I’m sure most of you have heard about Ultimate Frisbee by now, if you haven’t then climb out from under that rock and get with the times! It’s the coolest sport on the block. You may have seen us around: in the plaza – perhaps you’ve been hit by a stray disc of ours (in which case, we’re really really sorry!) – Or down at the Flinders Ovals chasing our fantastic flying plastic in all weathers.

…Introducing our latest ladies team: FURYESS!

FURYESS is the feminine half of the Flinders University Ultimate Club Team, FURY. Previously known as the Hey Ladies, this team represents an intriguing juxtaposition of feminine wiles and ferocious intensity. Combining players of the highest rank with our freshest, greenest newbies, this team carries with it an untainted, indomitable character, irrepressible spirit and are currently undefeated in the South Australian women’s league.

With a limited time frame and even less money to get on the road, we did some furious fundraising; you might have supported our sausage sizzles in the plaza, sampled some of the delicacies at our bake sale or heard of the sold-out pub crawl where many a kiss was bought and sold. We added numbers to our team with some interstate ring-ins and headed East to the National Ultimate Championships.

The four day tournament was held in Queens Park in Sydney and we went out on day one with fresh faces, positively brimming with enthusiasm. After playing the top two seeded teams of the competition, Victoria’s Ishtar and Sydney’s Southside, we soon realised we weren’t the tough kids in the playground anymore. Despite no wins on the board, our spirits were not broken and day two marked a turning point for our success. Up against fellow South Aussies the Leafy Sea Dragons, we came out hard and had a convincing win. We followed this high with a hard-fought loss to Canberra team Zenith. The next day had three tough matches in store for us, the first against WOMAC, a combination of girls from Wollongong and Macquarie universities, where we had a strong comeback after half time, but not enough to chalk up the win. In the second match we vied Melbourne team Honey, in another hard-fought but unfortunate loss. We came upon the Honey Bees, also from Melbourne in the last match of the day. In this match we triumphed and had a thoroughly enjoyable winning match.

Day four found us awakening to the prospect of a match playing off for the 13th and 14th positions on the ladder against WOMAC. Having met them the day before and taken their measure, we went out all guns blazing – determined to give them a run for their money and go down fighting. This exciting game saw us hit the lead early on in strong wind conditions. At full time we were trailing 9-6, with the match only allowed to end when one team reached 10 points. Well, FURYESS rallied and dominated the next three points to bring it to 9 all. In a nail-biting finish WOMAC scored the precious point with the wind in their favour, taking out the match and leaving us with 14th place overall in the championship.

As we progressed through the tournament we could see improvements in all of our players, which means big things for the future of our Flinders women and also for Ladies Ultimate in SA.

So thankyou, to all you supporting Flinders students whose hungry tummies were, at some point, filled by a sausage or two (or a beer or three) on our fundraising capers in the lead up to the Australian Ultimate Championships 2006.

Watch out for us in the future! If you want to join in and have a go at playing Ultimate, get down to the Flinders fields on a Tuesday evening at 5pm or check out our website www.flindersfury.com for further info.