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Dublin Tournament - The Return of the Chicken

Yet again Fatima put together a great bunch for a fun weekend in Dublin. With 9 nationalities represented in our 14 players we were quite the site to be seen all weekend. Our arrivals were scattered between Thursday evening and Saturday morning so it was a slow growth before we finally had our full team.

The event started off in ernest on Friday night in the Pav in Dublin as half our team mixed with the rest of the entrants but seemed most drawn to spend time with Jet Set and Princess Layout. I guess old friendships are hard to replace.

The second half of our team were all arriving late on Friday night and were due to pick up their rental van and meet us in town. As the night wore on and the pub closed (11:30pm, it is Dublin after all), we started to get a bit worried when we hadn't seen them. Fortunately our concerns were misplaced as when security asked us to move off the college campus we found the rest of our bunch waiting outside, having not been allowed in! And that was when we heard about the Chaos Van!

Markus had reserved a 9 seater for the weekend but was informed at the rental desk that they didn't actually have any 9 seaters! They tried offering him two six seaters which was promptly turned down, or else a 14 seater which was duely accepted and so the team got to travel in style.

The end of Friday night say us skip the late night attempts to find a club but instead head home to make sure we all knew each other and find out what was planned for the weekend. Ze' Luis had brought port from Portugal, Kate had brought cheese and waffles from the Netherlands, Ed had brought "The Black Disc" (a prize that would be fought hard for over the weeken and Sally had organised our vests for Saturday nights party. Somehow I managed to get the shortest one ever made!

Saturday morning saw a quick spin out to the airport to collect Sox and Charmeyne and our convey car pick up two random Scotish girls who had flown in at the last minute as well. With the regae tunes pumping for the whole drive we almost reached the venue in record time - except we had to stop off for some coffe at the last minute! Damn Europeans and their coffee addiction.

Our play took a little while to come together as we looked sloppy for large parts of our first game. A little group chat to find out what everybody was expecting and what we would look for in certain situations saw us much more organised and able to win our remaining games quite comfortably (including our 13-0 victory over local university side Chilli-O).

To the shock of people of some of teh other teams, there was only one shower room and so co-ed was the order of the day. Having played tournaments all over Germany, Italy and Austria (not to mention half the team either being from there or living there) we weren't really phased. To quote Sally "You have to love a guy who, in the midst of a co-ed shower, comments on the colour of your toe nails".

My other story from the shower was Tony from Chilli-O walking in without realising there were three women in there before him. Trying to hide his blushes he focused on the wall in front of him and went about his business. A short while later a round of beers arrived with one extra. When this was offered to Tony he hesitated for a moment and then took the beer with a smile as he turned around to face the room (and it's occupants) saying "This could be the best shower I have ever had!".

Once we were all washed up and had snacked on the tournament meal, we loaded up the Chaos van and headed off for more food. Eddie Rockets was the victom were we found out that Sox was JTM and Ze' Luis was the responsible adult of the bunch. And our timing couldn't have been better as not long after we finished up we got a call to say the irish dancing was just starting and that we should head over and join in.

I have to agree with the comments from last year, it is very amusing seeing a bunch of English, Belgians and other Europeans dancing a jig with little or no idea of what is going on! To be honest though, a large portion of the irish people didn't seem to have any idea, even though most of them had done it in a gealtacht at some stage during their teenage years.

The costumes on show for the reggae theme were quite varied. BLT had boiler suits with hemp leave designs on them and Chilli-O came as the Jamaican bobsleigh team. we all went in a variety of coloured string vests but the winners of the costume prize were Princess Layout as Rasta Superhero's.

While admiting that this is Dublin and things do finish early, midnight was a little bit too early as things were only just starting to get warmed up. [In case anybody is curious, I didn't get kicked out this time]. There were several ideas thrown around about what to do next but all the chickens were quite happy to head back to the house and hang out there for a while. Pity things didn't work out that way! No sooner had we walked in the door than people started heading for bed. I'd say we were all in bed within 20 minutes of walking through the door!

Sunday morning started off as chaotic as before when, 10 minutes in to the drive, JayVee stoped us to check that he definately had his boots. He did, but it turned out Sally didn't! Back home, pick up boots and on the road again, only 25 minutes behind schedule with a quarter-final to play! With that simple act of forgetfulness, Sally would go on to win Ed's 'Black Disc' for most outstanding moment of the weekend.

Sunday's play was a lot closer than the day before as Skulltimate came out hucking at every opportunity. We tried a variety of zones to stop their three throwers but luck seemed repeatedly on their side as they pulled in enough deep throws to keep the game close throughout. Fortunately we managed to work enough controled offence and came through by 2 or 3 points. It was a very good result for yet another Irish team but a more all around team performance will be necessary in order to take their next step.

From our point of view it was a very good wake up call as we had got quite complacent because of our results from day 1. We knew the semi final was going to be tough and could only hope that this scare had woken us up enough.

Unfortunately it hadn't! Soppy Flange came out with a very strong zone that got them a 4-0 lead before we calmed down and started playing good ultimate. Unfortunately with the games only being an hour long they had done enough at the start and closed out 8-6 winners. I can't help but feel that having to play almost iron man on Saturday had made them much more alert and focuesed than we had been with our 13 1/2 person squad. All credit to them, however, as they did what was needed to earn a spot in the final.

Without the trophy to play for, our organisation and heads droped a little to much to be able to deal with Jet Set properly. They took the third place game and we were left licking our wounds and damaged ego's. Not for long, however, as shortly after Princess Layout successfully defended their title, we had the great thrill of winning the Spirit Prize! Three years and three different prizes for the Chicken. The plan is to come back next year and win all three in one go.

Just because the playing was over did not mean Chaos Theory were done for the weekend. A full team shower was followed by a trip to the local Chinese restaurent before droping Charmeyne to the airport, playing a drinking-esque game while waiting for the bus at the airport and then heading in to town for a few last pints before everybody went home the next day.

From start to finish there had been a very relaxed and comfortable vibe throughout the team. No stress, no panic and just relaxing and enjoying the different and fun company. With most people leaving relatively early on Monday morning and myself off to a wedding for the day, Sunday night was indeed our last time together for now. We left the pub at closing time (12:30am this night, wow) although some of us did stay up quite a bit later. No doubt we will all see each other again at numerous tournaments around Europe but I know that I for one am very glad to have been able to share this weekend with all the rest of the Chickens in Dublin.

This report was created at 7:53pm, June 12th, 2005 and was last edited at 1:10pm, May 22nd, 2006.

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