Malaysia Open - PALS Round 2 2012

Last weekend we were in Malaysia for the 2nd leg of the PALS, the Malaysia Open. This was such a great all round trip. I feel like with the amount of time we've spent in Malaysia now over the years that we are starting to understand the culture and really appreciate the food.

The week started with me meeting up with my good friend SANDO to find some delicious Malaysian food. I went to Jalan Alor with her, and I had probably the best chicken wings I've ever had in my life from Wong Ah Wings, as well as 4 other dishes. The following night most of the team went to a Mamak store for dinner. We ordered at least 16 dishes and it cost 90RM, which is maybe $30 AUD.

We started playing on Friday. We had two games, the first against Infernal from Thailand and then the new Demonz team which consists of mostly players from last years championship team, Datis. It's a good test to come up against a powerhouse team first match. If you do well, you have a little extra confidence because there's not "the worst is yet to come" to worry about for the rest of the prelims.

We had a back on forth game against Infernal, and finished the game a tie at 3-3. It was really hot and quite punishing. We shot 8 boxes of paint and they shot 9. We felt pretty confident after the game despite the tie.

Next up we had Demonz. We were able to control the game and won 4 -0.

Saturday it was really hot. We had to play Demonz Red, Ronin and Blade. We slowed down a bit and made a few careless mistakes. It left us with a loss against Demonz Red and Blade. We weren't too disheartened though as we knew our game plans were OK, and that the team was good, it was just poor execution costing us and I think overall we were confident we could snap out of it for the top 8 games.

We made it through to Sunday in 5th position, and had to play Nemesis, Demonz and Raskal to progress to the top 4. Nemesis came out strong and got 2 points up on us quickly, but we were able to figure them out and come back with 4 unanswered points. We played Demonz again, and I really feel that their game plan just didn't match up with ours and we were able to beat them 4-0 or 4-1, I can't remember. And finally we played Raskal and had another win. We were playing well.

We entered the top 4 having to play Infernal to progress to the playoffs for 1st and 2nd. They were playing outstanding, and we also attracted a few penalties which made it even harder. Ultimately we lost the close points against them -- a 2 on 2 and a 1 on 1, which sent them through to the finals (which they won) and left us to playoff for 3rd and 4th against Datis.

This Datis game is one of the most memorable I have had in a while -- the game started with Datis going 3 - 0 on us in just a couple of minutes. With them only needing one more point to win the match, I remember being in the pits and telling the guys to just not go down like this. We came back to win 4 unanswered points, sprinting the buzzer in each time to preserve the clock. It was pretty exciting to live that.

And that left us with 3rd place. It was another top quality tournament by PALS. Our Dye DM12's shot ball on ball and our playing gear held up fine on the rough playing surface. Team Blade from Australia also helped us out coaching on the sidelines -- thanks!

The only thing left to do on our last day was eat, so Rambo and I went out with Sando and had another food adventure.