Posts by Simon Poole
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one thing that did get me very confused was the couple of times you called a jam over prematurely, with the jammers still circling and chasing points.
I can probably help with this... Chances are good the jam was over, but with the amount of crowd noise we had trouble hearing our own whistles, let alone getting the skaters to notice them. Odds are good that Hadyn and Tony were watching us/the jammer and the refs had stopped counting points (even if the skaters were still going). It's an ongoing problem and something we're working on.
Megan: you did a great job on the scoreboard. Except for the very final score where I saw you nudge it up to 195 before dropping that extra point :P
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Hadyn:
Wow, there are a lot of fine details.
Yeah, the rules are fairly meaty.
8.4 The Jammer earns a point for each opposing skater who is not on the track immediately upon scoring her first point on an opposing blocker. If the jam ends before the Jammer scores, the additional points will not be awarded. The following are such circumstances when the Jammer will earn points in this manner:
8.4.1 Opponents in the penalty box. (The moment a penalized player is directed off the track she is considered “in the box” for scoring purposes.)
8.4.2 Opponents who have failed to be on the track when the Jam starting whistle blows.
8.4.3 Opponents who have removed themselves from play.
8.4.4 Opponents sent to the penalty box that have not yet been scored upon in that scoring pass.
8.4.5 Opponents returning from the penalty box behind the Jammer.www.wftda.com for all your derby goodness.
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I have a rules question I am hoping someone can answer. How are the roles decided for each jam? There were moments when I thought people were being played out of position and I wondered why. Do players have to rotate through each position, or can tactical decisions be made?
Positions for each jam are completely arbitrary. Each team had a bench manager whose job it was to keep track of players and assign positions. There're only 30 seconds between jams (and as you saw we were quite happy to start them immediately once time is up - any skaters not on the track when the whistle blows aren't allowed to join in late) so it's not really a whole lot of time for the skaters themselves to work it out. All the skaters train for every position (jammer, pivot, blocker) but obviously some have positions they excel at or prefer. Then there's the fact that sometimes a player gets sent to the bin and their penalty time carries over into the next jam - the team has to skate short in that position. So if a team starts with their jammer in the bin, and another jammer is refreshed and ready to go then jammer#2 might play blocker for a round.
what on earth was with your co-host Haydn? Please make sure he doesn't come within 20 yards of a mic at the next bout.
I honestly didn't hear a thing from the commentators apart from the skater intros - what was so bad?
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You score points for passing opposition players so having skaters in the box (maximum of two) was almost an advantage at that point
Just noticed this - any skater in the penalty box has their point assigned to the rear-most player on their team, so the jammer only has to pass the one player for both points (or more). So no advantage gained by getting your players binned. Oh, and if a player gets binned 5 times in a period, they're ejected for the rest of the game. It's pretty hard to go 5 times, but Wax was doing her best. (Ironically, it was the Grudgemaker veterans that spent the most time in the bin, not the freshies)
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Hadyn, you forget to mention that with Pageant two points up in the final jam, Bikkies (the jammer for Malice) got sin-binned. With Bikkies out for a minute, Goldie (Jammer for Pageant) realised they'd won and literally started to dance on her skates. A great sight, but a bit of an anti-climax.
It was a lot of fun. Limiting the crowd numbers (safety first!) didn't limit the noise, and we could barely hear ourselves on the track! Definitely looking forward to the next one on the 10th, unless I'm looking after the little one. I think we're calling him Mötley Poo at the moment.
P.S: big ups to Megan for the ride to the station so quickly afterwards! I cannot thank you enough. The crowd on the train were surprisingly quiet, given the score at the test. I had to wait until Sunday morning to even find out we'd won.
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Just a reminder that Richter City Roller Derby kick off their season with a Skate of Emergency tomorrow night at the WBA stadium on Hutchison Road, Mt Cook.
Doors open at 6 - there are no presales left so it's first-in, first-served!
Look forward to seeing you there.
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Both TV 1 and 3 have featured, on successive days, the obligatory and pointless live cross to a reporter (generally looking harassed and embarrassed) standing in front of Dunedin students. And guess what? They were jumping around in the background, making various gestures to the camera, delighted to be the centre of attention. Didn't see that coming, eh?
Come on simon g, I did see one guy in the background holding up a sign pointing people to his TradeMe auction - if that's not entrepreneurship, I don't know what is. First productive thing I've seen the news do in a long time.
Otherwise: not a lot of comment. The kids were behaving like dicks, but I don't think the cops did a lot to ameliorate the situation. Others above have pointed out that we have some serious attitude problems in New Zealand, and not just towards alcohol.
And I'm with Graeme - there is a clear shot of 4-5 students backing away from the Police, and one gets some pepper-spray in the face for his troubles. He might have been a dick, he might have been mouthing off, but he was backing away with his hands visible. That is not justifiable use.
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If we do something we might win the World Cup.
Start preparing the dodgy shellfish and undercooked chicken for distribution to the 'caterers'?
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Hadyn: I'm pretty sure that White took over from Rudolph Staeuli. Taking them from there to winning a World Cup is pretty impressive.
This quote from Straeuli's wiki entry is sadly familiar:
Through all the failures Straeuli kept telling the public that he was still building his team and that they should judge him on his performance in the 2003 Rugby World Cup. For the first time South Africa failed to reach the semifinals of a World Cup in which they participated.
Are they saying that if we'd switched to Deans we'd be a certanty for 2011 glory?
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I have come to the realisation that Stephen Donald's suckiness is a bit like climate change. While most people agree with it and there is huge amounts of data to prove it, there are still some pockets of deniers who still think he's actually alright.
The bloke did manage to steer the Chiefs to the final, where they promptly fell apart. This more or less sums up Donald; flashes of brilliance, but the consistency of curdled milk. If he always played as well as he is capable (and stopped attempting that ridiculous chip-regather twice a half - it's worked half a dozen times at S14, but stop throwing away our posession!) then he'd be pretty good. Kind of like Lauaki, really. Apt.
And, as noted, Donald was still the best 10 to play S14 for a New Zealand team this year. Aaron Cruden is worth keeping an eye on next year, however.