3rd Bavarian Open Mixed Touch Rugby Championships

3rd Bavarian Open Mixed Touch Championships.

TouchMünchen invites you to our 3rd Mixed Touch Rugby Championships, which this year promises to be the biggest and best yet wih teams from four different countries taking part, we hope you’ll enjoy the day and play in the fun competitive spirit for which our game is known.

Come down and watch us! Food and refreshmensta are available.

Saturday 18th August 2007

SpVgg Hebertshausen
Bgm-Rabl-Str. 1,
85241 Hebertshausen

(maps show the way tfrom S-bahn to the grounds)

Start 9:00am Final at 4:00pm

bump!

weather is looking good, the Dachauer Volksfest is just down the road and would be great to see some supporters. Munich are fielding two teams this year along with teams from Frankfurt, Cologne, Berlin, Vienna, Zurich and Prague.

Match report from the Munich Awesomes coming soon. Watch this space.

Tournament Report - Munich Team Awesome

Match 1: Group Match 1 - Munich Awesome def Vienna 3-2
A few jokes between the sides while waiting for the opening hooter could not hide the importance of this match. It is Vienna's first tournament match, and the Munich Awesomes have a high expectations to fulfill. The traditional shaky Munich start was again there, and the Viennese played solid touch rugby. For the Awesomes, the basic building blocks were there, but there needed to be big improvements to win the tournament.

Match 2: Group Match 2 - Munich Awesome def Frankfurt 6-5
After the Cologne tournment we had expected to do well against Frankfurt, but when they sneaked in the opening try not long after tap-off, we knew that this was a much improved team. The score was tied at half time (I think), but the Frankfurt twins and some other guys were giving Munich a lot of headaches through their pure pace and the changes in direction of their play. Munich pulled out a lead in the second half to get to 6-4, but when Frankfurt ran into our end zone as dummy half and found an open player to score, it was all very tight at 6-5 with Frankfurt probably having the slight ascendency at that point. In the end though, Munich held out for a 6-5 win and with that was assured a place in the finals.

Match 3: Group Match 3 - Munich Awesome def Prague (unknown large margin)
This was really a training game for the Awesomes since Prague was quite a new side with little competition level experience. They were still able to expose some holes from the Munich defence but in general the Awesomes outclassed them.

Match 4: Semi-final - Munich Awesome def Cologne (unknown but comfortable margin)
The grudge match of the tournament which is a repeat of the Cologne cup final, except that Cologne are missing some players. While the Cologne offence was quick and fit and did push the Munich defence, they were not able to easily crack the line. On the other hand, the Munich team was looking increasingly well-oiled and working better together, and this resulted in significantly less errors. While the scores were close in the first half, the Cologne defence started to open up wide gaps under pressure from the hard running Munich attack, resulting in a convincing win for the Awesomes.

Match 5: Final - Munich Awesome def Frankfurt (unknown but comfortable margin)
This is a repeat of the group match, but Frankfurt was missing one of their play-makers Matt and also one of the fast running twins (Mark?). With that disadvantage, the penetrating power of the Frankfurt attack was not enough to put much pressure on the much-improved Munich defence. There was now better communication and much better gap coverage across the park. On the other hand, the Munich attack is now running in top gear, with the tired legs fuelling themselves on the midday museli bars and adrenalin. Substitutions became fast, regular and organised, and the Frankfurter were not able to withstand the pace and the variety of the Munich attack. In contrast to the first game against Vienna, where Captain Baxter highlighted that we were playing on a 20m wide field, this time there were multiple width of the field tries, culminating in a memorable one which went through 5 or 6 sets of hands to get from the right to the left, with Amanda putting (Nomis? well, somebody) in the corner. It was, quoting our captain, "Champagne Touch Rugby".

And that was our fantastic run to the final of the Bavarian Open.

Can someone please fill me in on the scores so I can include them? Unfortunately, unlike Paris where we only scored a handful of tries, I cannot remember who scored our numerous tries in each game. Simon and Keith collected quite a few, but pretty much everybody had managed to score and have a direct hand in setting up a try, and also in performing try saving touches. It was truly an awesome team effort. Roll on Berlin!

We now with great anticipation await a report about adventures of the Munich Pirates.

Tournament Report - Munich Pirates

Cologne 3 - Pirates 3
And so the first match for the Pirates. Nerves were apparent, especially as Cologne is a team with a reputation for speed and skill, so no, not really what a new team would have liked for a first match. But deep was dug and a more than respectable scoreline came out of it. Shock all round at not having actually lost, but tartan, our Mental Genius kept spirits up in a different form than usual (i.e. not liquid) and got the team thinking as one. Subs were starting to flow and the belief kicked in. Lassie showed that several months of beer and pies forced rest do not unmake a player. Discipline excellent, top support from the sidelines, Kin's battle-cry yelling inspirational, surprised other team did not burst into tears at aural assault. If any Pirate can name the scorers, please do, thanks.

Zurich 7 - Pirates 1
Yeah. Sometimes you have to lose. But it is easier to swallow when the win goes to the better team, as was the case here. Zurich were organised, fast, skilled. Was later told that Zurich is effectively the Swiss national side. Think Randygam scored the try for Pirates, that boy's good some speed on him. minigirl excellent on centre, great calling there! FatRascal was also in fine voice. Lost AnRa to injured ankle, far be it from me to criticise a ref *innocent look* but not stopping the game to have AnRa carried off wasn't great. Real shame for him as he'd had some cracking moves on beforehand. This match also featured another travesty in reffing with me trying to make a try-saving touch with my chin to a boot. Thankfully, nothing broken, just a bit of a bruise and a story for the grandkids.
Bugger it, Zurich deserved to win (not least for having the nicest kit of any team) and Pirates can be proud of not giving away any silly penalties for mouthing off. Especially with IW, Lassie and me on the pitch...

Pirates 2 - Berlin 1
Munich Pirates finest match. It was like playing on air, Beth was stunning - fast, end-to-end and hands that caught the lot. Myles77 and Patrick twistly using the whole of the pitch, Nicole and Alix had the positioning down, tartan was quick and smart, Kin went for any gaps, IW & FR solid as always, pushing everyone onwards and causing Berlin no end of trouble, including forced errors.
30m in penalties? Thank you very much.
Derek (a ref) getting pinged for lip? Oh yeah. For many this was the moment of the match, or even the day.
What needs to be mentioned here is the quality of the 3-man drives, yes Pirates did not always make the best of the end zone but they were getting up there in 3 touches, was a joy to watch, full sixes were made, few, if any, dropped balls either. Skills on wheels (or legs, really).
A deserved win and big grins all round.

Pirates finished third in group 1 on points difference - later told than 1 try made the difference, but bugger it.

5th/6th Playoff: Pirates 2 - Vienna 6
Tiredness started to show and Vienna were good enough to capitalise on that with strong attacks towards the wings. Pirates managed to keep their heads up, even though it was often difficult and the half-time talking help lift us.
Think scorers for us were Randygam and Patrick (?), hard game but we did our best. Discipline held up, we've got to be proud of that, defence was pretty good, Vienna are a quick team, we may not be, but there's no shame in that.
Rest of team laughed as I said I didn't mind losing as I'd got big hugs from the Austrian Brothers of Choice at end ha ha ha *blush*

Thus the Pirates became landlubbers again and turned their telescopes towards Team Arseholes, sorry, Awesome.
We came, we sang "Simon, Simon, give us a wave, Simon!" - and he did. Both of them.
We cheered and did Mexican waves and did not spill our beers. Mostly.
We beamed with pride when they won as in a way we had too.

And seeing Beth get the recognition from her fellow Pirates for a tournament well-played was a fine thing to see.

Congratulations Team Awesome - let's do it all again in Berlin (I'll wear a chin guard tho)!

Final scores for all games were as follows (include -4 tries for teams where applicable):

Munich Pirates

Group games
Cologne 3 - Pirates 3
Zurich 7 - Pirates 1
Pirates 2 - Berlin 1

Pirates finished third in group 1 on points difference

5th/6th Playoff
Pirates 2 - Vienna 6

Munich Awesome

Group games
Awesome 3 - Vienna 2
Awesome 6 - Frankfurt 5
Awesome 11 - Prague -2

Awesome finished top of group 2

Semi Final
Awesome 7 - Cologne 3

Final
Frankfurt 2 - Awesome 7

(cheers seb)

And now for the Oscar-winner speechy bit:
Big thanks to all that played, who watched, who took photos, who gave their time and sleep and previously unlined skin to organise the lot, who cooked, served beer, tallied the cash, did the sums, talked the talk, drove the cars, sent the mails, pressed the flesh, kicked the arses, forced the water down our necks (cheers to the real Oscar!) and made the day what it was.
We salute you.

I had great fun watching you guys beating the others. I tried my best to capture it:
The playing: http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~schmidt/pics/the_match/
and the drinking: http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~schmidt/pics/the_night/

Cheers
Manuel (boyfriend of the player of the tournament and best dressed person)