Picture This:
It’s halftime during the final of the World Games. It’s the height of summer in Alabama, USA, and even though it’s almost 7pm, it’s absolutely stinking hot. Your green and gold jersey (which will never seem complete again without the great big EURODISC™ logos across your chest, arms, leg and other leg) is sticking to your back from sweat.
And the score is 7-3, and definitely not in your favour.
Your team mates, who you’ve spent the better part of the last year training with, are sitting around you in the shade of the players tent. Some have iced towels draped over their faces. Some are still panting from the exertions of the previous point. All seem to have the slightly hollow looks of impending defeat on their faces.
All except one.
Enter Kyal Oh, Brucey, the Bruce man, the man who can kick an 80-metre torp through the big ones (on his left no less!).
He surveys our body language (slumped, heads down, staring into the distance, glassy eyed). He gives a harrumph of irritation and anger, and glares around at all of us.
“We cannot give up,” he growls at us.
“We cannot give up!” he shouts again. Our hanging heads raise slightly, half listening, half (at least in my case) still slightly despairing.
“I don’t care what the score is, we’re not going to roll over and let them have it,” he continues.
“We came here for a fight, and this is our chance to fight back. We have worked too hard for too long. We’ve all got to find something, something extra. Every one of us. Now!”
There are nods, murmurs of agreement. A small wave of fresh energy and hope rolls through us. Half time is over, and head coach Anna Rogacki calls us into the circle for one last cheer.
I look around at my teammates, huddled in a close circle around me. I feel such confidence and trust in all of them, I almost feel my eyes start to water (or is that just the sweat?).
Alex Prentice leads us off in a cheer.
'Light the match!' she yells.
'Burn the boats!' we all bellow back.
'Light the match!'
'BURN THE BOATS!'
This might seem like a strange thing to yell when you’re down 7-3 against the USA in the gold medal match of the World Games. The idea behind it was a powerful one for the Crocs: once you’ve made a decision, don’t look back. No fear. No past. Just what is in front of you right now.
As Anna explained to those of us who aren’t as good at metaphors, we’ve arrived together on an island, and now we’re going to burn the boats we arrived on. That way, we can’t go back the way we came, and there is only the journey together ahead of us.
We get back on the field.
I don’t know how we do it, but we all find something in us that works. We apply pressure to the Americans, and that pressure slowly turns into drops, throwaways, and goals for us. We claw our way back into the game.
The hope in our eyes glows slightly brighter.
“We’re all tied up at 10” the game announcer drawls over the loudspeaker in his deep southern accent.
Suddenly, the cheers of “U-S-A!” that have been echoing from the stands all game seem quieter, and I can hear the odd “AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE”. Our incredible contingent of loyal Australian supporters are making their feelings known to the rest of the world.
Our strongest D line is put on the field. Dylan Freechild picks up the disc. Carolyn Finney cuts up the line for him and drops an easy dish.
It’s 10-10 and we have the disc.
This is what we’ve been training for.
This opportunity.
What does it mean to train like a Croc?
Over the past 6 months, Anna asked us to practice seizing and therefore being in the moment. She wanted us to find a specific cue that caused us to switch on and fully commit to that moment. At the gym lifting our heaviest weights, at a training camp with the disc on the endzone line, but also while brushing our teeth and walking to work. We practised the mindset of engaging with the present and nothing else.
In that way, when the time came where we needed to perform at our peak, there would be no thoughts of doubt, or failure, or lack of self-belief. We would be left to simply execute the moment.
We have the disc and it’s 10-10 in the World Games final.
We’re not too far from the endzone, but the play stagnates. We dump and reset, and dump and resent like we’ve trained, but we give back the disc under the USA’s pressure.
The roar of the crowd when the Americans score is the loudest it’s been all game.
We put our O line on for the next point but are unable to hold.
I feel the game slipping from our fingers, even though I know logically we’re still in it. If only we hadn’t gone down by so much, I think. If only we hadn’t had so far to come back. As I think this, I know that I’m not executing the moment. I pull myself back to the present.
We score one more glorious point.
Then it’s over.
We don’t get another chance with the disc.
The US win 13-11.
The Pain of Second Place:
It’s a surreal feeling to win a silver medal at the World Games and yet be unable to stop crying. Research shows that people who win silver at the Olympics are the least content with their outcome (despite having an objectively better result than those who win bronze).1
Bronze winners think – omg incred wow jeez, I could have not won a medal at all – yet here I am!
Silver winners on the other hand think – f**k sh*t goddammit I was so f**king close to winning gold.
As hard as I try, I’m finding it hard to extricate my brain from that mindset. I’m so incredibly proud and excited that we performed so well. And a result like that definitely makes all the hard work that we invested into the campaign feel all the more worth it. But there’s still a part of my heart that can’t get over that final loss.
The Outcome:
While we didn’t win, if you consider the final score, the 2022 Crocs put in the best performance of any Australian team at the World Games, ever.
And whilst there remains quite a lot of heartbreak and sorrow for missing out so narrowly on the Gold Medal, something else is growing from the ashes. The Crocs have already had an online meeting about how we feel about the campaign now that it’s over, and what we would change for the next one.
Players are already getting back into training and are analysing the (to my eyes - tiny) holes in their game and trying to improve in these areas. Cat Phil has already started to send me photos of her practising layout Ds—this should be a terrifying prospect for the rest of the world.
The Difference:
Australia is isolated from the rest of the World’s higher level of ultimate, and we are limited in our exposure to international tournaments (particularly over the past few years). So what is the thing, or things, that help us punch so far beyond our weight?
And no, the answer is not just Tom Tullett and Cat Phil (although I gotta say they were a big part of it).
In my opinion, it’s a combination of these four things.
The amount of time, effort and energy each individual player put into the campaign was something I had never seen before. The buy-in to the professional, extremely rigorous training program was astounding.
Our unrelenting drive to push ourselves and the team to be better.
The love and care that every player showed for each other.
The mental fitness program that Anna Rogacki implemented.
And though we are proud of our performance, there is a real sense that the job is not done—we might understand this more than any other team at the tournament. A fire has been lit inside us all. Coming so close and then missing out has made us all the more determined.
This fire will push us at Nationals. It’ll push us at AOUGC, and at WUC, and at the next World Games in 2025.
The message for the rest of the world is this: Look out.
Medvec, V. H., Madey, S. F., & Gilovich, T. (1995). When less is more: Counterfactual thinking and satisfaction among Olympic medalists. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(4), 603–610.
A team cannot control the outcome of an evenly-matched game because the other team wants to win too. However, players can control their effort. Provided that players work together the best they can and use up the last of their mental and physical energy on the last point, then a team is successful, even if the score isn’t always favourable. We were very proud to be Australians as we watched the Crocs play so well in the final (and semi-final).