Worlds Day 6
Semi Final day!
I started writing these primarily because I know not everyone has the time each day to dig through all the results and figure out all the permutations of what is happening. That’s not such a big job now but here’s one last daily post anyway.
I won’t be posting anything directly after finals because I’ll be driving down to Limerick for All-Irelands to coach Flame in the women’s division. Assuming there’s interesting things that happen in the final I’ll be writing or posting videos about them so keep an eye out for that.
Semi Finals
Open
The USA - GB result is hardly a surprise. However the Japan - Australia game is - maybe not that Japan won but so easily in the end. The pool game between these two was 15-5 to Australia so that’s a 16 point swing…
Can’t give enough credit to Japan for playing Worlds properly. Who cares about losing pool games? They put themselves in the best position to make a deep run in the bracket by being on the other side of the draw from the US and by using the early stages of the tournament as part of their preparation for the bracket.
The game itself was super windy but not so much that it became a huckfest where sheer height might have won out - it was windy enough to make throwing difficult but totally playable and that really suited Japan. Incredible technical skills shown throughout the game, allied with excellent spacing and awareness on offence. This into the wind possession after the mid-point timeout typifies both the technical disc skills but also the coordination of the Japanese players.
(PS - who says into the wind airbounces are bad????)
Japan’s defensive gameplan was also very strong. A suffocating zone downwind really exposed Australia’s lack of spacing and handler movement. It was something I had noticed earlier in the tournament that Australia overly relied on over the top throws to break through zones and so we pretty much only saw this zone used when Australia played into the teeth of the wind.
Japan’s person defence was also excellent. I think there’s a tendency to cast the Japanese teams as technical and intelligent and not talk about their athleticism but they are incredibly fast and explosive. They just don’t purely rely on that because that would be silly.
A really impressive performance from Japan. Looking forward to seeing what they have in store for the US in the final.
Mixed Semis
Let’s not talk about the US-Australia one.
The France-Canada game really was a game of two contrasting halves. France took early control of the first half, with brace of goal receptions from Benjamin Fenrich for breaks - the first set up by a dominant aerial block by Pauline Berte followed up by the full Dikembe Mutombo celebration.
France played very clean offence in that first half with 5 clean holds. Canada were not far behind and opened the second half with a clean hold in to the wind vs the French zone.
Canada responded with a zone of their own which forced France back into their endzone. France looked like they were going to continue their offence clean streak after this frankly ludicrously brilliant blade from Nas opened up the field. But Canada scrambled and managed to force a block.
As so often happens, once an offence has that one turn more mistakes come quickly, and France fought to get the disc back a couple of times but turned over each time without making any significant progress, now really struggling to find a route through the first line of the Canadian zone. Surprisingly, France still struggled with the zone the next point playing downwind, turning over before getting the disc back and hitting a huck to Fenrich. Canada also converted downwind after a turn each.
On the following point France again struggled against the zone, turning the disc out the sideline in their own endzone. It looked like they had recovered to earn a block but a contested call brought the disc back and Canada managed to convert the precious upwind break. This was after a lot of discussions so by the time that score went in it was already past the cap and Canada had a 10-9 lead, game to 11.
As with the rest of the second half there was lots of zones and calls in the final point as Canada punched their ticket to the final. As a France fan the second half was a rough watch. Both for their offensive struggles and because the calls made by Canada to keep the disc were the type that’s difficult to see on camera so it’s deflating to realise that there was a call after you’ve gotten your hopes up.
The final then sees a rematch between USA and Canada. USA won the earlier game 15-6. I don’t think I see a Japan-Australia type reversal here.
Women’s Semis
Unsurprisingly two strong performances by Colombia and the US women, neither team giving up a single break in semis. Clearly the two best teams at the tournament and that final is going to be incredible.
Wicked!!