Reviewing Australian Nationals 2010

The theme for Nationals 2010 seemed to be getting the rewards for years of work.



In the open division, I-Beam from Newcastle were champions, with a 12-9 pre-semi win over HoS, a 15-14 semi-final win over Colony Pillage and a 14-13 win over Colony Plunder in the final. I think they are first open team to win a semi-final after playing a pre-semi.

I-Beam had an offense that hummed like a machine irrespective of the defence they faced. They had great throwing and receiving depth on their line, though they only had around 14 players at Nationals (an exception to my rule-of-thumb that more players = winning at Nationals). They went through two of the strongest teams at the tournament to win: Colony Pillage and Colony Plunder.

The final saw a more American style height range - lots of athletic guys six foot or under, which is how many US open rosters look. Only Ant Dowle and Tatts seemed to be the exception. Past dominant open teams seemed to always have a good number of giants on the field.

In the women's division, Team Box met Wildcard Clubs in the final, for the third time in four years. This time they had the deeper team, and dominated Wildcard to avenge the two finals losses of previous years.



Hard work and talent development pays off, kids.