On the back of our current run with two podium positions from the first two rounds, the Rage team were confident but we wanted to maintain a level head.
Round 3 was announced with a field layout that once again pushed the flanks of the field on both sides but with the Dorito side of the field looking more open to lanes against it, we focused our practice on the breakouts on that side of the field…….this produced the right results in training but we quickly came to learn that at the same time it also opened us up to the wrong mindset come the tournament.
The day started out pretty well although a few members of the squad had been unable to get to training leading to a very quick ‘walk the field’ and getting to grips with the breakout plans. This also didn’t help our efforts to maintain the same level of game play we had produced before but keeping this out of our minds we went into the matches with hope and promise. This round saw the same teams making an appearance but also a few more teams from the likes of Salisbury Cardinals coming out to play as well. In addition, a couple of the opposition had also changed their rosters from the previous rounds, something that certainly raised questions with us post tournament.
The games started and from the outset, we discovered that our plans for breakouts fell to the flaw of the opposing snake players. Time and time again, our beloved Dorito player was being eliminated across field. The Rage squad took a true bashing being beaten in five out of six games in the first half of the matches. The one only game that lead to a win was a whitewash against the opposing team only for Rage’s Team Captain to be classed as eliminated for a previous paint mark from another round being discovered inside the Velcro off his pod pack. Despite the blaringly obvious point that the Velcro was sealed up throughout the whole round and the pods not being used (therefore the paint mark must have been from a previous round), the elimination carried a 1 for 1 penalty reducing our victory number of team members to three.
At the half way mark, we reassessed our game plan and reduced our breakout routines to ones that had been proving more successful. The second half of the games proved ferocious with the Rage team putting up stronger resistance but this still was no match for the opposing teams and again Rage walked away with another five losses.
The results spoke for themselves where we found ourselves dead last on the round table.
The results shook the squad a little as this was the same field layout that was set for the Millennium Campaign weekend. Picking ourselves up and dusting off the result, we returned to the thinking board and reviewed our breakouts.
Certainly the lowest point for our team so far, we moved on and prepared for the biggest games in our squads existence. A weekend of further training and practices against some truly competent teams helped us bring together a much better game plan.
All in all, not the kind of news we wanted to present but none the less, we all have to feel both the highs and lows of paintball tournaments and we now know where we stand in the league results.
With two rounds to go in the SPL 2014, we are drawing third with Carebears. Time to raise our game and bring on the best paintballing we can produce!
James Riley