Community Voice: What the Cancellation of State Shield Means for Australian Quidditch
/Cameron Walker is one of the co-coaches for new club, Eastern Sydney Universities (previously UTS and UNSW), and has previously played on the NSW Bluebottles in 2018 and 2019. In this Community Voice article, he examines the decision to cancel the annual State Shield event for 2021 and the impacts this may have, as well as ways to mitigate these with proposed alternative events suitable to the current post-Covid climate of uncertainy.
With the recent cancellation of the 2021 State Shield by Quidditch Australia , I thought it would be useful to discuss the impacts this has on developing teams such as my own, Eastern Sydney Universities, as well as ways we can mitigate the effects of losing such a significant event by finding alternates. I also want to stress that I do not know much about the inner workings of Quidditch Australia, I merely wanted a way to share some information from a different perspective and voice opinions.
Firstly, I totally agree with Quidditch Australia’s prioritization of QUAFL over State Shield. Quafl, being the national championship, allows for nationwide quidditch competition, and that inclusivity as well as the chance for teams to engage in competition with other states is what makes it the most successful quidditch event of the calendar year. State Shield is always going to be left behind QUAFL due to the fact it is very exclusive – the best quidditch players from each state competing with high stakes and with winning their top priority. If only one of QUAFL or State Shield could be run, I would say most would pick QUAFL. For some, State Shield is not on their mind, and even for people who have represented at State Shield, sometimes, pursuing glory for the club rather than the state is a lot more satisfying.
However, for those who do favour State Shield, it is disappointing to have it cancelled so early with no replacement announced. Given that there is too much uncertainty surrounding the planning of such a large event, its understandable, but for some, State Shield is the pinnacle of their quidditch calendar year.
My club, Eastern Sydney Universities (ESU) Quidditch Club, composed of the former UNSW Snapes on a Plane and UTS Opaleyes, has had a very successful recruitment season, and for a lot of us it is such a new experience having such a large team. However, while the current club management are getting to the point where they will inevitably need to move on, we have limited options in terms of successors, primarily because the majority of our club have not played more than two official tournaments. Of the 48 members we have, only 3 have represented NSW in the State Shield, and none on the NSW Bluetongues A team. Jackson Flynn and I have been coaching at UNSW and then ESU for the past 3 years, but to move on to other coaches will be difficult since they do not have experience at the highest level against the best opposition. This is made even more difficult by the fact that even fewer people in our team have played in a proper Division 1 NSW Quidditch League for a year.
From what I have seen, University of Sydney (USYD) Quidditch Club is in a very similar position, and I have not seen much of Newcastle, Macquarie or ANU teams so far but I imagine it is quite a shared situation amongst NSW university teams. While gaining a lot of recruits this year has been great, the survival of quidditch and the development of these newer players depends on gaining experience at the top level of quidditch. Even the opportunity to try out for and train with the State Teams can be a transformative experience, as I can attest to myself, let alone the chance to play on the actual teams. There are, however, now plenty of newer players on many university teams who have joined from 2019 or later who haven’t had the opportunity to represent a state team or play in the top division in their respective states. With the cancellation of State Shield for 2021, this only worsens the problem.
Cam Walker playing for UNSW in 2019 | Photo: Willem de Gouw Photography
Luckily, there are lots of ways to fix these issues. The experience gained at the actual State Shield tournament is marginal compared to everything that comes with the state team selection process – two rounds of tryouts, full team trainings and even trainings against the state teams, and then the actual tournament. The format of State Shield leaves very little room for vast improvement due to it being condensed over two days, however it should be noted that Day 2 quidditch is usually better for most players due to less nerves, possible strategy formulated from a team meeting that night, knowledge of opposition, and many other factors.
Most players who go through the state selection process experience the most personal improvement throughout the tryout process, where they have the opportunity to play and learn alongside the best of the state from the smartest coaching minds, while the team trainings also add plenty of opportunity for fine-tuning. I can attest to this from my own experience in the state selection process in 2018, where there was a very organized and well-planned NSW B team. After the first round of state tryouts, detailed feedback was provided to each player on what to work on, what was being done well and how the selectors thought each player should utilize themselves in the future. For a new player coming from Division 2 in NQL, this feedback was vital as I could take this back to my own club, which had several other members involved in the tryouts, and work on these skills within my team environment. The second round of tryouts was more to gauge which combinations of players would work well in game scenarios rather than drills used to identify key skills that each player possessed, which was more the focus of the first round. Not only did this give game experience at a very high, competitive level of quidditch, it also allowed me to play with players I had never played with or against and pick up advice that was completely new to me.
As you can see, a lot of that experience was merely gained from tryouts, and as for the team trainings, the coach for the team and fellow teammate of mine Phil Vankerkoerle made it very clear what my role in the team would be. To bring all of this back into a club environment to share with other players is very hard – you can’t replicate the same stakes or competitive drive that majority of state players have. You can implement similar ideas from this process but ultimately it is completely different.
The solution for this problem thus involves being able to provide a competitive environment where players want to achieve their very best, and in doing so, gain the necessary experience to take back to the club environment, whilst also operating under the restrictions that COVID provides such as travel issues (i.e. no interstate mixing). A simple solution that I have passed onto the Quidditch NSW board involves the designing of a fantasy competition that would be entirely state based, but would allow for state-level, or at the very least Division 1 quality gameplay. To ensure that the newer players go through all the similar trials and tribulations of state team selection, a board of selectors would be chosen to select 4 fantasy teams of approximately 15-17 players. Each team would be balanced according to the selectors’ knowledge of each player as well as their performances over the tryout weekend, which would involve a mix of drills and games over a full weekend. From this, the teams would have a training or two together and then compete over a day or two in the traditional fantasy tournament style.
An event run similarly to this would give newer players the opportunity to learn from older ones, as the team environment would allow for a lot of this interaction and each team designed so that newer players gain experience from older players in respective positions or similar styles of play. Since the numbers of 15 players minimum per team would end up at around 60 people involved, this would be far greater than the normal two state teams which generally include around 45 people, so therefore more people will be gaining state level experience. Furthermore, this would also give the opportunity for aspiring state selectors and coaches (something there is a significant dearth of) to take on such roles in a slightly lower stakes format, gaining significant skills, experience, and confidence to take on more ambitious roles in the future. In this way, it would help to prepare the respective states for the 2022 State Shield (and even future Dropbears campaigns). Having 60 people who have all had the experience of state selection and gameplay ready to go will be really key for my second proposition.
This second idea is to implement the state shield in 2022 as a multi-month event, where there would be two state tournaments in the calendar year instead of the single one in October. Obviously this would be a massive task but if the previously mentioned fantasy was a success I don’t see why I couldn’t happen (apart from board issues and other things I’m not privy to). My vision of this style of tournament would involve the first tournament in a timeframe of late May to early June, with the second one being in October as normal. Basically the idea behind this is to make the state tournament more meaningful in terms of the actual experience state players get on each team. After the selection process, there are generally only a handful of trainings, and then the tournament itself last two days and then the state shield experience is over. The purpose of this two-tournament structure would allow for the team to be selected much further ahead of time, with the tryouts beginning around late February to mid-March so that new emerging university recruits may have the chance also. Then the teams would train, compete in the first tournament, and then that would leave a period of around 3 months for continued training and improvement, and would add a lot more to being on a state representative team.
This early selection and tryout process is only enabled by the fact that the previous fantasy idea would be utilized so that newer (2019-2021) players know what they’re getting themselves into, and then selectors would have a basic outline of the team coming into the 2022 season. Additionally, although the tryouts would be early, keen university recruits would theoretically have enough time to learn the basics, and any university recruit that is talented and keen on quidditch would try out for state team anyway so if its at the start of the season there isn’t any harm done really. The middle period between the two tournaments also allows for team reshuffles, either substituting players between teams or the dropping of a player from a team entirely to include a new player.
In terms of details such as how a schedule may work, how the states would organize so quickly in the 2022 season and other things, I have not thought of in detail. However, with some effort put into this I don’t see why it can’t happen, and I’d wager anyone who competed in that fantasy tournament and has a thirst for competitive quidditch would take well to the idea of an elongated State Shield season.
Finally and once again, the utility of State Shield also comes back to the idea of accepting of quidditch as a sport in Australia. If you were to show the AIS what quidditch in Australia looks like, State Shield would be closely behind world cup footage. As the shift of experienced players to community teams continues to grow, there needs to be a way to provide the same experience to university teams who may not have the luxury of 5 or more players who have represented on the A team for each state. The State Shield in itself has grown vastly over the years, with every year outperforming itself in terms of competition and talent between the teams, as well as national involvement from teams. Ultimately, competitions like the State Shield need to always be viewed as a way to further the athletic capabilities of quidditch in Australia, as well as a chance to view the rising stars of the future generations.
This article was written and submitted to Quidditch Australia by Cameron Walker, with light copy editing, images, captions sourced and written by Quidditch Australia, as a Community Voice article - where anyone in the Australian quidditch community can submit opinions and articles for the broader community.
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