[Missing] World Cup Asia 2016

TPOC/Vietnam/PALS Singapore 2016

It's been a quiet year for STK so far. The only tournament we'd played together before Singapore was the first round of PALS in Kuala Lumpur. Typically we would have played a handful of local tournaments already, but the PPL has been transitioning into "NXL Australia" and their events have been scheduled to start much later in the year. And due to work commitments we haven't been able to field a full roster for the new Perth league, the MPS.

Some of our players are guesting for teams in Australia's Super 7's. Rambo and I were keen to have some extra-curricular activity of our own so we set our sights on the TPOC. We had heard many excellent reports of this event with several top teams from Asia in attendance. We were fortunate enough to be put in contact with Asia-Pacific champion, Infernal. After a few Facebook messages, we were scheduled in to join them for the second round of the TPOC in Bangkok. Coincidentally, the second leg of the PALS in Singapore was the following weekend. So Andrew and I booked the week off and planned some R&R in between the tournaments.

To guest with Infernal was an exciting. We have admired their team for many years. They beat us in the championship game at World Cup Asia in 2012 and were the overall series champions of PALS last year. Some of the best players in the Asia Pacific play on Infernal.

The tournament kicked off on Saturday. The field layout was challenging, there were a lot of big gaps and the wide bunkers were not ideal... small doritos and mini A's and pins. In typical Bangkok fashion, it was also hot. I wanted to play good for our new team-mates on Infernal, but it definitely wasn't an explode down the tapes kind of field. With the huge gaps it took a lot of patience and a lot of diving to survive the field. Rambo and I found it a bit easier to talk being on the same side of the field as the tournament progressed so I stuck it out with him on the snake side eventually. It was the kind of field where you really had to check off everything before moving.

It was a highlight to see the Infernal guys in action from the same side of the field, for once. We managed to play well and make it through the prelims in 2nd seed. This left us to play off against Raskal in the semifinals.

We came out strong, going up 2 points quickly. Then I got a penalty on the break -- I got hit on my outer-most pod, didn't know and gunned up. That cost us a point. Then we lost the next point. And the final point, it was a long one to start with. Then, we had some friendly fire on our side of the field, with Rambo accidentally getting shot. He was holding up the dorito side, once he was gone I looked over to catch a glimpse of Raskal flying down the dorito side. And then that was it. We lost and went into the playoffs for 3rd and 4th. We managed to win that against Virgin Aisawan.

It was a great experience to play with Infernal. I enjoyed getting insights into how Infernal works. From my observations, I would say Infernal is more structured and disciplined than STK.

Infernal took us out for a meal after the tournament and we spoke for hours about our teams. It was great to hear about certain things from their perspective, how they practice and some of their history. Infernal really looked after us while we were there. Thank you Ole, Ae, Shagga, Bank and "the manager" for letting us be a part of Infernal for the weekend.

The TPOC event was excellent -- it really has it all. Great competition and friendly atmosphere. The organiser, Tom, really looks after everyone. I hope the rest of STK can make it to these events in the future.

With TPOC out the way, Rambo and I had a week to kill before PALS Singapore. We decided to go to Vietnam to pass the time. We looked at Ho Chi Minh and then realised it was 40 degrees every day there. We were still recovering from wanting to kill ourselves every waking moment in the Bangkok heat as usual, so we settled for the capital of Vietnam, Hanoi, where it was a much more pleasant 27 degrees.

We stayed in the Old Quarter, a hectic sprawl of narrow streets packed with motorbikes, cars, people, roadside vendors and buildings. There were so many motorbikes on the road. Waiting for an opening to cross the street is impossible. The method is to just go. Don't speed up or stop, just walk at a steady pace across the road and let the traffic dodge you.

The first day we explored the Old Quarter and tried the food. We made sure to eat all the classic Vietnamese dishes we had heard of, Bun Cha, Banh Mi, Pho, and let our AirBNB host show us some other foods.

The following bay, after a 4 hour bus ride, we took a junk boat out to Ha Long Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage Site; some thousands of isles emerging from the tropical water. We disembarked the junk boat to kayak around the isles. If we capsized, there was no way Rambo could free his giant legs from the kayak in time and he would definitely die. We precariously threw cameras between our kayak and other tourist's kayaks for photos all with Rambo's life hanging delicately in the balance.

The bus ride to and from Ha Long Bay went quick chatting with Rambo. Many things have changed over the last decade and we don't hang out as much as we did when we were kids but we are great friends.

We spent some more time exploring Hanoi, and then prepared to continue our journey to Singapore for the second round of the PALS.

We met up with the team on the Thursday and walked the field. Stevie clocked up his first absence from our travelling roster as he was tied down with work. That leaves just me as the only STK guy who has been to every tournament we've ever done.

On Friday, our first game was against Sydney SWAT. It felt like their offense wasn't quite dialled in for that first game and we were able to win 4 - 1. Next up we had Raskal who we beat 3 - 1. And then we LA Wrecking Crew. We'd never seen this team play before. Playing American teams is exciting as I feel they have a different play style. We won 3 - 1, but the points were close. We had a weird point where Rambo and I were trapped in the back center trying to hold off their dorito side and we were taking turns taking pot shots over the top of the bunker. Our breakshooting that game in particular was pretty strong I think too.

This left us in the weird position of not having dug ourselves into a hole on the first day for once.

We went onto Saturday and versed the Hellions from Singapore first, a new team to Division 1. They came out hard and gave us a really intense, close game. We trailed for most of the game. At 2  - 3, Nalds broke the game open getting down into their snake. With the score at 3 - 3 and not much time left, we got a kill on the break and pressed down the field. We were able to come away with the win with a few seconds left.

We played Raw next. This round, Raw had Damian Ryan from Infamous guesting for them. We beat Raw 4 -1 to lull us into a false sense of security. At this point, we'd won all of our prelim games so far which is unheard of for us. We had one left against Xtioneers. They stomped our faces in 0 - 4 just to give us something to think about going into Sunday. 

Sunday was strange. Nemesis and LA Wrecking Crew had their semi final up first. We had all our stuff ready in the pits to follow as the next game. The Nemesis/Wrecking Crew game ended in a tie and went to overtime. Time expired for that too so it went to one on one's. Then things got weird, we ended up watching the two teams play 6 or 7 one on one's. It just kept on going. Then there was a huge commotion about is it meant to be infinite one on one's played or does it go back to prelim seeding. We waited and waited for a conclusion. We dumped our hoppers as the paint had all swollen in the humidity of the pits waiting. It was quite a wait. Finally, it was resolved with Nemesis winning.

Next up was our semifinal against Raw. What followed was a Raw we hadn't seen before. It would be easy to say Damian Ryan did all the work but it wouldn't be true. On the receiving end that game, I can say that every player on that Raw roster took part in stomping us out. We had no answer. Damian was clocking G's on the break and flying down the doritos. The others were wrecking us too. In the prelims, I think we had more success as we were getting G's on the break and it left us with more bodies to deal with Damian. In this game, the kills just weren't coming on the break. We got shut out 0 - 4. It was crushing. I thought we might be able to win two PALS in a row. I got back in the pits after getting shot out that last point and had a slam fest with a bunch of pods. I'm glad Hunter was there to see it and be proud of my rage. Getting shut out in the semi's is heinous.

Raw went on to shut out Nemesis too and won the tournament. I couldn't be mad for long -- Raw have helped us in the pits so many countless times. Jane, aside from being a paintball celebrity in her own right is also one of our paintball idols, and all of the guys on that team are so earnest and nice. It was great for them to win.

And that was it. Two third places in 10 days. New friends on Infernal. Getting curb stomped in a semi's game. Back to Perth. 

We're currently sitting at the top of the PALS scoreboard, and I would have to attribute some of this to our M2's. Thank you DYE for your continued support.

[Missing] PALS Kuala Lumpur 2016

[Missing] World Cup Asia 2015

World Cup Asia 2015 - Leadup

In just under two weeks we're travelling to the island of Langkawi in Malaysia for the 2015 Paintball World Cup Asia. This year will be STK's 7th World Cup Asia. The buildup to WCA is always anxious as the competition is stiff with many of the best teams from the Asia Pacific in attendance.

The leadup to this World Cup Asia, we've practiced hard as we always have, but I've really come to realise that we have literally done everything we possibly can to have success at this event, not just this year, but every year leading to now. We are not a team with a lot of resources. We borrow from and support each other to scrape our way to practice every week and attend these events. There's no real backing or management to our team, and any success we have had in our small corner of the Paintball world is just from working together and being friends.

We've had a good year so far; we won in Thailand and we've continued our winning streak at the local Perth series. We have only not won maybe 5 events of the 40 or so local events we've played since 2009. We had some problems on Day 1 in Singapore which prevented us from reaching the semi-finals, but we've talked the issues through over and over and I hope we can present to WCA 2015 a more confident STK right from game one.

Dye continues to support us with the best gear and we're looking forward to some of us having the new Dye M2 to shoot at the event.

PALS Singapore 2015

I'm pretty mad about PALS Singapore because we started playing great on Saturday, but played like amateurs on the Friday. With only the top 4 going through straight to the semi-finals, screwing up Friday sent us home. Other than that, this event was really spectacular. The field is one of the best I've ever been too. A perfectly flat AstroTurf playing surface and an expertly organised event. Well done to the PALS Singapore team!

Friday, we played Aisawan, Xtioneers and Demonic. We started off OK against Aisawan, lost a 7 and a half minute point and couldn't get it back in the remaining time. We had some things against us, like people borrowing our guns before we left Perth and breaking them on the eve of the event. That's a nice way to go into an event. And we shot the bounciest paint known to man. It was a fair loss to Aisawan though, some things didn't go our way, they played well and I could deal with it and was ready to move on with the rest of the games. Next we played Xtioneers. It was a close game but I didn't feel like we weren't in control. Then we started getting penalties. We essentially won the point to put us at 3-2, but got a penalty right at the end and voided the point. We finished with a tie. And then we played Demonic -- they had the Asian version of Dave Baines shooting me on the break every point. And it wasn't just a couple of balls landing, I was arriving to my bunker covered in his paint. It was some really good breakshooting. From the pits for most of the game, I'd watch the game get to 4vs4, feel hopeful and then watch us die out of our spots, leaving us with another loss.

We weren't playing as a team, people weren't being smart on the field and we weren't adjusting to the other teams. We weren't talking to each other off the field about it. It was pretty hopeless. There was some shouting and then we went back to the hotel.

On Friday night I texted Stevie and Devon from bed and said what the game plan was going to be. I normally hate doing this, I want everyone's input. But it just wasn't working and I thought we still had a slim chance to make it through if we could win all three of our games on Saturday. I woke up pretty jacked at 4:30am, ready to do whatever it would take to keep us in the tournament.

First in the morning we had to verse Infernal. I briefed the team on the changes to the game plan. We quickly went down 0-3, with getting a penalty on the third point. I wasn't too happy about that and may have lost my mind for a minute in the pit. I wanted to preserve whatever slim chance we had of making it into the top 4. I remember feeling a huge sense of "going for it" as we played the next 3 points as hard as we could, being as aggressive as possible and sprinting the buzzer in to preserve the clock. We managed to get the score back to 3-3, but were unable to win the final point, leaving us with a draw. It was a nice feeling for us to finally be playing good -- it took some shouting and a lot of frustration, but we arrived. Too bad it was much too late.

We won our next 2 games. This left us with 3 points total from the prelims, we needed at least 4 to be in with a shot at the top 4. So we didn't make Sunday.

We did the same thing in Thailand but squeaked through and won. But it's not sustainable, we need to look at how we prepare for the events.

Now the long wait till World Cup Asia.

PALS Thailand 2015

After a while you do start to think "are we ever going to win?" Not to say we hadn't come close recently -- we came 2nd months before at WCA in overtime. But it takes so much at and between each event, that to just fall short again and again starts to make you wonder.

Our PALS Thailand experience started this year like it has pretty much every time we set foot in Thailand... we struggled. On Friday, we lost all of our games. Nothing was working, we couldn't make it to our spots alive, we couldn't live even when we did make it out and we were getting penalties. Sometimes the team drives me mad... I know we can play better but we just can't hit our peak. I've tried being enthusiastic and positive when it gets like that to bring us back... and I've tried screaming and shouting. It can be frustrating and it’s compounded by the fact that neither approach seems to work. I guess we just run on feeling and nothing helps to get that feeling going manually.

We lost our first 3 matches, the first one against Demonic was close We went up two points and then they came back two points. The score was tied with under 20 seconds left on the clock. We got a penalty and awarded Demonic a swing point. Next we played Raskal, who dismantled us 0-4 Then we played Infernal. We lost the first two points, then won a point -- I thought we'd reached a turning point, and then, another penalty.

The prelims were winding down, we had no wins, we were pretty certain we were going to be knocked out. I was Whatsapping friends back home my sad face.

The team poured in heaps of useful feedback. With it, we swapped up who was playing where and then everything just fell into place. We managed to draw out two victories against the toughest Perth Crisis we've ever seen in a 3-1 game, and the Xtioneers, 4-0. We played these games at our peak, and I remember feeling a bit frustrated that we'd just managed to hit it when it was quite possibly too late. Highlights for me were Farran consistently getting us a kill on the break, Stevie making it out wide, Timmy weaving up the middle and Nalds holding down the snake side.

But, with our meager two wins we were just about resided to the fact we had to go home disappointed. As we were packing up, Amber informed us our point spread JUST enough to push us through the prelims and into the next round.

It was a relief, we all had minor hugs except Farran (he has a no-celebration policy).

Our first quarter final round game was against Crisis again. It was a long and tough match, but we were able to get up points and sit on our lead with the clock on our side. We won 4-1. And then we had to play Infernal. We were able to win our game against them as well, 4-0. This knocked Crisis out of the quarterfinal round and sent us and Infernal on.

Our semi-final matchup was against Demonic. By this point I think we had a strong grip on the field and our confidence had completely turned around from non-existent to feeling unstoppable. With some early break kills on both sides, there was a drawn out 3 vs 3 the first point, and after that we were able to stay on top of it and win 4-0, sending us through to the finals to verse Infernal again, who had defeated Aisawan in their semi-final.

In the pits before the game started, we shot some glances around suggesting "bring it in for a speech?" but instead just had some knowing-nods, a few high-fives and the consensus "nothing needs to be said." Confidence was high and I felt proud to be part of STK.

And then we won and it was cool. I felt, relieved if anything. I think it's the paintball cliche to say a win is relieving but it is! All that time between events practicing, the rollercoaster at the event itself, and then to come out on top... it's good.

We had a lot of help at the event from Perth friends. Thank you everyone. And Papi, Amber and Devon. Howie, Scott, both Adams, Bubba, Jeremy, May, Mick. Sorry if I missed anyone.

Most importantly, we are getting further and further along with our partnership with Dye and the amount of support we receive from them is truly appreciated. Rambo trialled the Rotor R2's at the event and loved it.

Thank you to our home field in Perth, WASP Paintball.

And thanks to the team for your commitment, time, money and friendship.

World Cup Asia 2014

I want to start this blog backwards by giving the biggest thanks to all of our supporters. It is truly humbling. From our closest supporters who we consider family -- the Ogdens (children included) and Michelle -- who've travelled for years at their own expense to be there for all of the highs and lows, to our great friends who seem to love us just for being a scraggly bunch of paintballers from Perth, helping us tirelessly in the pits and with shouting their lungs out from the sidelines. And those who give us praise and look up to us back home.. Thank you. It makes paintball so much more worthwhile and so much bigger than the game itself, and that is what I love about it. And our sponsor, Dye -- like I said when they took us onboard and rewarded us with more and more support over the years -- it is again truly humbling for something we started as friends when we were kids, to be taken seriously by a big company like Dye. 

This WCA was a rollercoaster, with us getting off to a slow start on friday, winning only 1 of our 3 games, ALMOST guaranteeing we would not be able to progress into the top 4. We lost to Datis and Nemesis, and won against the Xtioneers. With things looking dire, we knew our only chance was to win all of our remaining games and leave it to "the paintball gods" that another team would have a misstep worse than ours.

We went into saturday with a new approach, scrapping the idea the the field layout relied on overpowering the opponents with aggression and racing to the 50's. We based everything around the idea that we were going to be a wall of paint, sit in our bunkers, shoot 10 pods each and slow-play it out. We executed our game as a team and were able to win all 4 of our matches on Saturday against Raw, Hellbourne, Lost Boys and Beezwaxers.

I'd almost resided myself to the fact that WCA was done for another year, but in the 2nd last preliminary game between Hellbourne and Nemesis (who was playing rediculously good and pushing us into 5th seed) -- I couldn't help but get excited as Hellbourne put up point after point against a Nemesis that showed up to win world cup. The match ended with Hellbourne beating Nemesis 4-0, sending Nemesis home and scraping us through into the top 4 in last position. This moved us on to play the so far undefeated Raskal in the Sunday club.

We'd watched them play all event, we said in our team meeting the night before "better the devil you know" given we've have several scrap-outs with the powerful Raskal since they revamped their team and nearly won WCA last year. We didn't change anything going into our game against them, we just loaded up on pods and went out there and hid in our bunkers and shot our guns. They're great at doing exactly that too, so it made for an intense and close game. It almost slipped away too with all 5 of us being shot out and Raskal sprinting in for the buzzer but unable to make it before time expired. We went to overtime against them, were able to draw a penalty on them and take the win sending us into our second world cup finals appearance against Aisawan, who had just beaten Datis with guests Bear Degedio and Maximus Lunquist.

I can't speak highly enough of Aisawan and how the play the game. They're agressive and disciplined, have great gun skills and won Thailand at the start of the year. We went into the match and won the first long, long point, with all of us just sitting in our bunkers dumping paint and not wanting to be the first one to make a mistake. We were communicating and working as a team. The second point was another long one, but this time going to Aisawan. As we came out for the 3rd point with less than 3 minutes on the clock, I said to the team "this is probably going to be the last point." Sure enough, the game whittled down to about 20 seconds of game time remaining, we had all the 50's, we started launching, some of us getting taken out and some trading, leaving Rambo and Farran to sprint the buzzer in with about 3 seconds left with no Aisawan players still alive. Farran slammed into the buzzer, on the replay it looks as if he touched it in time, but I think the game timer and the web-cast timer are slightly out -- I hope so anyway... It was a null-point, meaning we'd go in for 3 minutes overtime.

Again, we went onto the field and played another long point and dinked out Aisawan players until at about 15 second mark, they had 3 left -- 1 in the snake, shooting at me in the dorito's, a back centre and one at the small A on the dorito side. Again we started launching, and after all the madness just Stevie was left sprinting the buzzer in. I thought he got it and started jumping up and down, felt some elation that oh my god, we'd won world cup, then the refs signalled null point again.

We were fired up, we felt like we knew how to beat them, we started getting ready to come out for a second over time point. We lined up on the start gate, 10 minutes went by with both teams waiting at the start gate. We finally went inside and learnt that there's only 1 overtime point, if there's still no outcome from the overtime point, then the winner is decided by who went into the finals with a higher seed from the prelims. Aisawan was that team and the win was awarded to them.

Aisawan didn't jump up and down or break into wild celebrations, instead they said "sorry" to us and shook our hands. It was great sportsmanship, and also, I feel like STK did some great sportsmanship too taking the loss so well. The ref who informed us that the winner was decided by prelim score was apologising profusely to us in tears. It was nice that he cared. We don't feel any bitterness about the outcome, we had a great time partying with Aisawan at the players party and exchanging jerseys -- they are cool guys -- and we hope this can be the start of a friendly and respectful rivalry between our two great teams. They knocked us out of the finals in Thailand at the start of the year in overtime, so I feel like we always matchup for an exciting game.

[Missing] Super 7's Round 3 2014

[Missing] Super 7's Round 2 2014

PALS Thailand 2014

I'm flying home from the first round of the PALS in Bangkok, Thailand. We finished third. This is has been our best showing in Thailand, with it typically bring our Achilles heel. Despite this, it feels like a very disappointing 3rd place. In previous years, I had felt grateful to make it just to the top 4. I don't think I'd felt like we were playing good enough to win before. But this time we were and it just slipped away in one hot overtime point in the semi finals.

Our prelims went pretty standard, with us winning 4 games and losing 2 to Xtioneers and Raskal. The same Raskal that was on the precipice of winning WCA showed up to play, and the 3 games we had against them throughout the tournament were definitely our most grueling.

Quarter finals consisted of two games, with us facing off against Demonic and Raskal. We were able to smarten up our game plan from a definitive loss to Raskal in the prelims and come away with 2 quarter final wins, leaving us to face off against Asiawan in the semifinal.

We got penalties early in the match and quickly went down 0-2. Back at full strength, we were able to make a comeback and tie the game up at 2-2 and take the game into and overtime point. In this critical point, Rambo took a ball that bounced of another bunker early on, quickly followed by Farran and and Devon getting shot out of their bunkers. This left Trav and I in a 2 vs. 5 against an Aisawan that smelt blood. We were able to slow them down for a few minutes but were eventually picked off, advancing Aisawan to the finals which they won. This left us to verse Raskal again in the playoffs for 3rd and 4th.

Again, it was a slow and technical match with communication and hiding being the key at the beginning of the points against their strong back gunners. We went up 2 points, and then they came back 2 points to tie the match with just under two minutes on the clock. We went into the next next point knowing it would be the decisive point. Rambo was able to dink their dorito player on the hopper and draw a penalty, blowing out their dorito side, so Farran and I advanced down that side and we won the point with 5 seconds left on the clock, awarding us the 3rd place.

The infrastructure at the field was excellent and the event organisers were very helpful and accommodating having us over for our 5th Thailand event.

I'm glad we had Dye Ultralight gear as on Friday we played in 45 degrees and high humidity. Our DM14s were on point as usual and anything we needed, Dye was there to support us.

We'd also really like to thank Michelle who coached us all weekend and did a great job, as well as Milad, Preecher, Dennis, Amber and anyone else who helped us out in the pits!

[Missing] Super 7's Round 1 2014

[Missing]

WCA 2013

I felt a lot of promise for us leading up to WCA 2013. We managed to recover from our misstep at the start of the year, closing out the PPL series with 3 consecutive wins, a 7man win and a big international win mid-year at the second leg of the PALs (and $6k prize money if I need to remind you, omg).

In retrospect now though, there were some chinks in the armour. I'd developed a consciousness of who was better than others on the team. Whether my opinions/inferences were valid doesn't matter because this kind of thinking is totally destructive in paintball. I lost sight of building the team and saw it more as a finished product entitled to do some winning. Some of our players improved more than others this year. I think I lost a bit of humility this time and for the first time I felt frustrated that I had to perceive some players as less capable on the team. I could have been more coaxing and nurturing. But rather I enjoyed playing strong at training. In previous years I've felt that if I'm consistently playing well at training, something is wrong. Usually the team is so good that it's hard to be good week in week out.

But these are just my musings and perhaps not even relevant. Maybe we could have won WCA even with my new-found dick-attitude.

Actually, we went through WCA pretty standard. Finished the prelims 4-2, a normal kind of position for us to go forward on. On Saturday, we played a game against Beeswaxers and lost, only to come back 15 minutes later in our first top 8 game and win 4-0 against them. I felt good about that, but it wasn't a team effort. We played the same 5 guys the whole way through. I'd softened to the "starting five" approach, which I now think was perhaps a mistake.

Following this, we had to play Infernal and then Datis. Infernal beat us 2-4. Datis beat us 1-4. I wish I could say we lost outright, but WE WERE PLAGUED BY PENALTIES. The majority of the time, I feel the reffing is great at PALs events. But there were some outright weird calls going on. Like, I got a bounce off my head, pointed to my head to the ref right next to me, and he just instantly pulls a penalty? I wasn't even hit in the first place, and second, I didn't even shoot/move/do anything after I got the bounce on me other than ask for paint check. Of the 11 points we played against Datis and Infernal, only in 3 points we didn't get a penalty. Something was really wrong with the reffing because I seriously hope we are not stupid enough to legitimately get that many penalties.

Regardless, this sent us onto the quarter finals to play Datis. We had about 0 confidence at this point. It felt like we couldn't even blink without getting a penalty. Stiffla even sat himself and didn't even play a point because he felt like he couldn't get into the game without getting a penalty.

And that was it. We went down 1-4 to Datis and missed out on a top 4 finish at WCA for the first time.

I feel disappointed. And I did feel bitter. But I think some good can come from it like it did at Thailand at the beginning of the year. If satisfaction is the death of desire, then this is about the farthest point from being satisfied that we can be. I can also say now that the evidence is insurmountable that STK doesn't win on individual players being good. We win when we are a team.

If I want more from players I'm just going to tell them rather than scoring them against each other in my head. I'm going to be totally transparent in my thinking and go back to the "family" mindset. That's my off-season goal anyway. Having no hierarchy has got us this far and slipping from that has given us nothing.

PALS Round 2 2013 - Malaysia Open

It was two years ago in the Phillippines that we last got to have this feeling -- first place! We won the Malayisa Open, and its massive prize pool. Life is good.

I think we'd been building up to this tournament since World Cup Asia where we took second place. That second place really did a number on us. It was a frustrating couple of months following it. We wanted nothing more than to just jump right back into that finals game and have another shot at it.

But like all things in life, we had to wait, there were more lessons to be learned, and evidently, Thailand was a disaster for us. So were the first few local tournaments of the year too actually.

After Thailand, I think everyone looked at themselves. I changed my game is for sure. I felt I had a rejuvenated energy to put into fixing up weaker areas of my game. We also returned to the mentality that we'd built the entire team on... that we were going to sweat more and fight harder than our opponents. We also came to the realization that the whole tournament is a process; you have to see it through from beginning to end -- getting to the finals is the epitome of all the work you put in at the event. You can't just hit your peak immediately and be playing perfect. That kind of mindset is a setup for failure.

Our prelim bracket was:

Ronin (4-2)
Beeswaxers (4-2)
Datis (0-4)
Nemesis (2-2)
Demonz (4-2)

Datis beat us good -- they would shoot 2 or more off the break and clean the rest of us up in seconds. The game probably only went for 3 minutes.

Nemesis was sitting at top of the preliminary scoreboard, so we were took some confidence in drawing to them.

We entered the quarter finals matched up to Datis. Whenever we 4-0 a good team in the prelims, I am always anxious when we play them again because I know they're (probably) going to have figured out how they got beat so bad and be ready to give it back to us. I wanted us to be that team that would come out and kick them back in the guts.

Our first point against them came down to a 2 vs 2, but Farran's gun was down. Stiffla was able to push down the doritos and eliminate one of the Datis players, but then got taken out. With no other option, Farran began working his way down the doritos to go for the buzzer. He got far enough away from Datis' gun that the match ended with Farran and the Datis player both sprinting for the buzzer. Farran got there first and the  point went to us. We secured another two points in quick succession after this. But we had some trouble securing the 4th point to win the match. We were actually about to get it, I think there was 4 of us alive onto 2, but we all threw our bodies away and it left Datis to sprint the buzzer in with 4 seconds left to tie up the score and go into overtime. But upon hitting the buzzer, I'm not sure if they were assessed a penalty or violated a safety rule, but the point was reversed and we got sent onto the semifinals.

Our semi-finals match was against Nemesis. They have been a bit of a Nemesis to us recently, being the only team other than Infernal to beat us at World Cup Asia, and probably giving us our most definitive loss in Thailand. I can't describe the feeling, but I just knew inside that we were ready to fight out whatever came our way.

They were about to take the first point, but got a penalty bunkering our last player, meaning they had to start the next point with 4 players. We capitalized on this and kept the momentum in our favour. Trav was unstoppable down the snake. We had a long point when the score was 2-0, but after that I felt we were in control and we took the match 4-0.

And so we moved onto the finals against Xtioneers. The Xtioneers have a revamped roster and are playing really strong. Having just fought through Datis and Nemesis, I felt like we were ready to go. Our match against them was back and forth. My favourite part of the match was when they were up on us 3-2 with 2 minutes of game time left. I remember saying to the guys before the breakout "don't let this slip away from us." I got into snake 1 and was trapped for about a minute.Time was ticking away to a disappointing finish for us, but I managed to snap out their tower which was holding me up, allowing me to get into snake 3 and make some quick kills and sprint the buzzer in.

This left 22 seconds of game time remaining before we'd forced to play an overtime point. The heat was pretty excruciating by this point so we were all pretty keen to end the match in regulation...

I got to my bunker and saw the corner shooting at me. I didn't feel like I really had time to tuck in and gun battle so I just committed to it and traded with him. I begun to walk off and all I remember seeing is Devon run through and mow the remaining 4 guys with Farran closely pursuing down the snake.

And that was it. We won!

We had the whole family here at this event -- Brad, Christine, Michelle and even Jas made an appearance. We had a lot of support from other Australian teams in the pits and sidelines -- thanks! Dye Paintball, namely our mate Stutzy the C who has been ever so accommodating in getting all of our gear to us and helping us out.  And thanks to WASP Paintball, our home field.

PALS Thailand 2013

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.

World Cup Asia 2012

So it's our final hours in Langkawi, Malaysia where we competed in the last leg of the PALS series for 2012. WCA is the pinnacle of paintball on this side of the world -- the PALs organisers have done a fantastic job one-upping themselves every year with the quality of this event.

I don't know what to say other than we played amazing at this tournament. I'm very proud of the team. This was the fourth year in a row that we have been in the top 4 at WCA. It's difficult to do, it's never effortless and is never given to us, and is the result of the same guys playing every week for so many years. Our two new players this year really added to our team as well, both in skills and also in that their enthusiasm rejuvenated our passion for the game too to an extent. Devon Stutz from Dye also played with us at this event. He fit right in and it feels like he's already part of the furniture.

We went through the prelims winning 4 games of 5. Nemesis was playing the best I'd ever seen, giving us our only loss of the prelims. We beat Datis, Blade, Lost Boyz and Raskal to put us through to the top 12. Our top 12 games saw us face off against Infernal, Lost Boyz and Ronin. We won against both Lost Boyz and Ronin, which secured our place in the quarter finals. While we obviously still wanted to win against Infernal, who was playing outstanding, we also needed to use this game to learn how to beat them. We tried some stuff against them but lost pretty bad.

We met Lost Boyz again in the quarter finals. We started the game hot, getting up points on them quickly. They bought the game back to a 1 point match, but just ran out of time to send us home, putting us through to the semi finals.

We versed Xtioneers in the semis. They had been playing strong, especially with some imports on their roster who were looking frightening down the dorito side. We we playing as a team though and defeated them 4-1.

This left us to verse Infernal for the final match. It was back and forth with the score sitting at 2-2, but we lost the next point which, given the remaining time was the most important point of the match. So with the score at 2-3, we only had 50 seconds left to tie the game. Against a team like Infernal, we knew it would be really difficult. They beat us. And that was it. Second place at WCA.

Infernal is an excellent team, they are very strong and also clean. We definitely have a lot of respect for them and are happy for them to have won.

We represented Australia in the Intercontinental Cup. We played against San Deigo Dynasty and Los Angeles Infamous. Playing against them was definitely memorable and a good experience.

So many people helped us in one way or another at the event -- thanks for all your support. Especially thanks to our mini paintball family; Brad, Christine, Kirra and Michelle. Your support is endlessly appreciated. Dye -- we are looked after so well by you guys. It's so easy to endorse Dye's products because they're the best. I think the referees need a mention in here too as they did an excellent job with some damn long days in there! And the PALS series organisers. I think paintball in Asia can only keep going up.

Back to training and we look forward to seeing everyone in 2013.

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.

PALS Thailand 2012

Last weekend we were in Bangkok, Thailand for the first round of the PALS series. This was our third time to Thailand. We love going to Thailand -- the food, people and shopping are amazing, and the tournament is always excellent.

We arrived on Wednesday night and went out immediately to eat. We ate Tom Yum Goong everyday and it is now STK's official food of choice.

The tournament started rough, with us on Friday losing straight up 4-1 to both Datis and the newly revamped Demonz team. Ronin were playing strong and we lost in a close game to them as well. We started feeling more confident towards the end of Friday, but still had a hard road ahead with Infernal from Thailand (who have won PALS Thailand for the past two years) and Shockwave from Canada still to verse on Saturday.

Infernal destroyed us. It was hard to take this many losses. Sitting at the bottom of the bracket isn't really a position we were in at all in 2011. We managed to tie to Shockwave, and win our remaining games.

So we finished the preliminaries with 3.5 wins out of 8. We literally scraped into top 8. We were desperate, but hungry to make it work. We revised our game-plan endlessly until we had finally gotten a grasp of how the field was playing out.

We moved onto Sunday to play our quarter-finals game against Datis, last years WCA champs and series winners. It sounds weird and lame to say it now out of context, but in the huddle before the game we used a marathon runner's quote to sum up our experience at the tournament to this point:

At mile 20 - I thought I was dying. At mile 22 - I knew I was dying. At mile 25 - I thought I was dead. At mile 30, I'd become to tough to kill.

And with that mentality we went into the Datis game and beat them 4-0, securing our spot in the top 4.

Next up we had to play Shockwave from Canada in the semi-finals. We were finally playing good, but they were playing hot and their snake presence was too powerful, and we went down 4-2. They went onto win the tournament.

This left us to play against Demonz for 3rd and 4th. Again, I felt as though we were playing good, but penalties and some good plays by them saw the game slip away 4-2, leaving us with 4th.

It was a much harder road than Thailand last year, but we ultimately finished with the same result as 2011 for the season opener. Our new players Farran and Regan are both 17, but know how to play and party like champs!

Our new Dye gear is amazing; the DM12's shoot so great, and the C12 playing gear was so comfortable, light and cool in the hot conditions of Bangkok.

After the tournament we picked up our suits and analysed graphs and did some business.

Photos by Look Left Pictures.

TK Round 1 2012

Last month we played the first round of the TK. It was our first tournament with our new players, Farran and Regan. We were all really excited to have them playing with us, and this excitement translated into a win.

WCA 2011

It's been a few weeks now since WCA. WCA is the biggest spectacle in Asia-Pacific. The Intercontinental Cup was on at the same time; we played WCA during the day and ICC at night. The ICC is a Millennium event with Ironmen from USA and TonTons from France competing in it too.

The work behind this year's WCA was so massive... on the Thursday we had to attend a captains meeting with the King of Malaysia?

On Friday, we decided to get to the field early to scout teams. In hindsight, this may have not been the greatest idea because we had the first round bye in the afternoon pool. So, we got to the field at 10am, and didn't play our first game till 5pm. It put us on edge and we weren't really fresh for our first game against the Reapers from South Africa, who were playing great. They beat us convincingly. It made us a bit angry at each other, but we were able to use it to figure out a better game plan and play with more intensity.

We were able to win our remaining preliminary games with no team scoring more than a point against us. This put us into the top 12.

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We had to face SWAT, Xtioneers and Datis in the top 12 to make it through to top 8. We started against SWAT. They are a strong team, but it just felt as though their paint wasn't in the right places, and we were able to keep control and contain them. We beat them 4 - 1.

Next up we had Datis. We couldn't figure out an answer to their snake side until it was too late, and they beat us pretty convincingly.

This left us to face Xtioneer to safely progress to the top 8. Xtioneer had Markus Nielsen from USA on their team. The first point came to a 1 on 1, but after that I felt we'd adapted to their game and we were able to beat them 4 - 0.



This secured our spot in the top 8. We had to face off against Nemesis from Malaysia to get through to top 4. Nemesis is a good team, I had seen them play in MPOC earlier in the year. Our game plan was working and we were shooting the right lanes... we beat them also 4 - 1.

Same as last year, we had to verse Datis to make it to the playoff for 1st and 2nd. They came out strong and got to 3 - 0 against us. We adjusted our game plan and started coming at them, and we were able to bring the score to 2 - 3. We went into the next point with 50 seconds on the clock to tie it up at 3 - 3. We pushed as hard as we could, it it was looking good with Luke on their side of the field, but we just didn't have enough time and went down to Datis.

This left us to playoff for 3rd and 4th against Infernal from Thailand. Infernal gave us a beating earlier in the year in Thailand, so we wanted to get it back from that. I think that counteracted being a little deflated with not playing off for the championship. So we were able to win 4 - 1.



That left us with 3rd for WCA again, and 2nd place for the PALS series.

We had so much support from our sponsor Dye at this event. All our gear was on point! And WASP gave us so much help.

We also placed 4th in the Intercontinental Cup; TonTon's won, then Ironmen, Datis, then us.