events this year.
Kimi, who had been with
us all year, took the lead in organising the pits as she had done so
successfully the entire Millennium Series so far – Francesca (having played for over a
year herself) and Vicky used the Thursday training sessions as their "training
drill" for wiping down, filling pots and fetching them off the fields between
points.
By the time we played London Impact at out 3 p.m. they were synced and
a well-oiled and working machinery, which was a huge support for the rest of
the weekend.
Nicky warned us of overdoing it on the
training day, due to risk of injury, so we didn’t want to go nuts, however we
enjoyed the SPL and CPL team challenge quite a bit. Of the 8 points we played
we actually won 2 and gave them good games for the other 6 points. We shot them
off the break, made primaries – of course they were training and trying things,
so we didn’t let this get to our heads too much, but it did give us that bit of
confidence … which I think everyone enjoyed.
Towards our 3 p.m. slot it started to get a
bit sunny and the drizzle that was our steady companion throughout our first
session ended. We started off with some 5 and 4 star GI Sportz paint to decide
which paint we would be shooting during the event and then switched to training
grade for the remainder of the session. Overall we had a good grasp of the
fields after our day was done – and we were looking forward to watch some
Friday games, DisneyLand and picking up Nicky T.
Friday
Having spent most of the Thursday
travelling and training, we used the Friday morning after a breakfast and some
social time together to look at some games – however within the first hour the
call for “MICKEY MOUSE “ got louder and louder amongst the ranks …
So, we took
off to have some time with the attractions at Disney where finally one of our
favourite hashtags was born … #creepyface.
Invented and perfected by one of our rookies this year, Mark lead the way – and many started to follow …
Towards the end of the day two of us left
the group to collect Nicky T at the airport, where he arrived on time from
Manchester as expected. A quick debrief in the car on how the team was doing
gave him a good idea of the situation and we agreed to have some dinner to
discuss the next 2 days.
Dinner with Nicky was a godsend, he really
put everything in perspective, and this wasn’t even paintball related – but
about enjoying what you do, when you do it – and when adding effort, dedication
and committing to what you do (on as off the field) that there is almost
nothing if not very little that cannot be achieved. With this another last
round of beers were ordered and it was time to head to the hotel shortly after
(our games were not until after the lunch break so there was no rush to get to
bed).
Saturday
Looking at the weather forecast in the
morning and hoping it won’t be true is something that we stopped doing after
this years CPPS series … 4 rounds, we were drenched and freezing in every one
of them … so we just accepted the fact that once again we would be in for a wet
and fun, slip and slide – however this all happened with a high motivation, big
plans and dreams – we wanted to finish Top 10 by the end of the season, and
this was only going to be possible if we made Sunday Club and ideally wanting
to finish on a podium spot.
Nicky had called the weekend “Operation: Win Paris”
and the smirk on everyone’s face was a thing of beauty when getting to the
field. Of course it was mixed with a bit of nervous laughter, however we had
confidence that this round will not turn into another arriving at the field
late because the schedule was running an hour early or any other disaster we
encountered in the rounds before.
We were at our field 30 minutes prior to
start, they let us in the pits 25 minutes prior and we set up our gear, since
it was cold and raining, we wanted to avoid getting the paint too early … but
then it happened, us and Speed Tiger Lille (first game of the group) were the
only of 6 teams in the pits and the referees switch on a 5 min. timer with a
call for “Gun Checks” – we just all looked at each other and panicked. 2 ran to
the pain truck getting paint, 2 were setting up markers and the girls tried
sorting out their pit tables with pots and cloths … once we arrived with the 6
boxes of paint we were down to 2 min. warning, Nicky took control of the
situation by telling everyone to calm down and take whatever pots are ready,
distribute them amongst each other and get on the field.
Our last man arrived running at the gate at
the 3 second mark and the game was over as fast as it had started – people
coming off the fields had frustration all over their faces, however the next
point was going to start in 2 min., so no time for that – Nicky again reminded
everyone to keep calm and get back out, unluckily this didn’t help since the
heads were down and it felt like a messed up first game already – 2:0 was the
result.
Well – we thought - then we will have played our game and have
all other teams be on “BYE/DRAW” since there was nobody there besides us and
they were in such a rush to get started … the timer was ticking down to 20 sec.,
stopped and the clocks went off. At this point RAGE does not describe the mood
of the team – we as the first group game – get hustled on the field without
being ready and are PUNISHED for being there early.
The anger and frustration, plus the 30 min.
break to our next point gave us 3 consecutive wins of which all were very
clear. So with a 3 wins and point score we were through
to Sunday, with one more game Sunday morning in the prelims to ensure top spot
of our group and a potential “weaker” team in the first round of the knock-out
stage.
Speed Tiger
Lille
|
2:0
|
London Samurai
MV
|
|
London
Samurai MV
|
2:0
|
UK Masters
London Allstars 2
|
|
London
Samurai MV
|
2:1
|
Hornet
Treilleres
|
|
London
Samurai MV
|
2:0
|
Bad
Influence Heidelberg
|
Nicky looked very pleased with the outcome
and we discussed some things on our way back. The excitement of the games and
the steamrolling teams had us totally ignore the insane downfalls of rain and
muddy playing surface – a laundry run was needed and this is where it all went
crazy.
We had a volunteer to do our entire laundry as well – no other than NICKY T personally – he enjoyed a 2 hour "downtime" with his kids on Skype and sitting in
front of washing machines and dryers before he returned to us in the hotel room
with 2 baskets of clear, dry and warm playing gear ... it felt like Mom was
with us. In return we had organized dinner and all had a quite dinner in the
hotel room in fantastic company. Now how many of you can claim a Pro-Paintball players has done you laundry ... huh??? J
Sunday
When the alarm went off, it was still dark
outside. First game of the day, knowing you have to wait until after lunch to
continue playing is something we really have to get use to more – since at Race
To 4 breaks between games are much longer than in our current division, where
games literally are played in a very short time frame during the day.
Our first game of the day was set-up in flood
lights on the Division 1 field – Astro Turf and no rain, which was exactly the
same environment we played in on Thursday on our Pro field training session, so
we felt very confident in playing – which resulted in a clear 2:0 win in a very
structured and clear game for us.
With the moral and spirits high, we hunted
down some warm beverages and breakfast to eat at the event, which was also
accompanied by rain within the next hour. We knew it would be a wet afternoon
with increasing rain – however we had to try keep dry. At some point we went
back to our cars to warm up and dry a little before the “Sunday Club” games
started.
By noon the knock-out stage had started and
our first opponent of the day was London Defiance 2. Their second team has just
joined in the Millennium Series recently – however have immediate left an impression
by making it to the 2nd round of the tournament. Although we lost 2
players off the break, our Snake player, Mark, had the game of the day in our
opinion winning an impressive 2 on 1. Him in snake 50, well aware of the
positions of the 2 opposing players thanks to Scott’s coaching – he shot out
the Dorito-side player and bunkered the Snake-side player which spun on him and
even received a penalty, which resulted in a automatic point for us and them
starting their second point with 4 players. The rest is history, but we are
looking forward to see them compete again next year since during these events
it is all about supporting “home teams” in all divisions.
Our next game would be against a very
strong team named Furious Sneek. They had a flawless prelim record in this
event with 5 out of 5 wins and were going to win their entire knock out games
2:0 until they reached the finals – where they would be defeated by London
Tigers 3.
I was sideline coaching this game and after
an unlucky first point, within 10 seconds we lost our entire Dorito side and
they loaded the Snake which resulted in us leaving the competition.
The heads were hanging when I arrived in
the pits and one or the other had to stomp off to catch some fresh air before
we spoke about what happened and where things could have been improved. It was
a good learning – since we knew we had a serious chance in making it into the
finals.
Nicky kept the moral up and complimented our
performance – the pit crew was extraordinary, how the team pull themselves
together after a rough start and come all this way in the first year? 9th
in Division 3 in your first year? That is NOTHING to be ashamed of at all. We
agreed.
London
Samurai MV
|
2:0
|
Mofa Kidz
Hamburg
|
|
London
Samurai MV
|
2:0
|
London
Defiance 2
|
|
Furious
Sneek
|
2:0
|
London
Samurai MV
|
It was time to head to the hotel and get
changed – Nicky had a plane to catch and we had some dinner plans before
returning to London on Monday.
On the way to the airport Nicky said
something that I believe will stay with me for a long time – which was in the
sense of:
“You can try to coach or work with a team
as hard as you want to – but if they are not interested in learning or taking
things on board it won’t work, unluckily many teams don’t think that they have
any faults or problems in areas you highlight to them. It was an absolute
pleasure working with you, because you all take what you are told on board and
put suggestions into action. This is what will make you successful in the long
run – Your willingness to learn and admitting that there is better ways of
doing things rather than justifying your actions and not giving up to work hard
for every point”
At this stage we would all like to thank
you, Nicky T, for you work and efforts with the London Samurai MV team. We hope
to have a chance to work much more with you in the future on our way to higher
Divisions.
See you all at home soon!!!
#CREEPYFACE
No comments:
Post a Comment