Moreton Bay BUGGERS

Rookies, Rookies, Rookies

2011-07-28T03:04:00.000-07:00

In the wake of an exciting new addition to the league calender - the mid year draft league, and with season 2 for 2011 looming it is a good time to talk about BPL rookies.

LD Graham's draft league provided both an opportunity for the North to show its superiority in pretty much everything, and for a good number of men to try playing up at the BPL standard for the first time.

The transition from the Mixed play in the BUML up the BPL is a challenging one for any player to make. The game is faster, the standard of play is more complex and the inter club rivalries are spicier. Some players join the league and thrive while others move on after a season or two.

The Moreton Bay Buggers have a proud tradition of finding and developing rookies for their BPL teams. The Bugs have been in the competition for 5 years in 17 seasons with 21 teams. There have been 68 Buggers over the years of which 37 have been rookies, an average of 1.8 per team.

Its important to clarify the definition of 'a rookie' for the purpose of this post and the MBB records. A rookie is a player who is new to the BPL and to BPL standard frisbee. I.e players who are competing in their first BPL but have played similar standard frisbee elsewhere are not considered rookies. Only guys who are joining the league up from BUML or lower standard have been counted as rookies on the Buggers. There have been many additional guys play their first game of BPL with the Bugs from the US, Canada, UK, Colombia and interstate, these guys haven't been counted as rookies.

In our 17th season we are excited about 4 new players joining the Buggers team, 3 of these guys are new to Open frisbee and will face all the excitement and challenge of a rookie season in the Brisbane Premier League.

The following is a list of blokes who spent their rookie year playing for the Buggers:

Winter 2006
B11 Adam Beu - 11 bug seasons - current Hero captain
B12 Alex Chadwick - 11 bug seasons
B13 Liam Gillions - 10 bug seasons
B14 Scott Massey - 5 bug seasons
B15 Matthew Morrison - 2 bug seasons
B16 Ben Worby - 8 bug seasons

Summer 2006
B18 Nick Coote - 8 bug seasons - current BUML team captain
B19 Michael Kanowski - 7 bug seasons

Season 3 2007
B21 Stephen Glen - 2 bug seasons
B22 Josh Peters - 3 bug seasons
B25 Spinner Sheppard - 8 bug seasons - current Bugger
B28 Craig Stewart - 1 bug season

Season 1 2008
B30 George Salisbury - 5 bug seasons - current Hero
B31 Reece Stewart - 4 bug seasons - current Cobra captain
B32 Daniel Strelan - 1 bug season - current Hero
B33 Felix Duvallet - 1 bug season
B34 Erik Stevenson - 1 bug season
B35 Damian Wong - 3 bug seasons

Season 2 2008
B37 Steve Timms - 1 bug season
B39 John Catarius - 1 bug season
B42 Simon Statham - 6 bug seasons

Season 3 2008
B43 Jo Dilegge - 1 bug season
B44 Doug Meikle - 1 bug season

Season 1 2009
B46 Wayne Benton - 1 bug season
B47 Rashaun Hoh - 1 bug season
B48 Ben Hutchinson - 1 bug season
B49 Jack Lilwall - 1 bug season - current Cobra
B50 Trevor Lovering - 6 bug seasons - current Bugger
B52 Andrew Ogilivie - 4 bug seasons - current Bugger
B53 Andrew Rhule - 1 bug season
B55 Jimmy Smith-Cotrell - 1 bug season
B56 Michael Watt - 2 bug seasons

Season 2 2009
B59 Ryan Flux - 2 bug seasons

Season 1 2010
B61 Tim Johnson - 4 bug seasons - current Bugger

Season 2 2011
B65 Linus Mueller - 1 bug season - current rookie
B67 Dan Webb - 1 bug season - current rookie
B68 Nick Webb - 1 bug season - current rookie

37 rookies over 5 years of Bugger teams. Some still with the Bugs, some off playing with other teams and some moved on after their sharp introduction to our great competition.

If it was easy to play in the Brisbane Premier League we wouldn't all appreciate it so much.

Good luck to all the rookies who take their first step into the BPL next Thursday night, and good luck to all the teams who will battle it out again in the excellent Brisbane Premier League.

New Look MBB for season 2 2011

2011-07-23T18:40:00.000-07:00

There has been change in the Bug den during the off season; Oscar, Manuel and
Si have all headed back to their respective homelands, and Mike has officially hung up his cleats. So this leaves 10 players from last season and some exciting new additions

Diddums is back from his peace keeping mission in East Timor with the chocolate soldiers and keen to play for the bug again.

Peta McNaughton has pointed Linus 'the kid' Mueller in our direction after having played BUML for a season. He's been playing the mid year draft and been competing well against some BPL veterans.

Chris 'Milky' Penfold is another one of the damn pommies. He's been living in Newcastle (NSW not geordie shaw) for the last 6 months and will be moving up to Brisbane in the middle of August. He has been running triathlons recently rather than chasing plastic, so expect him to make some very long, if slightly slow cuts!!

TJ brought a few of his BUML team mates along to the mid season draft, and by some coincidence they all ended up playing on the East team. We have now added the monster Webb brothers to our roster.
Nick 'the smaller' Webb has been playing with What The Huck and is gaining some good field sense, and can bring out some layout D's when needed. Dan 'the bigger' Webb had previously just had a throw with his brother but has already shown a lot of improvement over the course of the last 4 weeks.

So the buggers continue their tradition of bringing rookies into the BPL. It's also good to see that Chris Cunliffe has started up another team for the league, hopefully this will help balance things out across the board. This will mean another exciting 7 team league this season with a great range of interesting match ups across the competition.
2 teams playing in their 17th-19th seasons,
1 team in their 5th,
2 teams in their 4th,
1 in their 2nd
and a brand new team.

Mike has now stepped down from the captaincy role but he will still be aiming to be a part of the team to provide our rookies with some coaching. 6th season stalwart Stu is stepping up into the captaincy role and Mat Ryan has become VC. As the only remaining Bugger from the very first team back in Feb 2006 Mat will be bringing some tactical talk to the team, along with the occasional "harden the f*ck up and play D" speeches!

So yeah.... quite a big change to the team this season. Its with pride and excitement that we present the Season 2, 2011 Moreton Bay Buggers:

#13 Stuart Austin (C)

#88 Buzz Burwell

#24 Tim Ferguson

#24 Tim Johnson

#5 Rob Lowe

#12 Trevor Lovering

## Linus Mueller

## Chris Penfold

#20 Graham Prickett

#40 Andrew Ogilvie

#50 Anthony Ross

#63 Spinner Sheppard

#33 Mat Ryan (VC)

## Dan Webb

## Nick Webb

Should be a great season.

Stu and Mike

Finals week in the BPL

2011-06-08T03:02:00.000-07:00

The Semi, the Town and the Bug

The Semi
The 2 v 3 Semi final was held last week between the Moreton Bay Buggers and the Slamtown Flatball Club. It was a semi final worthy of the great Brisbane Premier League.

The game started with a break to the Buggers in the first 2 points which was quickly followed by a break back for the Gold Coast boys. 2 all and the game was off to a fast and intense start.

It stayed tight throughout the first half with the Buggers working against a zone and the Gold Coast trying to negotiate a man defense. Both offenses were finding ways to score and the turnovers from both teams were reduced from the face off two weeks prior. The Bugs squeezed out another turn and score during the half and the score going into the break was 8 to 6.

While the score remained close during the whole game the play was not stagnant, both teams held periods of ascendancy. It felt like a range of strategies were used as teams attacked and counter attacked, both teams adapted to mistakes that were letting them down. It was a great contest with multiple tight and tense points.

The Gold Coast closed up the gap and when time cap went the score was 11 all. The stakes were high, the lines were stacked and everybody wanted to make the play. Each team turned the frisbee over at least 2 times, twice into the same corner of the endzone for the Bug boys. The winning goal was in line with the rest of the point as a miss thrown floater into the endzone was snatched up the third or fourth guy in line. A desperate point played by both teams who looked pressured.

It was a great semi final with the Gold Coast demonstrating their ever increasing maturity by handling the pressure and the occasion to eek out their first semi final win.

The Town
After 3 seasons in the BPL the first non Brisbane team in the competition will be featured in the grand final. The Slamtown Flatball Club. The Gold Coast team is one of the most exciting additions to the competition of the last 2 years and it is excellent to see them in the final this week.

They are now a team with talent and experience across the list with less dependence on a few key players to get the job done. They do have some top weapons who do the damage however matching up the whole line is now very important for any opposition. They look to attack long against Man D and high and over against a zone. I think they look their best when they utilise their running O to progress the frisbee up the field. An overly exuberant long game in the final this week may not be the strongest strategy.

Regardless of weather the BPL trophy travels south this season or not the Slamtown Flatball Club has made its mark on this BPL season.

The Bug
Another disappointing semi final exit for the Moreton Bay Buggers this season. 3 seasons in a row with the Bugs absent from the final. This season certainly felt like a step forward with better showings against the table leaders (close losses to the Dojo and Slamtown, as well as a draw and win respectively).

Exiting the finals race last week hurt especially as the team feels like things were really just getting started on the field. After a long time struggling with finding systems that work on O and D it has clicked into place at the back end of the season. It will be interesting to see what shape the team takes next season and if we will continue to build on our way back to the final.

We say farewell to Oscar as he heads back to Colombia, a country that has served the Buggers well with 3 men spending multiple seasons under the big bug.
We celebrate the 10th season as a Bugger for Mat Ryan, the 8th man to achieve this milestone.
With the core of the team playing another season together the social and tactical connections are present and healthy. Aside from playing some shocking ultimate on occasion this was a very enjoyable season with the boys and a great team to spend time with.

The Bugs will be back in season 2 and we look forward to building another great team and challenging ourselves again in the best Open league in the country.

Finally a full game

2011-03-24T07:32:00.000-07:00

Well its taken 4 weeks however we have got there. Tonight the Buggers managed to stay focused, energised and play at our high level for the whole game of frisbee.

It has felt like we were just around the corner from capturing our best performance and whilst there are still a list of improvements to be made we are happy with tonight's effort.

An understrength Slamtown Flatball Club was our opposition tonight and while still able to put a quality line on the field, and producing some hard to stop play they were not at their some dangerous tonight. They will be stronger the next time we see them.

Spinner has the numbers better however after a turnover, regain and goal in the first point the Bugs continued strongly and went 3-0? and then 5-2. This continued into half with 8 to 4/5? score line.

A hall mark of the first half was the Bug defense starting ok and generating a couple of turns, and then being worked out and overcome by the Gold Coast. Offense was scoring pretty smoothly for both teams for a little while.

The all white Bugs started the second half on D and worked out how to get blocks though a mix of defenses. In the second half the Buggers scored 7 goals to 3/4 with the final score 15 to 8 Bugs.

A massive feature of this game was that the Bugs didn't turn the frisbee over very much. The count might have even been under half a dozen. I can think of 5. Once the deep threat had been established cutting options became more available.

On the back of 14 big deep pulls that all landed in the field defensive pressure was built up and a few short field goals were the result.

Its a complicated task to get a bunch of players to all work together on the playing the game in a collected and coordinated manner. Tonight we made enough good decisions, worked hard enough with our bodies and minds and all found the right mix of energy, desperation and fun.

The Big Bug tonight was a fine thing to be a part of.

Consistency

2011-03-17T08:02:00.000-07:00

After completing 3 games from the 5 game round there is one thing that is quite clear. All the teams we have seen so far, including ourselves have struggled with consistency.

At times in all our games so far the Heroes, the Bandidos and the Cobras have all produced good enough frisbee to score points, get blokes and really win their games against us. This issue for those teams has been that they haven't been able to consistently play their best ultimate.

This is an issue that has challenged the Buggers for the past 2 seasons. Tonight we played our most consistent and well rounded game in a fair while. That being said we only managed 3/4 of a game worth of peak ultimate.

The score line was fairly one sided during the first half with a number of short field goals being scored and some pretty safe offense from the Bugs. Mid way through the second half though with the game slipping away mistakes crept in and the Cobra boys capitalised. The final score tonight was 15 to 10 Bugs. A heavier win was an option however it is a real weapon to be able to focus and follow a plan for a whole game. This is a weapon that the Buggers and the 3 teams we have played so far all need to continue to develop.

The next 2 rounds will be very interesting as we will find out who can put together enough of a consistent performance to come out on top as we play the Slamtown and Dojo teams in weeks 4 and 5.

The Bugs know what is required now, we are looking forward to the challenge.

Playing underwater is no problem for the Bugs

2011-03-03T06:05:00.000-08:00

Round 1, season 1, BPL 2011.

The Buggers started of the season as the first team to face a potentially dangerous Heroes team.

In challenging conditions the momentum just shifted enough in the direction of the Buggers for the weather and early season connection building issues to favour the Bug. With a mix of defenses and valuable contributions from the whole team the final score stretched out to 15 to 6 MBB.

The weapons are there for the Heroes and a faster passed running game may have suited their receiver heavy line and shown a tighter score board result. In moments of quality play the Heroes looked fast and confident with less of the skill errors present in previous seasons. The return of Jamie and Bevan to the team line up will add further down field match-up headaches for the teams who play them in future weeks.

After some months off the first game of this season is really a test of how quickly each team can recapture their synergy and team dynamic. The lack of change in the Buggers roster seemed to help this process as a variety of options worked well with little prior discussion.

A good win with some positive development from the Bugs. Feelings are high and there will be plenty of enthusiasm heading into next week's match up with the new and I'm sure rapidly improving Los Bandidos.

It must be said that the last few points of the universe point Dojo Slamtown game were played in incredible conditions with both the weather and the D lines throwing everything at throwers and cutters.

These look 2 strong teams with significant drive and motivation. I think the bench mark has been set and the other teams in the competition will need to find their best when they face the defending premiers and the fired up southern flatballers.

The BPL is back and should be as exciting as ever.

Season 1 2011 team list

2011-02-22T18:04:00.001-08:00

The Moreton Bay Buggers are proud to announce the season 1 2011 BPL team.

#13 Stuart Austin (VC)

#88 Buzz Burwell

#24 Tim Ferguson

#69 Oscar Hernandez

#13 Tim Johnson

#5 Rob Lowe

#12 Trevor Lovering

#1 Michael Neild (C)

#20 Graham Prickett

#77 Manuel Ramirez

#50 Anthony Ross

#63 Spinner Sheppard

#15 Simon Statham

This team has a total of 66 seasons combined experience with a big Bug on the chest, with a large number of players having played consecutive seasons together. Bugger history hasn't suggested that collective experience is essential for a team to be successful however it feels like this group of players know each other well and should be able to use that as an advantage.

After opening selection for the team to the broader community this season little actual change has occurred on the playing list. There are certainly a range of reasons for this, some of which I'm sure are outside our understanding. Whatever the reasons a familiarly Buggery team will take the field this year in the Red and White.

As an aside it does seem important that BPL teams continue to search for pathways for new players to join the competition from other leagues. The responsibility for developing new talent in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast lies in part with the BPL clubs.

Exciting changes for this season are:
- Special G moving out of his Vice Captaincy role with the team and into the League Director role. This now makes 4 of the 6 total league directors Moreton Bay Buggers men. I'm sure that can be looked at in a couple of ways.
- Stu Austin taking the VC job for club. The Vice Captain for the Buggers has a large involvement in running the team and the title is just reward for Stu's regular effort in this area.
- The stalwart big man of UQ Ultimate Rob Lowe has joined the team for the season. Rob is blowing up this year with his first nationals campaign on the Ignition team. Expect Rob to produce one of his best ever BPL seasons as he trains with the Firestorm club and competes regularly with Ignition.
- After some time out in the world causing his own special blend of chaos the Buggers are happy and exciting to reintroduce one Spinner Sheppard back into the BPL. Who knows how many gold teeth he'll have now. Spinner will bring both his own athletic attributes, and his ability to bring the best out of Manuel through his consistent critical analysis. Keep running Manuel.
- We have one potential weapon up our sleeve however that one is still on the quiet.

After a year hitting the semi final ceiling the Buggers will be determined to challenge every round and build towards what we are sure will be another excellent Brisbane Premier League.

Come get a Bug up ya: The season 1 MBB team is open for selection

2011-01-22T01:42:00.000-08:00

Well its that time of year again when the Brisbane Premier League teams start gearing up for another tilt at this country's most historic and competitive weekly league.

If you are a frisbee player in Brisbane and interested in the BPL then you should read on and consider this opportunity.

One of the great things about our competition is the balance between history and tradition, and development and progress. We have clubs with uniforms, styles of play, regular rivalries and familiar faces, and we also trial experimental rules, purchase new equipment, regularly debate and modify policies and systems and welcome new teams and ideas.

In 2011 the Buggers are going to try something new with our team building process. Traditionally, like most teams in the league, MBB team lists have been constructed from a group blokes with a shared history and new players have been invited to join the teams when there has been a position available for that season.

This year we are going to open selection for the season 1 Moreton Bay Buggers team to all interested Frisbee players who want to play in the BPL.

If you are new to the competition and are looking for a team, if you have been playing for a while and like the idea of some variety, if you are an old school Bug who has been playing abroad or if you just think you might look ok with a stylised image of a bottom feeding crustacean on your shirt then nominate yourself for selection on the Moreton Bay Buggers.

To be clear this isn't a plan to build some kind of super team or disrupt existing team harmony. More an initiative to freshen up some team lists and to provide an opportunity for any keen rookies or those new in town.

Here is how it will work. If you want to be considered for selection on this season's team then send Mike an email at big_bad_sasquatch@hotmail.com

We'll be accepting nominations for a week or so and we'll let players know quickly so that everyone has time to get onto a team in time for the league start in February.

As always best of luck to all the teams as they finalise their playing rosters and prepare for the season. I'm sure we are all on the cusp of another exciting Brisbane Premier League. The Buggers will see you out there soon.

The Moreton Bay Buggers in 2010

2010-12-03T06:41:00.000-08:00

2010 has been a challenging year for the Moreton Bay Buggers.

The only year since our first back in 2006 when we entered one rather than two teams into the league. The only year in our involvement that we didn't participate in the final game of the season. The sole year when only a single rookie made the step up into the BPL in Buggers colours.

Not a great year when contrasted against previous Bug highlights, however not a bad year to be involved with the team. There have been some excellent aspects of 2010 for the Buggers.

Many players moved on from the Buggers this year into exciting roles with other teams or further life adventures.
Some classic Bugs from seasons gone by returned to the team to create some more memories.
The newer players within the team have shown some excellent improvement and development through the seasons.
Finally the challenge of competing in two of the most intense and balanced seasons in the league history has been a top notch bastard of a struggle.

We didn't end up on top of the heap this year, however straining together as a group to capture our best was well worth the effort.

The Bugs are impressed with the performance of both UQ and the Dojo for climbing to the top of the competition, well earned by both teams. Congratulations to the Dojo boys, Jody Thomas and the Slamtown Flatball Club for their victories in the relevant categories.

Additionally a salute to the outgoing BPL Director, Stu Austin. I've been involved with most of the league directors as a team captain and Stu can stand proud in such fine company as Jon, Andy, Stew and Jason before him. Well done Stu, you were good and I think you'll be missed.

A year of change and development for the Moreton Bay Buggers. A year to learn the lessons from and then file away. We will be back next year, and we will be proud to be part of the most culturally rich, and one of the most competitive regular leagues this country has to offer.

Enjoy the break all you BPL battlers, keep an eye out for the Bugs in Autumn 2011.

Up the Buggers.

Semi Final

2010-11-20T04:22:00.000-08:00

For those that couldn't be there and are interested, UQ booked themselves a place in the season 2 grand final in convincing fashion.

It was a wet and windy night, significantly different than the majority of BPL games. The first half was close with a couple of turn overs coming from flick hucks that lacked the carry in the slippery conditions. The Bugs started on D and managed to get 2 breaks to push the score to 7 - 5 bugs up.

Its great to play in our competition which requires teams to be flexible with their strategies in order to be successful. Gone are the days when a one dimensional team can go all the way to the championship. In the first half of this week's semi the Bugs had the winning set up.

The defending premiers though are a team to be reckoned with. UQ switched their game tactically and increased their pressure and intensity. After a time out at 7 - 5 UQ went on a massive 5 point run that hauled them out of trouble and effectively ended the game. The Buggers were not able to get the momentum back and the final score had the Lovers bursting into the grand final 5 points clear.

The big names on the Lovers did their job, however it was the depth of the UQ roster that impressed. The handful of frisbee statesmen on the UQ team are great at following the team plan and taking the right options at the right time. The youngsters on the team look fast and run with purpose. They are an impressive team, and beat the Buggers soundly. Minor premiers and I would expect the favourites for next week's grand final.

Significant disappointment for the Moreton Bay Buggers, well done to the UQ lovers.

2010 season 2 regular season

2010-11-15T04:56:00.000-08:00

It all used to be so simple:
Recruit a team full of athletic rookies.
Grab a few top flight mates.
Play one offense and one defense all season.
Win the BPL.

Not anymore. Somewhere along the way it all got a lot more complicated. Still very enjoyable, the struggle that is. Different plans for each opposition, continually evolving offense, working out how to get the most out of all the players on the team. I guess I'll know in 2 weeks time how enjoyable it still is.

In season 2 of 2010 the Buggers won 4* games, lost 4 games and Drew 1 game. A very mixed season.
*1 by forfeit.

We had one player with 100 percent attendance and 3 others with better than 90 percent. Of the 11 sessions this season (9 games and 2 trainings) we only achieved above 90 percent team attendance (12 of the 13 blokes) on 3 occasions. Those 3 times were the only 3 games we played and won. I guess we are hoping for a good turn out for the semi final.

At times this season we rocked the shop and played as well as we ever have. During other large stretches we struggled to play with focus, control and desperation.

Our semi final match up this week is against UQ, the only team to beat us in both games during the season.

All this of course has little bearing on the next couple of weeks.

Its finals time and anything can happen. Who will turn up to play, which teams can handle the pressure? Can anyone stop the UQ powerhouse from going back to back in 2010?

Despite our less than convincing season the Bugs will be there to answer these questions - as we have in every season we have played - and we are bloody pumped about it.

Bloody UQ, again.

2010-10-15T05:01:00.000-07:00

The Bugs played against the UQ Lovers this week.

The UQ Lovers. 2 teams merged into 1, one of the few teams in BPL history to have to make selections, a team with a rock solid list and an intermittent performance record. They might be clearly the best team in the competition or just another group of battlers. Its hard to say with the range of performances they have put in over the last month.

Regardless of what is said about them they were good enough to knock over the Buggers for the second time this season, this time without two of their big guns Al and Dan.

The game was tight all the way through with both teams having success at various stages. The Lovers looked good in man on man with both vertical and horizontal stakes in operation. It was a game of regularly shifting strategies. It was really enjoyable from from a tactical perspective to work though the team's defensive options in order to find a defense that got blocks.

The Bugs managed to do this and got the game back onto serve late in the game. UQ scored a goal to even the scores back up at 12 all 2 seconds before the time cap. 2 seconds, hard to believe really but that is the theater of sport. It was also the difference between a second draw in 2 weeks for the Lovers and a result.

The Bugs started on O for the last point of the game and managed to turn it over 3 times to the Lovers' 2. I've been saying it to the Bugs all season and alluding to here on the blog. Loose control of the frisbee will not be good enough this season.

The Lovers impressed with their top line players, however it is their solid team all the way across the roster which makes them particularly tricky.

Next game's top of the table match between UQ and the Dojo will be very interesting.

As for the Bugs, back to the drawing board on offense and good news with another defensive option now on the books. Steaks for the Buggers this week and then a round 1 draw rematch against the Flatball Club in 2 weeks time. Looking forward to it.

The Bug and the Snake

2010-10-08T03:23:00.000-07:00

In 2006 when Thong attended World Club Championships we were in pool A as the 10th seed. We won our first games against seed 1, 11 and 20. We then went on to win 3 games in the power pool before we finally got a pounding from Victoria's Chilli, our first loss - 17 to 3. Things had taken a turn for us. The next day we played our quarter final against Doublewide from Texas. We dropped the first 3 points and standing in the time out huddle following a sound beating in the previous game and a shock start it was time to execute on offense or get bundled out of the tournament.

Thong went on to win that quarter final, and then the semi against Chilli to go on to the final at World Clubs and win the Silver medal against a rock star team from Japan, the Bunka Shutter Buzz Bullets.

That game was 4 years ago now however after going down 5 to nil against the Cobra team in round 1 of the BPL and then finding themselves down 3 to nil last night, the Moreton Bay Buggers faced a similar situation - execute or loose all the progress we had made over the last month.

All the great defensive structure and individual desperation available to a team are little help to you when you are playing your 4th O point in a row. You just have to settle down and find a way to score. For the Bugs this way into the enzone turned out to be paved with cross field hammers from the handlers and bit of quick movement down field. The Buggers put the goal in and then the game turned.

The nearly full strength Bugs battled the whole first half out in a high turnover 15 points, to finish with the game back on serve at 8 to 7 MBB. The second half started with the Cobra team on O, and they scored with an aggressive full field huck against the zone. Following up with a Callahan score in an apprentice vs the master handler moment the Cobra team had started the second half much like the first and were up 9 to 8.

At times this season the Buggers have produced periods of strangling defense. The rest of the game was characterised by this as the Bugs scored 6 goals in a row to virtually end the game. After opportunities from both teams the Cobras scored their first goal in 25 minutes and the last goal of the game to complete the game after time cap, 14 to 10 MBB.

Plenty of zone from both teams and a fair chunk of man as the game got down to later stages. The turnover rate was really high in this game. There were blocks from both teams both short and long however there were way too many easy mistakes, included a dropped pull from both teams.

The Cobra team looked both extremely energetic and stifling with their defensive pressure, and nervous and unsure with the frisbee at different times during the game. If they can regain their early season consistency then they will continue to be an absolute handful.

From the Bugs a standout defensive effort for the season. The challenge will be to combine the defense pressure from this week's game with the offensive control from the Dojo game. All part of the building process that is going on inside team this season. The top of the table clash next week against UQ will be a great opportunity.

Up the Bugs.

Moreton Bay Buggers' History

2010-10-06T07:08:00.000-07:00

The Moreton Bay Buggers have been a Queensland team for over 10 years and a BPL team for 14 seasons. During those 14 seasons the Bugs have entered 18 teams, blooded around 60 athletes and created plenty of history.

The Bugger blog is a home for the club's history, and a little bit extra has been added this week.

We are celebrating the men who have served the club for 10 seasons or more.
Michael Neild, Nandor Locher, Adam Beu, Alex Chadwick, James Larkin, Jason Ray and Liam Gillions have all been long serving champions of the club and now have their names on the honour board. Many of these blokes learned their frisbee trade with the bugs and have now moved on to great things on other teams in the competition.

A bit of a slide show is now scrolling away on the front page as well. There are some action shots from Buggers teams on the national stage as well as some BPL action and team photos. Feel free to click on a picture to go check out the captions and leave a comment. More to come soon.

One of the great things about the BPL is the ever growing history of the teams in the competition. The Bugs are looking forward to building and recording more memorable moments over the coming weeks and years.

From deep in the archive here is 20 seconds of action from the grand final of the first every season the Buggers played in, Winter 2006. The black clad Bugs went down to a Whippett Good team completing a repeat. Notice the man who drove the Moreton Bay Buggers from a purely tournament team into the BPL, Rueben Berg throwing the goal in the number 8 shirt.

Enjoy, and we'll see you out there soon.

Training?

2010-10-04T23:01:00.000-07:00

Training week in the BPL.

I often think about what the Brisbane Premier League will look like in 20 years. I think it will still exist, or at least some form of it will. Most likely it will be much the same as it is now, however there is a chance that it will be a much bigger and badder event. Clubs, teams, home grounds, away grounds, pie nights, etc. That is the version of the BPL that I like to ponder on.

Some time between now and my mega league of 2030 things will change. Team training will be a part of this change. This week the Buggers took a step the direction of the future with a team training. It was bloody good too.

In this extremely competitive league it was important for us to maintain the momentum that we had generated with our last 3 weeks of steadily improving performance. Offensive structure was the focus for our training. We ran a group of challenge drills with the Red shirt proving to be a little stronger than the first season rookie White shirt.

During our post training beer and chat session we learned that against long odds Manuel is in the hunt for the most focused Bugger with a copy of the draw printed out in his wallet. At one stage Buzz had us all sitting around like 3rd graders to hear some stories from the good old days. "it was a cotton shirt which I knew would be tough so I bit the collar. I then ripped the shirt in half right through the logo".

Top session from the boys, and an enjoyable chat and beerie to cap off the night. One step closer to the hard working teams of the near future, maybe?

Sometimes it just feels right

2010-09-24T04:57:00.000-07:00

The first game of the second round, our first game against the Frisbee Dojo in season 2, the first point of the game:
The Bugs scored the goal with a 3 pass offense that could have come directly from page 1 of the Moreton Bay Buggers 2000-2005 nationals offensive play book. Safe, controlled, aggressive and purposeful - everything you want from your first point in a big game.

After the first point the Bugger's improved defensive mindset and structure generated some stops and the score quickly reached 4 to 1 to the boys in white. The Dojo dug themselves in and the score traded up to 8 to 5 at half.

All was working nicely for both teams on offense with man and zone defenses being tested out. This was the highest energy half of frisbee that we have been involved in so far this season. The defense from both teams was tight, and offense had to be played with control.

During this first half there were some unusual events. A pull hit the middle of the away sideline light pole half way up and came bouncing right back. Lankowski ripped out a sweet mid field 2 handed rugby pass style Greatest. Next point while fielding a wayward swing pass Andy balanced his ledger by ground stripping himself inside the endzone. Bugger Neild attempted to block a cross field swing however due to the sticky ground conditions the knees then hips and finally chest and arms all ended up on the ground well before the frisbee gently touched down 2 meters away. All a bit 'special'.

To start the second half the Dojo scored a few points in a row and forced the Bugs into a time out and an offensive recap. The trend did not continue however and once the Buggers got back onto defense momentum swung back in favour of a determined Bug team.

The Bugs outscored in the second half to the tune of 7 to 5 for a final score of 15 to 10. The Dojo suffered without frisbee weapons Leon Mac and Ryan Black, and they failed to capitalise
on the last minute inclusion of former BPL regular Chris Cunliffe. An almost complete MBB attendance lead directly to lots of enthusiasm for game time and a high work rate out in the mix.

The positive steps taken last week continued into this weeks game for the Buggers. Blocks were generated and the frisbee was controlled rather than risked. A trait that may become more and more important for all premiership hopeful teams as this league continues to be the most competitive yet.

The best game of the season, and maybe even the year for the Moreton Bay Buggers. It just felt right.

Release the Bug!

2010-09-16T07:24:00.000-07:00

Alright, so we might be back.

It will take a couple of weeks to tell for sure however good things are happening down the bottom of the pond.

Our slow start to season 2 is reminiscent of our slow start to season 1. It will be interesting to see if our competitiveness holds up against the competition leaders. Although this season the competition leader is a fairly fluid term with many teams 'leading' the competition at different stages.

Tonight's game showcased how we can play when things click. The Hero boys struggled to get into the contest after putting in the first point of the game from offense after a double turn. From there the Bugs locked things down in the tricky wind and scored 8 consecutive to get to half.

In the second half the Heroes put in 3 goals to the Bugs 7 for a final score of 15 to 4. The game involved plenty of junk defense with hammer throws being popular despite their questionable value and conversion rate.

There were some really bright spots in the Heroes night, however they were not frequent enough and skill errors regularly derailed some quality momentum. They have some good elements in the team and it really does just seem like a mater of time and exposure to quality training before they become consistently competitive. The question is do they have the fortitude and passion to last the long journey from beginner team to BPL champions that they are on? I hope they do.

So the bugs are back to basics, we are starting to learn how to use our weapons, and we might have found our belief and passion. The big Bug is out, and we're pumped to see what happens next.

Honey i'm home.

2010-09-10T02:24:00.000-07:00

After a few weeks of returning home on Thursday night with our fresh white shorts tucked between our legs, this week was a positive change.

That being said only 3 blokes on the team are involved with frisbee girls so i'm not sure exactly how much concern there has been at home.

This week the bugs managed to find a way to create some turnovers on defense, and we also managed to hang onto the frisbee for long enough to score a few points. Slightly more than a few points in fact, we got up to 14. The impressive Gold Coast team also produced 14 points and the first draw of season 2 has been recorded. We have 2 more to go in order to equal last seasons effort.

The game was tight the whole way through with the Gold Coast generating the first up wind break to push the margin out to its largest of the game at 10 - 7. After a short field turn over the bugs manged to punch in an up wind break of their own to bring the game back to even.

Both teams completed many unbroken offensive points during the game in what feels like the new standard in the BPL. If you can't put the frisbee in consistently on offense then you are not up to scratch in the 2010 version of our competition.

The final two points of the game last night were clear examples of this. With the score locked up and time running down both teams had opportunities to break and score for the win. First the Gold Coast worked the frisbee down field with a lot of short and controlled passes. The bugger zone applied some pressure at the pointy end of the game however the Slamtown boys held their nerve and stuck it in to go up 14 - 13.

It was then the Bugs turn to produce and with a short pass from the brick followed by a long bomb the point and the game was over.

In the new and increasingly competitive BPL, teams need to find their way to score despite defensive pressure. It will be interesting to see how all the teams respond to the challenges of our competition.

As for us, we are just happy to be able to report something closer to a win to the girls at home this week.

Well Buzz and Ben are back....

2010-09-03T05:11:00.000-07:00

..that was good. Most other things were not so good.

Lots of hard work to come. We'll be back.

Ouch!

2010-08-28T20:16:00.000-07:00

In round 2 of season 2 we played the number 2 team. It was a bit rough really.

The energetic Cobra team went on 2 separate 5 to 1 goal runs during the game, it was too much to handle. From the start of the game to 5 to 1 up we made mistakes at our end and the Cobras capitalised. As our extra players arrived and the team began to readjust to the speed of the BPL in our first game of the season we brought the match right back.

When we had the frisbee to score at 8 to 10 down the game had returned to being a contest however it was not to be and a second 5 to 1 run was too strong for us as the 15 to 9 final score clearly shows.

The Cobra team looked fairly good. They are a team that applies pressure on defense and then take risks on offense with fast and long disc movement. They will continue to be a handful this season.

As for us we know where we are at. Its exactly the same place we found ourselves in during the early stages of last season. We know what we have to do on the field to be successful, however we are still adjusting to the different style of play that is now necessary for us to be competitive.

Encouraging signs this week from two 5th season Bugger work horses with both Manuel and Simon executing blocks and grabs at their athletic peaks. Spectacular fellas, well done. It's also excellent to see that everyone on the team is enthusiastic about evaluating their own performance and setting goals to improve. I'm confident we will quickly return to our potential.

After 2 disrupted first weeks through attendance we are looking forward to another opportunity to grow as a team in this weeks clash with the UQ team.

Up the Bugs

The long wait is over

2010-08-16T06:07:00.000-07:00

After what feels to me like the longest mid year break between seasons in BPL/MAL/DOG CUP history it is time to get back on the field.

I get the feeling that missing out on the final makes the mid season break feel even longer. All those goals left unachieved, the sense of a missed opportunity. We have been keen to get back on the field and erase some memories for quite a few weeks now.

That being said I love the long break and 2 season format. Its only the second year that we have done it and I think it is another great development in our competition. It increases the significance of each league, and each league title. This coupled with the ever increasing competitiveness and overall playing standard of the league makes for a more exciting and meaningful experience.

Our team made some significant progress during season one after a large turnover of personnel from 2009 to 2010. We had to redesign the way we play, and how we use our players. The exciting thing is that we found a system that can work really well for us and we are pumped to continue to refine our team play.

Some exciting aspects of season 2 for the Moreton Bay Buggers are:
Welcoming 2 new players to our team for this season, Buzz and Oscar.
Welcoming back Chaddy for his 11th Bug season after some time out.
Continuing to build on a solid group of blokes, in what looks like one of the most experienced Bug teams for quite a while.
Playing with Ferg and Trevor who will both be riding high after playing at World events in the last month.
Facing the improved competition in what looks to be another very competitive field.
Some cheeky new uniform action (in the mail as I write).

Finally and primarily the rhythm, the drama, the controversy and intrigue, the passion and enthusiasm, the tension, and the enjoyment of the countries best Open division league.

The Brisbane Premier League. The Moreton Bay Buggers have missed you, and we are back this week.

Flying Ferg

2010-07-11T01:48:00.000-07:00

Moreton Bay Bugger hero from way back and second season BPL MBB Tim Ferguson has just won himself a Bronze medal at the World Ultimate Club Championships in Prague, Czech Republic. Check it out at www.wucc2010.com or http://scores.wucc2010.com/?view=teamcard&Team=1164

Tim played for the Masters team Eastern Greys and it sounds like he had a great week. It is great for us to have Tim on the team and i'm sure the enthusiasm and ideas that Tim will bring back from the tournament will be great. Well done Ferg.

There are heaps of great photos from worlds over at http://www.flickr.com/photos/wucc2010/

The Season 2 Moreton Bay Buggers

2010-06-24T22:34:00.000-07:00

Season 2 of the BPL is still a month and a draft league away from beginning. Despite this fact and due to my high levels of excitement for the coming competition and for the top blokes I get to play with I'm proud to present the 2010, season 2 Moreton Bay Buggers.

#13 Stuart Austin
#88 Buzz Burwell
#23 Alex Chadwick
#24 Tim Ferguson
#69 Oscar Hernandez
#13 Tim Johnson
#4 Nathan Lindsay
#12 Trevor Lovering
#1 Michael Neild (C)
#20 Graham Prickett (VC)
#77 Manuel Ramirez
#71 Anthony Ross
#15 Simon Statham
#8 Benjamin Worby

There are a few comments I'd like to make about this team.

Firstly a big thank you and best wishes to Spinner, Didems and Fluxy who are departing from the team after the first season this year. These guys have been excellent contributors to our team and we'll miss them.

Spinner and Dids are both off on overseas missions. Spinner to have a holiday adventure and Dids to make a difference in East Timor with some army work - classic hey?
Spinner played 6 seasons with the Bugs and won 3 championships.
Didems played 3 seasons with the Bugs and won 2 championships.
Fluxy is taking a season off and firing up the continued DIV2 dominance of Mellow Yellow.
Fluxy played 2 seasons with the Bugs and won a championship.
Thanks for your efforts boys.

There are 4 additions to the team for next season.

After 2 season away from the BPL Alex 'Chady' Chadwick is back on board for his 11th season in Buggers colours.
As is customary we have at least 1 BPL rookie on the list. Nathan will hopefully be fired up for the big time after a season out at the UQ social league, and a quick crash course in open ultimate in the draft league. I'm sure he'll be a great addition as he treads the well worn path of a first season BPL player on our team. He is roughly the 33rd BPL rookie to start their top level fris with the Buggers.
New to the country but not the art of Frisbee Oscar Hernandez joins the Buggers and brings our Colombian content to 2. Oscar seems to be a fast moving handler - a new concept for Moreton Bay Buggers teams. It will be interesting to see how he fits in to the team.
After years in the wilderness generously bringing his frisbee wisdom to the savages of the BPL Chris 'Buzz' Burwell returns to civilisation on the Buggers team.

The new team looks nicely balanced with a mix of old and young, cutting and throwing, new to the group and well worn bugs. I'm confident that this Moreton Bay Buggers team will be a force to be reconed with in season 2 of the BPL.

I'm eagerly anticipating the announcements of the other teams in the competition as there is often room to move in the off season and 2010 should be no different.

Season 1 2010 - Bugger!

2010-06-14T17:31:00.000-07:00

Season 1 2010 has been a great season for many reasons.

I've spoken about some of them here on this blog, and the high level of activity within the BPL blogosphere tells the rest of the story.

Although it pains me to say it one of the exciting aspects of this season is that it does see two 'new' teams in the grand final game. I say 'new' with the with recognition that UQ has been in many finals before just not recently with this team. The historical pattern of Moreton Bay Bugger teams, and to a lesser extent Dojo teams being present in the final game of the season has ended.

After 11 grand final appearances in a row the Buggers are on the side line during the last big week. It means I have to take my boastful, arrogant and completely accurate slogan of "Every season - Every final" off this blog, and much more importantly two exciting teams are going to fight out a final in a fresh new way.

A healthy competition is one which has multiple teams competing for the top spots, and this season there are a lot of different ways the finals series could have shaped up. In the BPL of 2010 it is an achievement to even qualified for the finals series.

The 2010 MBB team has been a great team to be on and the season has been a very enjoyable experience. The season was disrupted with 5 of our players spending some weeks overseas at different times. In the face of personnel changes and the diversity of opposition, we have battled with attempting to redesign the way that we play offense and defense. In a season of league wide close games we have been involved in 3 draws and maybe 2 or 3 other games with 1 point finishes. Hard to credit really.

In the wake of some of our central players - Jason, Jangles, Nick, Nandor and George - leaving the team new players have grown as players. One of Queensland's proud Aussie Thunder representatives Trevor Lovering has had an excellent season for a young man. Andrew 'Diddums' Ogilvie has moved from a rookie type player into a proper BPL weapon who spend the season bailing us out on long and high throws on both O and D. Our newest editions Ryan Flux and Tim Johnson have made great strides in utilizing their natural talents to become important aspects of our team.

This season also had us dusting off some champion Buggers from the past with former MBB nationals team captain Tim Ferguson and long time Bugger servant Tony Ross joining the team. We love have a couple of handlers from the old school on Bug teams and these two blokes fill that label in their own distinct ways.

The rest of us ran around and got the job done with a special mention for Graham 'Special G' Prickett who admirably took the captaincy job for the whole business end of the season.

Season 1 of 2010 has been very enjoyable and very memorable for the Bugs. We are already building for season 2 and feel like this will be another excellent year for the Moreton Bay Buggers

Best of luck to the Cobra and Passion teams for next weeks final. I hope it is high quality, feisty, respectful and a top representation of what has been one of the best BPL seasons so far.

Mike

New kids on the block

2010-05-30T15:29:00.000-07:00

As I've been away for the last couple of BPL rounds I don't have much to write about the games. I was however over at the Gold Coast blog and there were some interesting comments which got me ready to write. I was going to write about some aspects of the league at the end of the season however now seems like a good time.

This season has been great for many reasons. I think we are looking at the most competitive and open finals series in a few years, which comes on the back a very competitive season. There have been new blogs, plenty of off field comment and discussion. Crazy tipping, wild swinging results from draws to blow outs to golden point games. Most exciting of all there have been two new teams in the competition.

The Heroes have had a rough season with their results, they have also had some good patches of play and improved as a team. I think they have been a good addition to the competition. Their season would have been a fair bit different with the addition of one more experienced BPL player. They had enough close games that they could have won if an Al type handler had of been playing for them.

The Slamtown team has had more success with results during the season and are hopeful of flying into the semi finals on the back of some wild results and prayers this week. They are a template for BPL teams of the future - specific team association (in their case regional), a large recruiting pool all to themselves, uniforms, history and a team list that is all used and involved when they are playing well. Time in the BPL, increased experience of their rookie players and continued recruiting will continue to improve this team.

In the BPL we have had enough good players for 6 or 7 teams for a few seasons. What we haven't had is 6 or 7 distinct leadership groups.

The Slamtown Flatball and the Heroes clubs have added these required leadership groups to our competition. Prior to the rise of these two leadership groups it was difficult to see a clear path for our competition to grow. If results this season eventuate that these teams finish their rookie seasons in 6th and 7th place I think it is very possible to argue that they have been a success

Given that there are now 6 or 7 distinct leadership groups in the competition I'm hopeful that we can look forward to more highly competitive and exciting seasons in the future. I'd like to think that during the transition between leagues in 2010 there are a few brave individuals (George, Jangles, James and Nandor style) who migrate between teams with the goal of building up these new and exciting teams.

I'm looking forward to watching the business end of this season from afar, and I hope that team leaders and open minded players have a productive off season 'trading period' prior to season 2.

Good luck teams.

Frisbee Flux

2010-05-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

Continuing the theme of MBB match reports from
players on the team this week we will hear
from the man in the headband, reigning BPL
champion and second season Bugger Ryan
'Fluxie' Flux.

This weeks game saw the Buggers victorious in a
tight game against the UQ Lovers. The game saw
the team gel a bit more and lift that intensity -
certainly a good sign coming into the back end
of the season.

Prior to the game the importance of controlled
and patient offense had been talked about and
the team certainly listened. The first two points
in particular were great examples of this
combining plenty of smooth safe passes with nice
short cuts to see the disc move steadily up the
field and into the end zone (Ed - Ryan may have
the rose coloured memory cap on for this point
as we turned it over enough for him to get 2
blocks in the endzone). This conservative
offense was a feature for most of the game.
The D too was good - there was a great deal of
variety in the strategy and everyone worked with
great intensity.

The Buggers kept pushing through the first half
to take the lead 8-7 at break. Unfortunately
the second half saw the momentum swing the other
way with the Buggers conceding two quick points.
Regathering from this glitch the team regrouped
and clawed its way back into the game.

The end of the game was a close, nail biting
affair and having the final point called at 13
all was pretty fitting. A nice take in the end
zone saw the Buggers take the game 14-13 -
excellent stuff boys.

fluxie

Doing what we do best

2010-05-08T07:09:00.000-07:00

Trevor Lovering is an example of the new bread of frisbee player on the Brisbane Ultimate scene. You know the type, they started playing frisbee in high school, by the time they get to uni they already have 2 BPL championships under their belt and sometime soon they'll be heading overseas to play frisbee for Australia.

I hope Trevor is just one of many exciting new players who we will see playing in the BPL in years to come. In the mean time here he is to tell us about this weeks clash with the UQ Passion team.

After a few wins, a lose and three too many draws over the first half of the season, the Buggers are back to doing what they do best, winning games through grit and determination. We are now well and truly on the road to a third straight dog cup after a nail biting victory over the full strength Passion team.

The new look 2010 Buggers have been going through a few growing pains over the season. With some familiar faces no longer with us and some fresher faces finding their place on the team, BPL season one was always going to be a challenge for us. This week we found that sweet spot with a strong man and zone defence as well as a cool, calm and collected offence.

We started strong taking an early lead but the emotion of Passion proved strong as they took half 8-7. Passion carried this momentum through to the second half extending their lead to 10-7. The Buggers called a much needed timeout to regather our thoughts and calm down. Our offence was the patient and conservative, giving Passion nothing and pressuring turns with our hard working D.

Our efforts brought the score up to 12-11 to the Buggers with last point called. After a dropped hammer to the Passion end zone, the Buggers walked it up the field to score the winner and avoid our forth draw of the season. Congrats on the win boys.

Trevor Lovering.

"So, nice to finally win a game eh?

2010-04-16T04:11:00.000-07:00

Special guest blogger Simon Statham - 4 times Moreton Bay Bugger and current defending BPL champion - shares his thoughts on this week's game.

"Two draws in a row don’t look great on the stats but it hides two very hard fought games that we deserved to get something from. Last night was a different sort of game. A ‘potential banana skin’ (to paraphrase English football managers). We probably always thought that we could win but to manage that complacency and to come out with a very controlled game where we worked hard to get turnovers and took our opportunities was very satisfying.

We put a lot of things in place last night that we have been talking about and trying to achieve all season. Our man-D certainly seemed to shut down the pitch very effectively against a team of (for the most part) younger and fitter guys. This was particularly effective in marking the ‘under’ cuts, but we did get mismatched on speed a couple of times for the ones over the top so we should continue to watch that. If there was one thing that might have put even more pressure on it was they often had a dump pass to get out of trouble – but they rarely moved forward.

O was very patient. The poor shot selection that characterised the crazy 10 minutes against Dojo, when they scored 6 or 7 points in a row, seemed to have been rectified. Sometimes we didn’t get very far very quickly but (aside from the last 5 mins) we turned over pretty rarely. For me that was probably the biggest plus. We dramatically cut down on the unforced turnovers, which will put us in good stead against better teams.

I thought the new Bugger buddy system was good. I for one found it useful at the end to talk openly about the mistakes I’d made – helps me to put them at the front of my mind so I can learn from them and not gloss over it.

Finally, it was nice to see Tony going long for some scores! When was the last time we saw that happening?!

Cobras beating Passion was very good news for us. The league has closed up and it proves that anyone can beat anyone else in this league. We’ve got to believe that we can win the thing again this season – C’mon the Bugs!

Si"

Good news for the bugs

2010-04-11T04:30:00.000-07:00

Round 6 saw the Moreton Bay Buggers play in their second draw in a row. These results came on the back of a single point victory over the UQ Lovers, which was preceded by a pounding from the league leading UQ Passion team.

Its been a strange run of games for us. While the outcomes have not been ideal, at this early stage of our team building project we are happy to focus on the process and hope that desirable outcomes follow.

We feel like we have turned a corner recently with how we are playing. The lesson for us has been persistence and experimentation. We have tried a number of different adjustments over the last month of frisbee and its because we have kept working at our issues that we feel like we've made a break through.

Time will tell whether we have found the right mixture of tactics and utilisation of player skills for us to continue to play good ultimate. At this stage however we are feeling happy about the progress evident in the team over the last couple of games.

Unlike previous Buggers teams that have been quickly successful based on high quality athletes and simple tactics. This season's team has required a change in direction and a different focus for us to find our rhythm.

The team is excited about the progress we are making and look forward to continuing to test ourselves in the very competitive environment that we find ourselves in.

Buggers teams from previous leagues

2010-04-04T07:52:00.000-07:00

The Moreton Bay Buggers have been a part of the Frisbee landscape in Brisbane for a decade.

As a Brisbane Premier League team the Buggers are now in their 5th year of existence. In those five years many players have proudly and enthusiastically worn the Bugger black, blue and red.

I've dug into the vault and found the team lists from the last five years. I'm missing the original team list as Rueben Berg was the captain and mastermind behind the Bugs entrance into the competition. The lists and number of season played by each Bugger can be found on the right side of the page.

Many players have come and gone from the Bugger teams. Some have moved away from the competition and play in other leagues. Some have thrown their last disc in anger and now only participate through the email list. Young men who learned their frisbee craft with the big bug on their chest are spread across the BPL teams including 2 other club captains.

The MBB club has always been active in bringing new players to the competition. Over 30 genuine new-to-frisbee rookies have had their first taste of organised competitive ultimate at the club.

It is worth mentioning the following long serving sons of the Moreton Bay Buggers for their efforts over the years.

13 seasons
Mike Neild

12 seasons
Nandor Locher

11 seasons
Adam Beu
James Larkin
Jason Ray

10 seasons
Alex Chadwick
Liam Gillions

9 seasons
Nich Coote
Mat Ryan

It is a proud history full of excellent players, great teams and good frisbee times. I'm hopeful for many more.

Up the Buggers.

Youch!

2010-03-20T04:54:00.000-07:00

This week we played against the UQ Passion team. The now clear league leading UQ Passion team.

They beat us good. In fact I can't remember being beaten that badly in the BPL for a long time.

We just didn't control the frisbee on offense, UQ did, and that was the main theme of the game.

We are a new team this season and we will continue to work ourselves out over the season. We're looking forward to many new challenges.

Speaking of challenges this competition is great. On the other field the Heroes knocked off the Cobra team is a 1 pointer. What this means is that after 3 weeks there are 5 teams all within 2 competition points of each other fighting it out for the bottom 2 semi final places.

I know its only the start of the season however I get the feeling that its going to be really hard to get into the Semi finals this season. It has been tough the last couple of leagues because all five of the teams have been great, however with 7 teams capable of winning games this season its actually a pretty short list who get in. Yikes!

I was actually thinking that in order to get really good this season we might need to start doing some training. I wonder if we are approaching the stage when teams are going to need to train regularly to be able to win this competition. Not this league I think, however it would change the success of the Buggers and most teams if they were to do two sessions a week.

We're looking forward to next week already.

The begining, again.

2010-03-12T03:50:00.000-08:00

Only once in the 7 years and 19 seasons has a team won the BPL season more than 2 seasons in a row.
(Full records can be found a the dog-cup yahoogroups site under data base)

This season the Moreton Bay Buggers are looking to the be second group of men to achieve the three-peat.

I love the start of a BPL season. The potential, the new tactics, the new team list, the fear and excitement and this league the new teams.

This season's MBB team is fairly different to last seasons. Five long time Buggers are not playing with us for various reasons and four new and returning Bugs are on the team. We will have to change the way we play in order to suit our new playing list. We still do a few things the same though and last night was a good example of this.

We had a great game against the brand new and very exciting Slamtown Flatball Club. The really exciting thing about the Gold Coast team is that prior to last nights game we know very little about them. We know some of their players, we did a little scouting in their first game against the Cobra however they were an unknown.

It was quite difficult deciding on a defense use and even harder to workout match ups on the line. I was very impressed with the general standard of play by all the individuals on the Gold Coast team and I expect they will get better as they adjust to playing with each other and playing against stiff opposition.

The game was very tight for the first half with the Slamtown up by one and the game on serve. In the second half we found a better fit defensively and won some points in typical Bugger action through one on one block and aggressive throws to the endzone.

The final score was 15 to 10 Buggers which included a 8 points to 2 second half.

A good start to the season. A season which we are looking forward to as a real challenge.

The one, the only, the JRay

2010-02-21T03:08:00.001-08:00

There are some great aspects to being involved with a young sport like Ultimate Frisbee. There are also some painful aspects.

For example all the people who organise our sport - leagues, tournaments, web sites, policy, couching, publication and sausage sizzles still play the sport. We don't have a sweet group of Mums, Dads and hasbeens to deal with all that organisational stuff for us. Painful.

We need to regularly exert energy into recruiting, promoting, educating, explaining and selling our sport to all and sundry in the hope that it will continue to grow so that we can continue to play games.

Its really only the Taiwanese who want to get our autographs. Young sports.

Some excellent aspects about being involved in a young sport like Ultimate Frisbee are that lots of us are in with a chance of playing the game at a National or International level. Excellent.

Our community is smallish and loving. It's great to be quickly accepted into a community that wants you to be there.

The great aspect of being in a young sport that I want to highlight here is that in our young sport the early heroes of Ultimate Frisbee are people we know. The titans of Ultimate Frisbee legend in Australia are people that might even still play on our league team. Players from the first Australian team at Worlds in 1988 might just still be trundling around in our community.

There are many founding members of the Brisbane Ultimate Frisbee community who should be enjoyed and remembered for their direct connection to the beginning of our sport. Today i'd like to mention one.

Jason Ray

I'm not going to tell the whole JRay story here, not because I don't know it (he has told me enough times) but because either you already know the man and have firmly formed your opinion, or you don't know him and if that's the case you should ask Buzz about him, it's much funnier that way.

What I will say is that Jason worked pretty hard to develop our sport in Brisbane. He contributed much to our community landscape including the much loved Brisbane Premier League. In the early 2000s when Brisbane was a one league town (mixed at UQ) Jason worked to initiate and administer as the first league director the R.C. Dog Cup.

For those of you who haven't had a close look in a while its printed right there on the trophy.

We love our Thursday night open league. The Dog Cup, the Mens A league and now the Brisbane Premier League. It is an enthusiastic and significant competition. It means a lot to those who strive for success in what can be a challenging and competitive environment. This week it enters a new phase as a 7 team competition, very exciting.

We owe thanks to Jason for the beginnings of our competition.

Jason has played his last season of BPL. In classic JRay style his last game was full of passion and angst, wild hucks out of bounds, 3 massive plays in the dying stages of the game and a gritty grand final win against an old enemy.

Jason you are one of the founders of Ultimate Frisbee in Brisbane as well as a contributor on the domestic and World stages. You have inspired many of the current crop of Brisbane elite to achieve their best either through encouragement or through their desire to best you on the field.

You'll be missed at the Moreton Bay Buggers and i'm sure you'll be remembered. Well done mate.

Yeah, alright

2009-06-11T04:54:00.000-07:00

Last week was the Brisbane Premier League 2009 season 1 final.

After a close couple of semi finals the Dojo and the Messy Buggers ended up in the grand final.

For the ninth season in a row a Buggers team was in a final, and we managed to win our seventh BPL championship.

It was quite a game. We smashed them with man at the start. They played a zone on us and we couldn't deal with it. In particular our more experienced players couldn't handle it. The Dojo took half 8 to 7 after we were up 6 to 2.

In the second half we played a bit better against their zone, they played better against our man on man and we managed to make less mistakes to turn in the win with a score of 14 to 11.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of this season for us was the great work of the new players. The Messy Buggers had 9 blokes playing in their first season of BPL. Nine. Some of these guys had played a season or two of BUML, and others were brand new to the sport. We had 3 players who were in high school last year, and we all had a lot of learning to do as we got to know each other.

In our first game of the season Chris Burwell, Chris Cunliffe and the UQ lovers smashed us to 2. By the end of the season we had a team of blokes who knew how to work together, employ a team plan and fight hard for a victory.

Season 1 in 2009 was a great season for the Messy Buggers. Success can come in many forms in sport and I feel like we had a lot of different types of success this season.

Well done boys.

Messing it up

2008-12-14T17:55:00.000-08:00

Last Thursday finally saw the semi finals for BPL being played. While over on field two we noticed that Lovers benefited from Dojo's traditional semi final slip up, we certainly have some more info on what went down on field one in the all Bugger clash.

The game started out with both sides playing the traditional Bugger defence of hard running person-on-person. The first few points were long and tiring and saw the 9-man Slippery go 2-1 up against the savage Messy.

Messy then got their act together and ran off 6 straight points to have a handy lead, 6-2. Slippery had some uncharacteristic errors during this period, and everything just seemed to stick for Messy. Slippery managed to stop the run by changing up to a puppy fence zone, and Messy ending up taking the half 8-3.

After the break Slippery mounted a comeback with an effective utilisation of a poachy person-on-person defence and, when the time cap expired, Messy was ahead 10-9. Messy scored the point to lead 11-9, game to 13.

Messy scored the next point to be ahead 12-9, meaning that Slippery would need to score 4 straight points to take the spot in the Grand Final. Slippery scored the next two points to get the score back to 12-11, much to the delight of the sideline that was growing courtesy of the finished Lovers-Dojo clash.

Messy then worked the disc up the field and the disc was in the hands on Damian Wong about 10 metres out from the end zone. He launched a huge hammer to Micka, who took the grab and Messy were through to the final.

Great game by both teams, lots of Buggers heart and mongrel shown, and some great plays from both sides. On the Slippery side of things, Chaddy took some great contested grabs in all kinds of traffic. And for Messy, Silent George showed that he is more than a mute, doing a huge job of minising his man's impact on the game.

Messy are looking like they may be short on numbers, due to the delayed GF meaning some Messy boys are taking off overseas.

Look for the preview of the GF on the Brisbane Ultimate Blog, and we will give you all the low down after the game.

Buggers into the BPL Final

2008-12-10T16:06:00.000-08:00

Well, not yet, but it is going to happen. Tonight, one way or the other, come rain, hail or shine, one of the MBB teams will be in the BPL Final on 18 December 2008.

If it rains, then Messy, as undefeated minor premiers, will automatically go through, with no more weeks available to move games back a week and will play the frisbee Dojo.

If not, it will be an all Bugger semi final with Messy v Slippery on field one at Annerley, tonight 7:30pm.

More details will follow the game, but it will certainly be a clash of the titans, and will see the Buggers through to their eight consecutive final, and bidding for their fourth consecutive title.

Wierd, what is that thing?

2008-09-23T19:40:00.000-07:00

Last week the Moreton Bay Buggers, Messy Buggers team played in the Brisbane Premier League final. It was pretty good times, we built on the hard running games that we had produced during the league and continued with our traditional style of play in the final.

During some post game reflections it seemed apparent that our experience in playing and succeeding in big finals assisted us to play well in this game. All the boys seemed pretty calm and confident before the game, and we managed to inspire each other with simple tough play.

It was almost like we just won the game out of habit. We played well because we always play well, and the new guys in the team do their job like the old guys used to do when they were new. There is a real sense of momentum and history in our club which i think serves to drive everyone to play at their best.

I think that is all we ask for. For each player to know their role (which is often and preferably very simple) and to play that role for the team. (Sounds like a 3 times Brisbane Lions premiership coach Lee Mathews ethos to me hey Matty?)

I was thinking about this history and momentum. The expectation to do your job that just seems to be present and accepted by all the players and I'm pretty happy about it. Its a pleasure to be a part of.

After the final some people asked me how many league wins that was for the Buggers. I couldn't remember off the top so I thought I should find out and write it down.

Season 1. Our first season in the BPL was when Rueben decided to 'put the band back together' in preparation for nationals in Sydney 2006. We had black buggers shirts modeled on our hard shelled friend above, we sang along to the Spiderbait version of 'Black Betty' a lot and we made it into the final against Whippet Good and got beaten.

Season 2. After nationals Rueben headed off to Melbourne to do some other stuff and I (Mike) took over the captains role. Again we made it to the final of what was a 4 team league in those days. We played Whippet Good again who were seeking their 3rd consecutive win. We won that final and were happy.

Season 3. Still 2006 and we persevered with the black get up. This season was full of tight contests with the UQ lovers team which continued in to the final in which we won again to go back to back.

Season 4. After another very hotly contested league with UQ we made it to the final and lost to the UQ lovers. I think they went up 7 to 1 in the first half. Ouch. By this stage we were playing in blue patagonia, sweet.

Season 5. This was our best looking team on paper as the 5 or 6 new players from the last couple of seasons (Wet Nose, Jangles, Chadwick, Nick Cootes, Matty who is now in Canberra, etc) were becoming very difficult for other teams to handle. We had 14 players, O and D lines and we smashed it up. We won the final to get the trophy back. I cant remember who we played, probably UQ again. I think this was the first season with 5 teams in it when UQ built their second team.

Season 6. This season we split into 2 teams and recruited heavily again to build the Fresh Buggers and the Crusty Buggers. The Crusty old difficult players joined up with a bunch of brand new guys, and the 2 and 3 season veterans lead by James Larkin made a Fresh run at it for themselves. The Crusty team won against DoJo in the final that season.

Season 7. We got some Red shirts half way through this season and played as two teams again. The Slippery Buggers and the Messy Buggers. In an attempt to concur the world and hold a grand final with 2 Buggers teams (and nobody in the crowd we often joke) our teams were reshuffled to balance our experience. The Messy team won this final against UQ Passion and the competition was now up to 6 teams and looking strong.

Season 8. Most recently the UQ, MBB rivalry has continued with the Messy Bugger team again winning the final against passion. The Slippery Bugger team had a great season to finish as minor premiers.

In summary since we entered the BPL at the beginning of 2006 the Moreton Bay Buggers have been in every final, we lost our first and our fourth and won the rest to currently be on a 4 season streak. We have also recruited and successfully developed over a teams worth of quality BPL players. I think for me the aspect of the 3 years i'm most proud of is how successful our brand new BPL players have been. From league guns like Messy Buggers captain Wet Nose who started as a gangly and raw rookie in 2006, to our 2 high school students Steve Glen and Reece Stewart who have won 1 and 2 league titles respectively, new Buggers have thrived in the competitive BPL environment.

We plan on continuing with this challenge of finding and developing new talent as we look forward to welcoming 3 rookie Bugs to the upcoming BPL.

Up the Bugs.

Mike

Introducing the Moreton Bay Buggers

2008-02-20T03:03:00.002-08:00

In 2008 the Moreton Bay Buggers are proud to present their playing teams. The Messy Buggers and the Slippery Buggers.

Messy Buggers

MIKE - Moreton Bay Bugger since 2003 at Nationals. Club captain for the past 6 BPL seasons. Receiver, however in this league i'm sure i'll continue to bother Jason by coming back under for short passes.
JASON (JRay) - MBB since Queensland first called themselves Buggers (2000?) Has played in every bugger team in the BPL (7 leagues). Handler, big
backhand, passionate competitor.
NANDOR - MBB stalwart for the last 6 seasons, big mark, good use of the frisbee. Will play as a handler and middle/popper.
MICKA (The Vicar) - 3rd season as a Bugger this league. New to the game, runner and catcher. Will get a lot of tough match ups on D during the league.
GRAHAM (Special G) - a Queensland and Bugger hero from way back, Special is playing his second season back after some time in Victoria. Downfield cutter and occational handler i think.
STEVE - After an orthodox introduction to our sport (steve played his first BPL without spending anytime in the mixed/intermediate
leagues) Steve is back and keen. Steve is young, tall and athletic.
WET NOSE - A real Bugger at heart, Wet Nose will be a key note cutter on the Messy team. Into his 3rd year of Frisbee now after playing at Nationals and NUFL in 2007.
SPINNER - "Mike i had an accident, stacked my skate board, 6 stitches." "I think i'm going to get the cap put on my tooth made out of gold" "I've been talking to the girl, the Gold Tooth (GT) is looking good" "Yeah long live the GT, i just close my mouth whenever I walk past the boss" - Meet Spinner.
GEORGE - One of our three brand new Buggers on the Messy this for this league. George is just screaming out for a good nick name but i can't quite work it out yet. The man is very fast across the ground, knows how to go and get the frisbee, and doesn't talk about it much. I reckon we'll get a good nick name together for him before this league is done.
REESE - Played his first Frisbee at Kelvin Grove State College then progressed into the YUFL and now is jumping right in with the big boys.
DAN (Nugget) - is the third rookie on the Messy Buggers list. He has been playing in the YUFL for a while and is now ready for take on the BPL, looking forward to seeing how he makes the transition.

Slippery Buggers

JAMES - Club vice captain and captian of the Slippery team for this league. James has been with the Bugs since we started playing in the BPL.
MANUEL - newish Bugger playing in his second BPL season, Manuel come all the way from Bogotá, Columbia. Very versatile, Manuel will handle and cut down field at different times, knows his way around a frisbee.
JOSH - another new Bugger. This will be Josh's second time playing with the big boys in the BPL. Josh has been training a bunch in preparation for Nationals and the Buggers title defense. Tall, fast and knows how to cut, Josh will get onto the end of a bunch of stuff in the endzone i suspect.
JANGELS - After 2 nationals, 3 Unigames, some NUFL experience and 4? leagues as a Bugger Jangles will take a large role on this team.
BEEJ - Our English import playing his second season with the Buggers. Beej as been smashing it up at Nationals training and I expect some big things from his this league.
NICK - A quiet achiever and stalwart performer for our club. Nick is one of the most accomplished all round players in the competition and will continue to cut and throw damagingly this season. A real foundation of this Slippery team.
FELIX - Every teams needs a US import and Felix is our man. New to the city and to our game, Felix will play his first season of the BPL for the Buggers (1 of 6 potential rookie of the year candidates playing for our club in season 1). Felix holds the shared record for top attendance at Firestorm training for 2008, he will continue to improve during the season.
NOTTY - 1 of only 2 women who play up in this open competition, and 1 of only 5 QLDs picked to represent Australian at the upcoming World Championships in Vancouver. Notty plays as a handler for the MBB club.
DAMIAN - Returning to Frisbee after a few years break Damian will play in his first top level open comp with the Slippery team. Damian shows great restraint and poise with the frisbee and should be a good addition to our club.
CHADDY - Playing in his 3rd? season for the Buggers Chaddy is an endzone bandit from way back, the man loves to go down there and take a big grab. Chaddy is focused on getting fit and smashing it up this season. Chaddy is also yet to register on the afda.com site (James just do it for him).
ERIK - Hailing from NZ and Capalaba Erik is another of our 6 rookies to the BPL. Erik is a big unit and has clearly spent a fair bit of time on the Fris, he will play in front and behind the disc for the Slippery team i expect.

Righto so there are our teams, 11 Messy and 11 Slippery Buggers. Games start tomorrow, i'm looking forward to seeing how we all go.

Mike

Spring league 2007 Champions

2007-12-01T14:03:00.000-08:00

As I write the coveted R.C. Dog cup trophy takes pride of place in my lounge room. Thanks to the efforts of the Crusty Buggers team there is another MBB name engraved on this unique perpetual trophy.

It was a good effort by both teams this season, the Fresh Buggers had some great moments and looked to be a real powerhouse of the competition after the first few weeks. The Crusty team also started with a bang in round one when we pitted our brand new line up against the Rawhide team and come out on top.

Both teams had challenging patches through the middle section of the competition with player numbers being as issue for the Fresh squad especially. Through the final weeks of the competition i think both teams played some good frisbee and it was great to have 2 teams in the Semi final stage.

The Crusty team performed very well in our last 3 games. I think this is a lot to do with the ability of the team to play well across a whole game. We spoke a lot about focus and effort being aspects of our game the can be directly controlled. There are many components and happenings in a game of frisbee that players have limited or no control over, so its very important to make sure you do well is the aspects that you can control.

The grand final on Thursday night was a example of this. Both teams were evenly matched through the beginning stages of the game, the Crusty team just managed to stay focussed, intense and committed to our systems for longer. I think this is the major reason why we pulled away in the late stage of the second half. Steve and I did break 2 of their players in the second half of the game, however i think we were out and looking like taking it by that stage.

Highlights for me of the game were a couple of Jason's full field backhands, the impressive under cutting of Micka Kanowski (Crusty Bug Roookie of the League), that 1 massive block that Steve got in the front corner of the endzone, the consistency of our effort across the game and some of the post game talk and celebration.
"How old are you Spinner?" - "I'm 30"
"Jason?" - "Oh over 40 now"
"What about you Kanowski?" - "Yeah i'm 19." - "woah"
"Hey Steve, your still 17 aren't you?" - Looks down at the drink in his hand - "Yeah" The boys break up laughing.

That was a funny moment.

So well done teams, i hope everyone had positive experiences during the league and are looking forward to taking a little break before firing it up again in 2008.

Cheers Buggers.

Another season, another party

2007-11-17T03:31:00.000-08:00

G'day Bugger fans

So another season of the BPL is drawing to a close. The Moreton Bay Buggers club has had some highlights and some disappointments during the league. It has been great for us to enter 2 strong playing teams into the comp, and i hope to see the buggers continue to represent in future leagues.

We have 2 teams in the semi finals next week, and due to a few interesting developments the Crusty Buggers will play the Fresh Buggers in a semi final. So we are assured of having 1 of our teams in the grand final in 2 weeks time, excellent.

On Friday night, thanks to the social committee (Ben and Wet Nose), we had our end of season social night. It was a pretty good night with Buggers from both team in attendance and in pretty good form. We hit the Embassy Hotel with cheap drink deals organised and a dance floor that took a while to get going but once it did - baby, good times!

A key feature of the night was the boat race to see who would get to wear their Blue buggers strips for the semi final. A worthy award and very well contested. Racing for the crusty team were Mike, Spinner, Manuel and Nandor at anchor. The Fresh line up was Ben Worby, Beej, Carlos and Jangles at anchor. The weapon of choice was schooners of Tooweys, the stage was set.

With Notty starting the race off like a cute girlfriend in one of those 60's type aqueduct hot rod drag races the Worby monster and I were off. Using his years of experience and commitment to the discipline Ben got a lead for the freshies by 2 or 3 fingers, Spinner then put the Crusty effort into gear and made good in roads into the fresh lead. During the Columbian leg Carlos "the dark horse" pulled away again and going into the final pair of drinkers Jangles might have had 2/3 seconds and 3/4 fingers head start. Enter the Locher!

Nandor smashed down that long glass of beer like he was hucking a forehand out of a zone - quickly and accurately. That drink disappeared in impressive style and the Crusty team was victorious. Blue shirts on Thursday Crusty boys! It was all very fun and I think we all enjoyed it (after our heads stopped hurting that is).

Plenty of frisbee was talked, lots of tidy dance moves were executed and as far as i'm concerned good times were had by all. Thanks Ben and Wet Nose for getting the night sorted - it is great to get all the Buggers together for a bit of raucous action from time to time.

Thanks for a good season teams, play well in the semi this week and starting thinking about what you want to achieve with your Bugger team mates next year.

Fresh air for everyone!

2007-09-19T03:04:00.001-07:00

Welcome Buggers, new and old to the Buggers' "Fresh" squad.

Thursday night saw a good turn out with 10 players, 6 old and 4 new. It was great to see the new guys fit straight into the squad with what looked and felt like a fully functioning BPL team within a few points.

Although beaten to the half by 2 or 3 points we pushed hard and punished their zone to even the score not long after the break, finishing the game at a bittersweet draw. Robbed by 'the Foot of God' catch after the huck a few points into the game.

Personal Highlights of the game:

Beej asking permission to huck a massive forehard to Wet Nose in the endzone.
Quinn's sweet 'fully horizontal 4 feet in the air' layout to catch my swill
Two Callaghan's in one game! Nice work Jangles.
Making BPL's top zone defense took like something you'd see on Monday night.

Great game Freshies, it feels really good to play on this team.

Gold Digger

New team, Old club, New players, Old system

2007-09-18T03:08:00.000-07:00

So the MBB: Crusty Buggers had their first run around last Thursday. This team consists of some well established Brisbane players and some brand new talent.

Here at the Buggers I think we have a well refined system for taking new players and acculturating them into the tactics, and acclimatising them to the speed that works at the BPL level.

Last thursday night was a great example of this. We played a game against the Rawhide team with 3 buggers from last years team, and 4 brand new buggers (including 3 guys playing their first game of BPL). We played savage all game and won the by 11 points. I was really proud of the effort and hard running of the new blokes and of the patience and leadership of the old blokes.

It's hard not to feel good when things are going that well for you, and i'm sure all the players had a great time. I think part of the result can be attributed to a good simple system, part to effort and application, and part to luck. It all happened to be on our side in round 1.

I'm really looking forward to getting the other 5 Crusty Buggers onto the track so we can build a strong new team and continue our positive start.

Yeah Buggers!

Bugs in my teeth

2007-09-06T00:32:00.000-07:00

In order to spend some time talking about how good we have been, and how good we could continue to be, we went out for a night

The social committee (Ben Worby) got the thing together and it all worked out pretty bloody well.

Ben 'social committee' Worby

First we played some pool at a place called Qmasters. There was a 'big boys' table and a 'small boys' table. If you won you went up to the big boys, if you lost you went down to the little boys. We played paired pool with best of 3 game contests happening on the big boys table in the same time that 1 game was played at the kids table.

This me after my 'pool for beginners and chumps' coaching session from JRay. "Get your chin onto the pool Que Mike, you are bringing in an error of parallax."

The winners of each rubber would afforded the right to choose the drink that the losers would purchase for both teams. The complication was that at Qmasters the pool tables are not in the licenced area, so the drink of choice was some kind of shot. Consequently the first 3 or 4 few drinks that most of the boys had were some kind of firey shot. Finished off one bottle of black sambuca that was on the shelf and had a good run at the other one. Jason was on call for work and so couldn't go too hard on the booze. Never the less the social committee had a plan, Jasons first drink was a shot of lime cordial, youch.

Anyway as you can imagine some players made out pretty well by winning a lot of games and getting a lot of drinks bought for them. It was a good fun start.

We then headed up to the Normanby where Massey was having a going away party. This turned into a big fat booze up with various members of the Brisbane Frisbee community. I had a top time.

So, thanks for the great night Ben and team, so long Massey, enjoy southern California and the girl. Thanks Chady for the photo action. I'll see you all again for another Buggers social night soon.

Mike

The Year of the Bug

2007-08-23T18:25:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well. Another successful Moreton Bay Buggers BPL season.

For the first time in the history of the Dog Cup/MAL/BPL there were 5 healthy and competitive teams in contention. All teams had distinct cultures and playing styles. It was a joy to have that level of variety and freshness in the league.

After a competitive and exciting regular season the Semi Finals arrived with the teams positioned like this: 1 MBB, 2 UQ Lovers, 3 DoJo, 4 UQ Passion, 5 Rawhide. With 4 players overseas and unavailable for periods of the final series the Buggers managed to scrape through 2 weeks of extreme intensity UQ final match ups. We played in our 5th Grand Final in a row and won our 3rd.

I wasn't at the Grand Final and so can't convey much information about the game. The final score was MBB by 1 point over an extremely competitive UQ Lovers team. We played the Lovers 3 times over the season with the following results: Lovers by 1, Draw, Buggers by 1. A drawn season! The Buggers just managed to make our only win of the season in the final game. These 2 teams have placed a few more stones in the bridge of rivalry that joins our 2 strong and different Frisbee clubs.

The spring league of the BPL is only 2 weeks away and the Moreton Bay Buggers are taking a page from the Lovers club and entering 2 teams into the league. The BPL will now include the MBB: Crusty Buggers and the MBB: Fresh Buggers, making this league a 6 team competition!

This spring league will be very interesting as arguably the strong team over the last year divides and grows its player base. How will the new teams play? Who will rise to control the competition? How will the playing styles of the new teams change from the established Bugger method? How will the Crusty and Fresh boys integrate 6-8 new players into the BPL? Where will these players come from?

As far as i'm concerned this is shaping up to be a very interesting Brisbane Premier League. Strap yourselves in.

Buggers too hot for Rawhide (15-9)

2007-07-06T03:05:00.000-07:00

Round 5 saw the Bugs up against Rawhide - a group of experienced campaigners vying for their first win of their debut BPL season.

Given the teams’ relative ladder positions, the Buggers were due for a plain sailing evening, but Tony Ross forgot to give his men the script as Rawhide shot out to a 2-0 lead. When the Buggers awoke they managed to even the scores 2-2 through patient working of the disc and dumps to advantage as practised the previous week at training.

Rawhide counterattacked though and crept to 5-3 lead. This prompted the Bugs to employ a puppy fence in a bid to thwart hucks to breaks from the back of the Rawhide stack. The tactic proved hugely successful in stopping the downfield pass and preventing significant gain in field position. Buggers took half 8-5. The Buggers’ momentum continued through to the second half. On offense, Mat Ryan was too quick for his opponents, scoring multiple goals from a well-structured stack.

The O team also used a horizontal stack which created many passing options (quite a few through the centre corridor) and moved the disc quickly across field to good effect. Also the swill-to-Neild option proved successful on a number of forward thrusts.

A creditable performance from Rawhide, but not enough to deny the Buggers the three points as they got up 15-9.

By Micka Kanowski

Top of the Table rumble

2007-06-01T03:40:00.000-07:00

Heres my blog:

On a perfect night for frisbee with the temperature mild and the ground soft and perfect for laying out, the Buggers came out hard early, eager to avenge the loss to the Lovers in the final last season. MBB jumped out to an early 6-1 lead, they looked and felt well on top. However, the young, energetic Lovers team clawed back the next 5 straight points to even it up at 6-a-piece. The next two points were long, hard running points with the Buggers showing that they are faster, stronger, and better looking to take half 8-6.

The second half was a major struggle with neither team being able to grab the ascendancy and run away with it. The game finished with some confusion as to when the time cap had been called and the game was declared a 13-13 draw, a fitting outcome from the two top teams in the competition.
For MBB outstanding new-comers Mick and Nick ran hard and smart all night, while many players took advantage of the unusually soft fields and laid out at any opportunity.

Wet

Buggers continue on their winning way

2007-05-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

Week 2 and the Buggers continue on their winning way. This week we took on newly formed team UQ Passion containing a core of experienced players with some newer players playing in their first BPL. We had 10 players available this week, due to injuries and absences. It was good to see everyone showing up early and ready for some enthusiastic pre-game drills. Subsequently we came out with a bang, scoring the first few points through tough D and quick scoring on the turnovers. It was our defensive pressure that had them in trouble. They had to have their best players on as handlers and as such needed to take unnecessary risks to move the disk up the field. We started off with a man D, but mixed it up with some zone, which seemed to work fairly effectively. We were up 8 -3 at half time and we were in danger of taking this team too lightly. I cant remember if something was said, or if it was just the pre-game pep talk, but we kept up the intensity right to the end of the game. The pink-wearing Passion came out stronger in the second half but we re-gained control to finish the game 15 - 6 .Still things to work on (according to our tireless leader at least). The stack in offecnce often more closely resembled a blob which dispersed at random in an attempt to get the disk. Something to work on. This win puts us on top of the table, with us taking on the old rivals - UQ lovers - in a top of the table block buster. Nick

First game - Buggers vs DoJo

2007-05-21T03:38:00.000-07:00

So the Buggers are off to a good start. We played a good hard game which was close all the way through. The Buggers showed some good heart during the middle section of the game to get their noses infront. Here is the account by this weeks team reporter, Alex Chaddwick.

A mixed bag of emotions surrounded the BUGGERS on Thursday night. We had Mike jumping out of his skin to play, myself pumped to regain our title that we truly deserve and a lot of level heads to take on the DOJO mob. DOJO came out firing with a real desire to nock us off. Having realized that we were up for a challenge we tightened the reigns and brought it back to even.

Having seen our desire DOJO relished this challenge and stood up to the task. After taking the half we were in cruise mode until DOJO fought back to be 10-11 down with 5 to go (according to the time clock, but not J-ray). Having battled this hard, BUGGERS were not willing to let this mob overthrow our immortal power. BUGGERS deserving victors 14-11. Mike, relieved man and boys exhausted.

Keep it real. Alex

Busting

2007-05-08T16:16:00.000-07:00

I don't know if it is just me, or if the rest of you guys are feeling similar, but I am busting for this league to start.

I've been in the kind of mood where i go to afda.com about once a day to see if the rosters have changed. I'm writing down positional options for the team in rest breaks in lectures, I'm even reading discussion forums on aus.sport.frisbee or something.

This league needs to start so i can settle down a bit. I'm really looking forward to playing with my new and improved O team and I'm very excited about seeing the D players connect and really build some pressure on the other teams.

There are 2 new challenger teams and 2 old rival teams for us to test ourselves against. It should be great.

Mike

Season 2

2007-05-02T16:05:00.000-07:00

Season 2 is here and the buggers are back.

We have our full list of 14 returning players from season one. There has been some internal restructuring within the team and this season should see and very consistent and competitive Moreton Bay Buggers team. The team for BPL season 2, 2007 is:

Mike Neild (Captain)
James Larkin (Vice Captain)
Adam Beu
Harry Birrell
Alex Chadwick
Nick Coote
Liam Gillion
Michael Kanowski
Dan Langen
Nandor Locher
Scott Massey
Jason Ray
Mat Ryan
Ben Worby

Welcome back boys, this should be a good one. Below is listed the draw for the league. For the first time in BPL (&DOG cup, MAL) history we have 5 teams in the competition. This great news for the league and will make this much more interesting. Games on in 2 weeks.

2007 season 2 fixtures

Game	Date	Field 1 (home)	Field 1 (away)	Field 2 (home)	Field 2 (away)	Train ing
Round 1	17/5	Lovers	Rawhide	MBB	Dojo	Passion
Round 2	24/5	Lovers	Dojo	MBB	Passion	Rawhide
Round 3	31/5	Lovers	MBB	Rawhide	Passion	Dojo
Round 4	7/6	Lovers	Passion	Rawhide	Dojo	MBB
Round 5	14/6	Dojo	Passion	MBB	Rawhide	Lovers
Round 6	21/6	Lovers	Rawhide	MBB	Dojo	Passion
Round 7	28/6	Lovers	Dojo	MBB	Passion	Rawhide
Round 8	5/7	Rawhide	Passion	MBB	Lovers	Dojo
Round 9	12/7	Lovers	Passion	Dojo	Rawhide	MBB
xRound 10	19/7	Dojo	Passion	MBB	Rawhide	Lovers

Moreton Bay Buggers – A Brief History

2007-04-23T03:54:00.000-07:00

For those who like a bit of this kind of thing. Here is a story of
the Moreton Bay Buggers team. Thanks to our ‘law men’
Mat and Jason for their wisdom. Edited by Mike.

Nationals were held in Perth in 2000 after an 8 year break.
The last time WA hosted Australia's pinnacle of ultimate
Queensland won the (only) open division.

Qld had not won Nationals since and Perth had not hosted
since. Flannagan suggested the Buggers name in 2000, just
prior to Seeds of Doom. The name was not universally
supported by the QLD player base.

However, we took it to Seeds as a working title, with a
vastly under strength team of rookies and journeymen,
going in seeded 6th.

Despite the outrageous odds, we won the tournament, and
the doubters back home were forced to accept the name :)

The Buggers then traveled to Nationals in 2000, they
made it all the way to the semi finals. They lost in a
light and controversial game. To lose in such circumstances
had a galvanising effect on the group and the team name stuck.
Qld had previously changed its name each year but, from 2000
forward, the best Qld could muster would rally each Nationals
under the name Moreton Bay Buggers.

Highlights of subsequent incarnations include winning a
game of soccer for the 5-6 play-off against the appropriately
named Layz-e-boys and finishing as the 3rd best Australian
team in 2003, having beaten the highly fancied
Southside (NZ won).
                       Black Buggers. Brisbane 2004

                  Buggers (white) and WiQQed B Men. Canberra 2003

In 2006, Qld sent 2 competitive open teams for the first time.
DoJo comprised much of Brisbane's middle talent whilst MBB
blooded a new generation of Qld players under the guidance of
some of the state's elite.

As preparation for 2006 Nationals, MBB entered the core of the
team in the Brisbane Premier League. With a similar demographic
as the greater team (ie. a few very experienced players and a
bucket of new blood), MBB lost a hard fought final in their
debut season.

The following season MBB won their first BPL championship,
beating UQ's Ultimate Lovers in the final.  MBB made it back
to back premierships the following season, this time beating
DoJo in the final.

Here we are now, a tough and keen competitor in the Brisbane
Premier League. We love our current team and look forward to
getting out in our deluxe new uniforms for a while to come.

Bam Ba Lam.
                       Coffs Harbour. 2004

Final photos

2007-04-23T03:13:00.000-07:00

Get some photos of the final game into you.

Next time hey boys!

Most Valuable Player. Mat Ryan

Buggers at Nationals

2007-04-23T02:53:00.000-07:00

The Moreton Bay Buggers club has had a team at Australian nationals for many years. I played in my first Buggers team at Nationals in 2003, Jason and Mat played for the Buggers at Nationals in Perth in 2000.

This year is the first year in a long time that the Buggers haven't been at Nationals. There are however some Bugger boys down in Melbourne carving up on the Firestorm team.

Our VC James Larkin
Jangles
Wet Nose
and Chaddy

Good luck and play well boys.

Bugger!

2007-03-29T21:43:00.000-07:00

Well following an excellent season the Moreton Bay Buggers have lost the Grand Final.

It was a game of swinging momentum, and from what i'm told very exciting to watch. UQ started the game in excellent style and took a large lead of 7 to 1. The Buggers then turned it around and thanks to some quality zone defence managed to drag themselves all the way back into the game. Half was 8 -7 to UQ, the score was then 9 all getting towards time cap.

The last section of the game was full of long mistake riddled points that required one team to make the right choices and control the frisbee when they got their chances. In the past this has been the Buggers, doing the right things at the end of games, last night however UQ managed to out play the Bugs in this important aspect of the game.

Congratulations to UQ, they played well and really set up their win through both a mistake free first few points and a desperate last few points. The final score was 12 - 10 UQ.

Disappointment for the Buggers as we have been playing well for most of the season and we really had our chances to take away a win last night.

Well done to Mat Ryan for his win of the Most Valuable Player award, well deserved. Congratulations also to James Larkin (VC) and Mike Neild (C) for placing 3rd and 4th respectively in the MVP voting.

There is now a 5 week break from the BPL, they Buggers will be working on various aspects of their game, player roles, uniforms, drinking games and team structure.

Look out next season, we will be back.

The big time

2007-03-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

In the impressive history of the Brisbane Premier league (formerly Dog Cup) no team has played in and won 3 finals in a row.

The Moreton Bay Buggers are competing in their 4th final in a row on Thursday night. The Buggers lost the first BPL final they played in to the powerful and experienced Whippet Good team. Following a dramatic restructure, the inclusion of some very new talent and working with a new leadership direction the MBB won the next 2 finals and are now poised to write a little piece of history and complete the '3-peat'.

7:30pm Thursday the 29th of March. UQ lovers V Moreton Bay Buggers. The big time.

Grand Final here we come!

2007-03-20T14:37:00.000-07:00

Buggers win 14-13 to remain undefeated

As of 9:05pm, 15 March 2007 the Buggers enter a competition to become the BPL Premiers for the 3rd time in a row (this is our 4th final in a row) and they do so as undefeated Minor Premiers. However, if it hadn't been for some dogged determination, or as Mikey would say "Mongrel" intensity, we almost definitely would have been swept by the wayside.

The new stack worked well yet seemed to fall apart when we got on a roll. This, I think, is the nature of the stack, as it is a dynamic object that needs to continue moving down/up the field depending on the play. We need to restrict ourselves on cuts to the open side and cutting off people further down the stack. There is room for improvement and the team will perform much better over the up and coming seasons as we come to terms with our individual positions, strengths and weaknesses.

Next week we have a chance to rest and reflect. Use it. Michael had some good advice in that we all have one thing in last nights performance to be proud of and one thing that needs some work. Ponder these two aspects of your game over the next 2 weeks.

Why is it that one is working so well yet the other so poorly?
Why is it that you do this one thing so well and can you use this to become more proficient in the area you're lacking?

Enjoy the break Buggers. If you're new to the game (or this level of the game) start to define your playing style (a la Mat Ryan and his velcro hands) and if you're an old hat perhaps it's time to redefine your playing style for if you're not growing you're dying.

Congratulations boys on the win and enjoy a week off. Lets come out on Grand Final night a better team than last night.

Over and out,

Golddigger

Finals time!

2007-03-11T23:40:00.000-07:00

So it's finals time already, under the new leadership of league director Jon Good things are a little different this year in the BPL. Rather than 2 or 3 long seasons there are 4 shorter seasons, each with their own finals series. The four seasons are tallied together at the end of the year to calculate an overall champion for 2007.

This first season will go a long way towards any teams interest in becoming the BPL 2007 champs.

Teams are awarded points for wins and for the number on brand new players in their teams. The Moreton Bay Buggers have 2 new players this season, Michael Kanowski and Nick Coote. At the end of the rounds the teams look like this.

2007 season 1 league table

Points	Team	Played	Won	Lost	For	Against	Difference
2	Whippett	2	0	2	9	89	-80
10	Dojo	6	2	4	59	57	2
18	Lovers	6	4	2	78	46	32
21	MBB	6	6	0	86	40	46

So we have a big preliminary final this Thursday against the UQ Lovers team. It will be hard fought with a week off and a ticket to the Grand Final the price.

Mike

Round 6

2007-03-11T23:27:00.000-07:00

This week the MBB boys played with a team of 12 players, it felt like we had a
good strong sideline of support during the points and at the end of the point
when we needed some fresh legs. Chadwick showed his excellent commitment to the
team by supporting from the rain shelter with some tender leg bits. Right mate?

It was a good win in the end, 15 to 6 or so (Excuse a possible error there due
to memory disfuction). Well played by all the boys in the very wet and challenging
conditions. Highlights for me were our excellent control of the disc during zone
offense points, and the catch taken to finish the game by Ben "worst every
hangover" Worby. Baby, it was good.

Here are some words from returning player Adam Beu:

It is good to be back in blue. As my first game for buggers this season i can
definitely say that it is good to be back. I must say i was impressed with the
intensity we played throughout the game as the rain sometimes affects not only
your play but your head. I must admit that the team has definitely turned away
from the huck. This i dont mind, i know in the wet it is a hard throw and catch
but i have more confidence that we can work it up the field for a 20-30 throw
point as we have the legs. Anyway it is good to be back.

Cheers
Cripple Jangles

New skipper

2007-03-06T15:24:00.000-08:00

I'm proud to announce that the Moreton Bay Buggers have a new Vice Captain.

James Larkin

Veteran of Moreton Bay Bug campaigns going back to early 2006/late 2005, James has been our Mr. Consistent for a long time. Regularly and effectively doing his on field job to a very high level. James now has an opportunity to use his skills and playing experience in a new capacity as a leader, and can continue to inspire his team through his example.

Congratulations James, the Buggers are a better team with you as the Vice Captain.

Good signs from the young guns

2007-03-02T05:22:00.000-08:00

Righto so this week we played a revived Whippet Good team, reports suggest they had around 14 players; old, new and female.

On the bugger side of the coin however we were missing a fair bit of our top end leadership with Jason, Matt and Mike out for the night. Consequently our next group of leaders and the whole team as individuals had to take responsibility for themselves and for the team.

It sounds like things went well.

Here it is from the boys who were there:

James Larkin (Stand in captain)
You missed a fantastic game! We came out firing, doing what we do best. Intensity on defense. This got us a lot of turn overs which the score reflected at half, 8:2. Second half we came out a little slow and not with the intensity we had in the first half. We made some silly errors, got a little lazy and started to let them get back into the game (10:6 i believe). We took a time out, sorted ourselves out and got back to business finishing off 14:7 (or around there).

What won us the game was our defense. When we got a turn over, we stayed calm, simple cuts, easy passes and scored the point. Our stack was a lot better than last week! Much cleaner, but still could be better and will improve throughout the league.

I'm definately liking this team.

Scott Massey's top 5 Highlights:
1. There was one D point I saw from the sideline that looked like it came straight out of one of Mike's emails. Thrower looks up field for the short throw, nothing on. Winds up for the huck but theres a hand in the way. Tries to dump back but the dump's covered. Swilly high release on 9
to noone in particular gets D'd by the nearest Bugger.
2. Nandor's one-handed backwards half-pike reverse somersault grab to pull in a floaty hammer
3. That patient upwind zone O.
4. Big intensity
5. Some extremely solid leadership from James rounds it out.

I'm proud of our effort and enthusiasm boys, congratulations to all who played their best and help to lead our team constructively.

Mike

Blue Buggers

2007-02-24T20:05:00.000-08:00

This weeks game welcomed the official arrival of the brand new Moreton Bay Buggers playing strip. The delicious royal blue shirts were out in force with 12 of the Buggers doing their thing in the shinny Patagonia attire.

In my opinion the new shirt design with revitalised crustation and stylishly placed team name had more to do with our win than our questionable offensive stack did this week.

Thanks to Matty Ryan for style and design contributions and to Wet Nose for his logistical and international communication prowess. Well done boys, and well done all you other boys for looking the goods.

Word on the street is that 2007 may yet hold more surprises in uniform and merchandise advancements for the current gun team of the comp.

Keep your eyes peeled for any Buggers in your area.

Mike

Round 3 - Hang on for a win

2007-02-19T20:03:00.000-08:00

Round 3 was a challenging week, we were understrength due to the international travellers and dedicated family men that we have on our team. Regardless we managed to finish with a 3 point win over the DoJo team who were struggling with numbers also.

It was a good effort from the players who had to work hard all night. I've been thinking about our man on man defense, and I think it is very good and effective when we have the energy and intensity to make it work.
If we are tired or just not running hard for some reason then it becomes pretty dangerous and open.

Exciting things from last round for me were: the early signs of leadership that I noticed from a few members of the team. Positive for the future of the MBB. Also Chadwick had his best game of Frisbee so far (in my opinion), very reliable with the Frisbee and very effective playing on the wing against the zone defense.

Nice work boys. Looking forward to getting the numbers back up for this weeks game. UQ.

Mike

2007-02-03T04:46:00.000-08:00

BPL Season 1 - 2007

Buggers 15 d UQ Lovers 7.

14 Buggers attended to back up a successful conclusion to the 2006 season, after back to back Premierships.

Returning for another season:
Mike Neild - Captain
Jason Ray
Mat Ryan
Harry
Nandor
Massey
James
Wetnose
Chaddy - Injured (Thigh?)
Jangles - Injured (Ankle)
Dan

And welcome to 3 new players who look like they have plenty of offer this season.
Nick - Recent UQ graduate from Johns College.
Carlos - Carlos, from Bogota, Colombia.
Mick - Also UQ graduate

Well done on the win. It was 4 all, then it was 8 - 4 at half time (goodrun). Then we won 15 - 7. I think we out ran them as much as we out playedthem. It was a good start, we have some things to sort out.

New boys,Carlos, Mick, Nick, Welcome. Old boys, g'day. Chadwick and Jangles, you bothcome down to the field and supporting your team while you are injured, thatis the kind of action that makes us the best team in this competition. Welldone. Looking forward to getting you blokes back on the field.

This one is important to me. 75% of this team played their first BPL in thepast 2 or 3 leagues. Most of us are only just coming out of being 'new', weare all still learning, we are all still improving. We have to work togetherto get better as a group and as individuals. We have all made mistakes onthe field, we all will again, most of us did tonight. I did. When you aretalking to your team mates, do it considering the above please.Be excited, be loud, be desperate, expect and request effort and intensityfrom your team mates. Do it with positivity. Yell TO your team mates not ATyour team mates. First game .....

Moreton Bay Buggers

2007-02-03T04:19:00.000-08:00

Moreton Bay Buggers
Brisbane's premier team 2006.