IH badminton

On the 12th of may...IH defended their crown of badminton champs...beating trinity 3-2 in the finals to clinch its glory!!!

Well, it was an awesome day that i must say. The built up to it...the training that we all had to go through!! Victory has never tasted to sweet!!!

All wasnt easy i must say. Training started weeks before.We knew we had our work cut out for us because trinity is really strong and we needed to field in a strong team. It was also the first year that they implemented mix badminton instead of single sex badminton...so in order to win...we needed to have a strong mens and womens team...

Training was a pain in the ass. I was asked to take over and organise the team. Had to wake up at 7am in the morning day after day for badminton training...for someone who doesnt even wake up at 7 for classes, waking up 4 days in a row is somewhat an achievement!

Then there was narrowing and choosing the team to play for IH. This was quite complicated....as for the mens, we knew that James martin, Fang and Pat were in, but me, dharen and david was sorta on the same line as each other...and for the girls, we knew that kaori and erina was in...but wasnt sure about the rest...in the end, me and Fang went with our gut feeling and chose...Fang and Kat for mix doubles, Kaori and Erina for womens doubles, Veta for womens singles. As for me, pat , dharen and James...it was all on rotation...

Then came real proper training where we had to work out our partnership and our shots. It was really fun i reckon cause all of us made improvements to our game...I also trained the womens doubles constantly...not because they were japs, but because we knew that they would be the decider of our game plan of beating trinity.

Matchday came on the 7th of may...day after cafe...with me and pat having a lil hangover look on our faces...and just about all of us having just under 4 hours of sleep the nite b4...we faced UC in the 1st round....piss easy...i played singles and thrashed their singles....hahaha....me and my vanity! but it was true....thing was..we wanted to finish everything ASAP so we can get more rest in between for the next match...went on to win them easily...after that came ormond...and we won that easily too. While all this were going our way...we were still practising our doubles constantly as that was our tactic and our strategy to win. After that...we had st hildas....i played singles again....meeting mr Matt Walkerden....my mate from high school. funny how we used to play doubles together...same boarding school...next door to me actually..hahaha! Sadly to say...we didnt care who was it we were playing...we just wanted to win..and we did exactly that!!!

The next week came along...with us having a couple of training sessions. I was going to rest for the finals agaisnt trinity...and dharen was going to be our singles to face state player marty from trinity. I pretty much had the job of training the girls doubles in order to make em a....sure win combo!!!

Finals came along...tension built up really high. We had a massive turn out of supporters....which was really good in comparison to the token ...8 to 10 ppl who turned up last year. we even had...coursemate friends of erina....Ex Ihers...tutors who came to watch....im guessing we had...50 odd supporters....really helped and i would like to thank each and everyone of them for coming to support...you really did us good!!!

Fang and Kat won their match easily....while dharen gave his token effort before losing to marty. Next was the mens doubles....which came down to ....nothing at all. They were really easy to the point pat and james didnt even break sweat!!! My biggest shock came when i realised that trinity didnt put their strongest women for singles....and instead she was going to play doubles. This was a risk that they were taking cause we stood a chance of wining their singles now..which would make it 3-1 before the womens doubles played..and we would win the competition there and then...Veta lost the 1st set...before coming back to win the 2nd. She held a 10-1 lead in the decider rubber b4 suddenly collapsing to lose it 15-10...still wondering how that was possible.

And there it was...it was coming down to the wire with our womens doubles facing a must win situation. We lost our 1st set to trinity...as their best womens player showed what she was made off...playing each shot perfectly and aiming it at erina...who couldnt keep up...Me being their coach..i was really nervous till the point that i almost pissed in my pants...kidding!!!:D I talked the girls through it....told them what i wanted them to do...told them to hit the ball at the token white girl on the other team..and not play it to the other player...which i believe was a uni player of some sort...Even with that....we had to endure a nail biting 2nd set....tied 13 all....our womens doubles finally pulled through..execute our game plan...and won the set 15-13...and made me a tactical genius somewhat...hahaha!

3rd and final set came along...With all the supporters cheering our cutest doubles ever....couz they were japs...or prob couz they were so polite and smiley ...that the crowd was actually confused whether they were winning or losing cause either way..they were still smilling...or couz they performed the morning mussume dance to perfection the night before...It was picture perfect....with them..."screaming" haik each and everytime...with them....showing hand signals...before each and every serve...with the crowd randomly doing random dance move from their dance the nite before....one of which is branded...the new "chicken/duck dance" with the rest of the team mates shouting "hakujin yarou" which means..hit ...white...or something like that....basicaly we wanted them to hit all the balls to the token white girl...hahaa! but yeah...our womens doubles...played to perfection...and with the crowd screaming..drum rolling(thanks char) behind them...we executed our plays to perfection....and beat trinity 15-9!!! everyone screamed when we won our last point!!! it was awesome..everyone jumping around....hugs thrown everywhere!!! tears even!!!it was just...splendid!!!

Firstly...would like to thank all the supporters who came to support...we really appreciated it..and u know and i know...that you did make a difference in what was a deadknot match!!! I also want to thank tutor charlie for supporting all our moves!! thanks to student club for having faith in us...giving us lots to spend!!! on shuttles and court hire.... to the team!! thanks...for comin for training...for showing up at random meetings to talk things through!!!To Fang....for helping me with the analysis of our strategy....for pat and james for thrasing each and every opponent they met...for dharen for his effort agaisnt marty....for veta...for trying her best!!!and lastly...to the cutest doubles in IH sporting history ever!!!for having the patience to listen to my long strategic talks...and for enduring my...scolding once in a while.....i only did it cause i knew you were much better than that!!and thanks for making me a coach extraodinare!!!!Love the times!!!!


PICS!!!

DHAREN!!!


FANG!!!


VETA!!!


KAT and FANG!!!


PAT and JAMES!!!


KAORI!!!


ERINA!!!


KAORI and ERINA!!!


our CHICKEN/DUCK POSE!!! with all the supporters!!!