The Bugs in 2012

The Moreton Bay Buggers are proud to introduce their season 1 team for 2012.

B11	#22 Adam Beu	12th
B62	#88 Buzz Burwell	4th
B69	## David Campbell	1st
B60	#24 Tim Ferguson	5th
B59	#35 Ryan Flux	3rd
B61	#24 Tim Johnson	5th
B50	#12 Trevor Lovering	7th
B64	#5 Rob Lowe	3rd
B70	## Brenton Mottershead	1st
B41	#50 Anthony Ross	8th
B9	#33 Mat Ryan (C)	12th
B71	## Luke Splatt	1st
B72	## Timothy Webb	1st

The old firm is back for the Bugs in 2012 with Buzz, Ferg, TJ, Trevor, Rob, TRoss and Lunchbox Ryan all returning after 2 years together in the Bug red and white. Mat continues as the Buggers captain in 2012.

There are some exciting developments for the team this season. It is great to welcome back to the Moreton Bay Buggers Adam Beu and Ryan Flux. Jangles returns for his twelfth season with the Buggers after spending a couple of years helping to develop the Heroes into a semi final team. Fluxy rejoins the Bugs after 3 seasons off.

Special mention needs to be made of the 4 new men to be a part of Buggers history. The 69th - 72nd players to take the field for the Bugs in the Brisbane Premier League. Brenton Mottershead joins the Buggers after stepping up to the BPL with the Bandidos. David Campbell, Luke Splatt and Tim Webb will make their BPL debut with the Buggers next Thursday night. We wish them all the best as they take on the challenge of our excellent open league.

It will be another exciting year for the Brisbane Premier League and the Buggers are enthusiastic to get down to business. Its been 4 seasons without a grand final appearance. Will this be the season that heralds in the grand old days?

The Buggers are keen to find out.

Rookies, Rookies, Rookies

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

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

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

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

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

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.