Our almost endless run of making top 4 finally came to an end this weekend in Bangkok. Finishing 2nd at World Cup and then not placing at all here is a hard pill to swallow. But it some ways it may be for the best. I mean, we had got pretty high up on that high horse. Perhaps this can be the catalyst for us to be critical of ourselves. We often feel that we don't put in the same effort at local Perth tournaments because we don't feel the same focus that being away brings us. I hope this is a slap in the face to all of the players on this team that we can always keep improving. And that any success we have is fickle and it can slip away and leave us empty in the middle of the pack so easily.
Our tournament started great. We beat Datis in a nail-biter 3-2, with that "little bit extra" showing itself in the final minutes with Trav flying down the snake. We sailed on for a bit longer until we met Nemesis. We couldn't survive the breakout against them and got 4-0'd. I feel as though this was the loss that cracked us -- after this we were playing anxiously.
When the team plays good, things just work. We don't talk about playing good, or think about playing good, we just play good. We're usually resilient to losses and can make adjustments to game plans or timing, but this time, our adjustments became more and more frequent and our anxiety levels got higher and higher. And some players were flipping out. And we're not a flip out team, so that made things worse.
Our top 12 draw was rough with Datis, Infernal and Tsunami. We had to win at least 2 of those games to proceed. Going in with the wrong mindset and doubt in our game plans translated into us getting crushed by Datis and Infernal. It worked out though that if we lost the Infernal game by only 1 point, we would have a high enough score to move onto the next round. So the first point was an 8 minute point, leaving 2 minutes game time. I started saying "lets just lose by one point." I wanted us to cross up and burn the clock. I don't think it's being a pussy. We gift ourselves a second chance to collect ourselves and play again and realistically, we are not got going to beat Infernal when we're not playing to our potential. But we opted for the gungho route and tried to get it back and the tournament slipped away from us.
Our new DM13's were of course amazing though, and our new Ultralite gear should have arrived in Perth.
