FWD>> Review: ÖSTM (Nationals)

Thursday, 10th of September
In the evening hours of September 10th, our Team unofficially started into Austrian Nationals, which where held from September 11th to 13th in Kundl, Tyrol, by coming together for the legendary Kaiserschmarren (sugared pancake with raisins) dinner a.k.a. CARBOLOADING.

Friday, 11th
The next day most of us took the train to Kundl, Tyrol early in the morning to be ready for our first pool game against our second Team Play>. Although we could not have been happier about playing in 6h distanced Kundl against our colleagues (haha) we had lots of fun at our trip and enjoyed travelling by train. After a first team meeting somewhen around lunchtime we met again at 3 o’clock p.m. to start our warm up and prepare ourselves for the first game of the tournament. Our declared goal was of course to defend our last year’s title. An hour later our game against Play> started and we were there in full strength. In the end we won by over 10 points and were glad to start that confident into the tournament. But nevertheless we knew the important games were still to come. Just like the one on Saturday morning against TheBigEz, our rivals from Vienna.

Sunday, 13th
On Sunday morning we knew we had to push ourselves to our limits to step up to the final; Innsiders had won clearly and precisely in their pool game on Saturday afternoon against the Boys from Catchup Graz who were facing off TheBigEz in the other semi-final. After a motivational speech by our D- and O-Line Coaches as well as one by our head coach Jakob Taubald (a.k.a. BigJ) we started into the game. Innsiders started off well with a strong D-Line exerting a lot of pressure on our offence. In the meantime our O-Line had problems finding their rhythm and flow and therefore got stuck into some situations difficult to escape from. Nevertheless they performed well in the first half and converted in almost all of their points. After some difficulties in the first half our D-Line finally managed to produce some turnovers but simply could not convert them into breaks. In the end the Innsiders D-Line converted almost all of their turnovers and won rightly. Score: FWD>> 11:17 Innsiders. Obviously disappointed by our loss but also impressed by their performance we congratulated our colleagues from Tyrol on their win.
Before our last game, this year for the 3rd place, we pulled ourselves together to get the bronze medal. In this game we were facing Catchup Graz whom we had beaten last year in universe point the final. Although some important players of their team were missing we knew we shouldn’t underestimate them. After a strong first half in which teams traded points we pulled away in the second half and took home a clear victory.