Once again October means it’s time for the USA Touch Nationals – the largest tourney of its type in our region! The desperate smashing of piggy banks and attempts to get visas left us short and once again looking for outside assistance to make up the numbers and hence the formation of the Jamaican Trojans! Yes we are tough, try to prevent leaks and durable etc, we also aim to have hidden secret weapons behind our attractive, smiling exterior, but we were not named after condoms or gift horses, rather an anagram of the people who helped put the squad together with 4 from Jamaica, 3 from Tumeke and 1 from Charlotte affording us the luxury of substitutions this year in the Tonka Renee OJ All Nations Squad! Later additions came in the form of 3 Aussie girls from Wallsend and a couple of guys from Lindenwood University as the irresistible appeal of playing with us proved too much. When Anton and Stroebs togged out for us against their home team of Fort Lauderdale we actually fielded a full squad of 14!!

The week started on Thursday with the Twins attending a Referee Introduction course. Reffing is a vital part of the game and often a requirement for tournaments to provide both dedicated and player refs, as well as being a useful tool in learning more about the game and personal development. We’re looking at working closer with the US and Cayman for development and training programmes for refs, so please support the girls when they take up the whistle at social games!

Thursday evening saw the squad getting to know each other with the twins and the Tumeke boys playing in the drop-off competition, and also doing some canny work recruiting some of the Wallsend girls who had brought a big squad over from Australia.

Friday morning is when the real business started, stepping up to the Mixed Open section was always going to be tough for a patchwork team, and the first match brought this home with a tough game against Galaxy DC – a strong and established unit, and eventual winners of the US Mixed Open section. We were a bit rusty and obviously disjointed in the first half and let them get away from us, but better mobility and communication in the second half saw us mount an impressive fight back, eventually going down 8-5

The second match was always going to be one of the hardest as Chile has a strong Touch structure with 15 teams playing in their Santiago league and a talented, experience national team. And so it proved to be with their strong press defence, great speed and energy sapping the confidence out of our (mainly) young squad. The International Mixed Open runners-up went on to record a deserved 10-2 victory.

Match 3 gave us the chance to heal the wounds and try to redeem ourselves against the eventual US Mixed Open runners-up of Jacksonville. Our stand out performance of the weekend saw the youth and exuberance (self excluded!) come to the fore with some well worked moves and also great to watch improvised scores, notching up our first ever victory 8-3 – I can get used to this feeling!

Saturday morning had more of a park game feel as we came up against our friends from Fort Lauderdale in the pouring rain. 2 students from Lindenwood wanted to get in on the Jamaican action and the 2 rested Ft Lauderdale players also donned the yellow and black so that we had a full 14 match squad. Ft Lauderdale would have had a good shot at the US title had they elected to not sub their girls, but sadly with just 3 they elected to play for fun instead and not stick to the competition format, against us going mainly with a 5-1 split. It was a fun game, but I don’t think I like being on the sideline so much – it was like Treviso all over again! Forward passes and banter aside Renee (and Joyce) did a good job officiating and think we went down 4-2 in the end with the rain getting in the way of a more high scoring spectacle.

Our final match was always going to be a lesson in the art of quality Touch going up against Galaxy World Wide, lead as usual by the incomparable Pete Walters – the inevitable winners of the International Mixed Open section. In spite of the score line it was a great match to be involved in, played in great spirit by 2 humble and genuine squads. We were unlucky with some nervous handling and missed chances to make the 13-2 a bit more respectable, but never really felt out of it thanks to their knack of scoring with such elegant grace that you don’t realise you’re taking such a beating 🙂

And so concluded a collection of tough fixtures, definitely getting the more difficult draw playing against the 4 finalists but savouring our bronze medals and further enhanced reputation. The action didn’t stop their though with the Twins and Richie being selected for the US National Team training squad on Sunday – a great experience and opportunity for our girls and a reflection of their hard work, effort and great attitude on the pitch – who knows we might have some players at the next World Cup after all!

As usual there are as many thanks as there are great memories from an awesome week, so apologies to those not mentioned! To OJ, Dave, Jean and team for putting on another great and well run tourney with the best coaches and refs on show, to the selectors for giving the twins (and Richie) a chance to develop and shine, to all the teams for playing in the spirit of Touch and making it fun, to all the teams that had to endure my reffing (and all the refs that had to endure my playing – especially Renee!) including my first drop off and having to do half a game on my own, to all the other refs for their support (except Dennis for leaving me stranded!!), to USA, New York, Fort Lauderdale and Cayman Touch in their continued support of our ventures, to Renee and OJ in helping getting the squad together, to Ashley for her whooping and hollering, to Bizarre Sports (China) for the great kit that proved to be more popular than I hoped, to Kerribean Design for sponsoring the jerseys (check them out for web design and stuff!) and most importantly to all our players for making it a great occasion and fun experience.

 

Hopefully see you all both at Nationals and in Jamaica next year!!

Check out Facebook for some more pictures from the event

 

Squad

 

Jamaica:

Tonka Selby

Laura Edwards

Kerri Edwards

Shanique Scott

Charlotte:

Jake Wittmer

Tumeke:

Hawea Solomon

Richard MacDonald

Jonah Wahlberg

Wallsend, Australia:

Kyah Watters

Kyiesha Faulkner

Seiannah Olsen

Lindenwood University:

Maanihera Kapa

Michael Baska

Fort Lauderdale:

Anton Kidd

Stroebel Bekker