MPOC Leg 4

I know that everyone is waiting to read what I have to say about MPOC 4. I must say that my write up would be a bit more "sunny" because of our little circumstance. I would like to thank the organisers for listening to my suggestions and as somebody pointed out to me that "my wish list was mostly granted".

Bigger tents- CHECK
More chairs- CHECK
Working fans- CHECK
Top 8 in D3 went through - I'm happy with that. - CHECK.
Not starting at 8am on both days - CHECK

The best of all in my books was starting Sunday at 11am. That little bit of breather was really appreciated by all 8 teams in Division 3. That allowed us to get up a bit later- have some breakfast get to the field at a leisurely time - warm up and walk the field before the second round started.

Personally I enjoyed the games on Saturday more - the 10 preliminary games were spread out decently and we were finished by 230-3pm. That also gave us time to rest pack up and help out the X-Foxes in both their games. I really enjoy watching and crewing X Ball and I wish I had the voice left to coach.

I thought the refereeing for D3 was pretty good and very playable and I spoke to Juniadi about it on Sunday. We had 2 one for one calls on us which cost us 2 games in the prelims, I didn't have a problem with the calls. Some of the calls on the D2 and D1 were bordering on harsh. Lots of penalties thrown all over the place. Lemon Ruskies had 2 major penalties on them in game 1 of their final game against the Warriors. X-Fox also kept getting hit with penalties in their game against the Ronins.

But overall I would like to give Junaidi and the guys from the M Pros a big slap on their backs especially the guys refereeing the Draxxus field.

I like the home and away format- it made things easier and faster.

I thought the field layout was very playable especially for D3 and D4 - it was based on a traditional dorito and snake sides. The only blemish on the field was the mud on the away side which made break outs a bit tricky.

Before you get bored of the sunshine blowing.
I do have a few things for the organisers to look into.

SAFETY
The netting that separates the field and the players areas should be higher and doubled up.There were too many stay balls getting into the players tents and I saw first hand stray balls hitting Ben on the head and then Gary's girlfriend was very lucky to be hit just below her eye. She got paint in her eye which turned out to be ok after flushing out with water.

Its not only the stray balls getting through but the paint splashes were also messing up the teams gear that were in tent nearest to the field.

CHRONO TENT LAYOUT
The best chorono tent layout was at Penang 2 years ago. There was a ready area inside the tent after you chrono where there was a table to put your markers down.

At MPOC 4 we had to put out markers in the corner on the ground and people going in and out made the chrono area crowded and congested at times and not to mention having to avoid tripping over the markers on the ground. I think a ready area with a table and some chairs would mean that the chrono refs can get more teams chronoed faster and ready and waiting to go in the field.

If we had a ready area- teams that were playing in the semis and final series can bring their gear and wait there rather than have their guns and paint under the sun as they wait near the chrono tent for the quick turn around best of 3 games.


Good job MPOC.