Road to QUAFL: Victorian Champions Melbourne Manticores

Photo Credit: Melbourne Manticores Quidditch ClubQUAFL 2018 is taking place this weekend. Before 24 of Australia’s finest Quidditch teams converge on the Sunshine Coast for 2 days, let’s take a moment to get to know some of the best teams in each attending state. Today we talked to Jack Emerton of the oldest team in Victoria, about the Melbourne Manticore’s success this year and their goals for QUAFL How did it feel to win the Vic Cup Grand Final?Along with the joy and glory of winning it all, it also felt like a massive weight off our shoulders to be able to reverse the result of last years grand final in our favour, especially after all the hard work everyone put in To what does your club owe its success?Our team's success is most in part due to how seriously we take Quidditch, even though we have a lot of fun playing, we all have that burning desire to win.  What are you most looking forward to at QUAFL this year?I always look forward to playing against new teams each year, which is an opportunity to test against new competition and to make new friends.  Who are some of your more understated stars that you want other teams to watch out for?The underrated star of the manticores would be Mary-Clare [Conheady-Barker], she may be small in stature but she's tough enough to take on any challenge. Underestimate her at your own peril.  Who is a team from your state that you want other teams to watch out for?The Melbourne Ravens are a new team that formed this year, bringing players from multiple teams together to form a new challenger. It'll be interesting to watch them at QUAFL.  A number of your team members were in respective state teams this year. What do you think you’ve learnt from the competition this year?I feel Victoria is home to some of the best Quidditch players in Australia, I feel very lucky to be teammates with some of those players. There's so much to learn being around all these great players on both sides of the pitch. I've learned how far I've come as a player since I began and how much harder I need to work if I want to reach the levels of my teammates.  Other than the games and medals you’ve won, what’s your team’s biggest achievement?One of our biggest achievements how our new players have fitted into our team so seamlessly. It's a great sense of mateship on the Manticores and how well we all get along.  On a more negative note, what’s one of the biggest hurdles your team has had to deal with?Perhaps the hardest challenge for us was having the team come together consistently. Aside from Quidditch, we all work jobs and it's hard to weave Quidditch into our work schedule, sometimes we couldn't get everyone together to have a full training session, have people turning up late because of work or even be undermanned for games. That was perhaps our biggest hurdle to overcome.  What are some future directions of the club for after QUAFL?Once QUAFL is finished, whether we win or lose, our focus will immediately shift to next year, we'll have our summer break but before you know it, we'll be back at training with our goal of improving on our previous season. Many thanks to Regina Atkinson and Tegan Diep for their work putting this interview together 

Road to QUAFL: NSW Champions University of Sydney Unspeakables

Photo credit: Maddi Moulton PhotographyQUAFL 2018 is taking place this weekend. Before 24 of Australia’s finest Quidditch teams converge on the Sunshine Coast for 2 days, let’s take a moment to get to know some of the best teams in each attending state. Today we talked to Ajantha Abey, President of the University of Sydney Quidditch Club - The Largest Quidditch Club In The Country - and Co-Captain of the USyd Unspeakables, about his team’s success this year and their goals for QUAFL. How did it feel to win the NQL Grand Final?Pretty great. Pretty relieving frankly, especially after so many near misses on the way there, between things like losing our Blue Tongues [NSW State Team A] keeper Max Brenner to a wrist injury, and Gary Hague catching for overtime [in an earlier game between the Unspeakables and the Sydney City Serpents]. I was honestly fully prepared to lose finals, and focus on QUAFL, but once again, the team showed me up and played some of the best quidditch I’ve ever seen. That’s probably not what felt best about the game – not just the fact that we won, but that everything we’d been training to do over the past year came together with a series of perfectly executed plays, and the synergy the whole team had and the vibe we ran with the entire game made it incredibly fun. To what does your club owe its success?I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, and at the end of the day, I think it comes down to everyone in the club being incredibly passionate and invested in quidditch, and the club itself being extremely good at engendering and inspiring this feeling in people. As a volunteer run sport, we rely on people using their own time to make quidditch happen – be that at the presidential level running the club, the coaches running trainings, the exec running events, and even just the players and members turning up and training and playing in the first place. On a cold, miserably, rainy Thursday afternoon, you’ll still find people running around Victoria Park on PVC pipes from 2-5pm, and it takes a certain level of dedication and a lot of hard work at all levels to make that happen. I think what Usyd Quidditch does best is showing people how awesome and fun quidditch is and helping them fall in love with it – and that’s where all of our success stems from. That’s certainly what happened to me anyway. What are you most looking forward to at QUAFL this year?Game One against the Monash Muggles is something I personally have been looking forward to for years. After missing the 72-minute epic 70-20 comeback victory for the Unspeakables at Mudbash 2016, the only other time in the past five years we’ve met was at Mudbash this year, where the score was within 10 points before snitch catch. With both Unspeakables and Muggles losing a lot of their older talent to graduate community teams at the end of 2016, but having a superb rebuilding season in 2017, the showdown between these two teams who in their own regions are proving that university teams are can still be just as competitive as their graduate counterparts is sure to be an incredibly fun and entertaining match – bolstered by the fact that both teams have relatively similar playing styles. Expect some epic beater battles, amazing passing plays, and some quality entertaining quidditch, from both sides. Who are some of your more understated stars that you want other teams to watch out for?Do I have to answer this question? I’d much rather they remain our secret weapon and have teams not watch out for them…For real though, on a team of star state-level male beaters, Jv James Lim is often overlooked, and always to the opposition’s loss. Jv is one of the most calm and consistent players on the team, capable of adapting to any role and playstyle. His level-headed awareness and understanding of the game allows him to dismantle fast breaks faster than you can tear a perforated notepad page, and he is the worst nightmare of anyone trying to score on brooms up. Watch out for Jv’s adorable bludger boops with beater partner Alex Cunningham – those two do things with bludgers that the greatest minds of humankind are yet to understand. Who is a team from your state that you want other teams to watch out for?The Sydney City Serpents stand out as an obvious answer here – they’ve been one of our main rivals over the course of the season and the back and forth wins and loses we’ve had with them have pushed us both to up our games more and more over the year. They’re a force to be reckoned with, great fun to play against, and will be gunning for that gold just as hard as we are.I also couldn’t answer this question without mentioning our own Unforgivables and Unbreakables. For C and B teams respectively, both punch well above their weight, and even after losing players to promotions, they’re both teams to look out for – especially as much of the Unbreakables talent will likely end up playing in red next year! A number of your team members were in respective state teams this year. What do you think you’ve learnt from the competition this year?I think the competition was a great way for some of our most competitive players to get more experience not just playing with a highly skilled and competitive team, but also against some really tough competition in some very tight games. With few chances to play interstate throughout the year, the chance to play against the top players of Victoria and Queensland is invaluable for both our A and B players, both in preparation for QUAFL and also getting used to the competitive and focused mindset required for tight, SWIM, high stakes gameplay. Other than the games and medals you’ve won, what’s your team’s biggest achievement?We’re really proud of having developed an extremely cohesive, trusting, and hard-working team over the course of the year. We’ve pushed the team hard with additional squad trainings throughout the season, with people motivated to turn up and train hard even in the most inclement of conditions. One of the things we’re particularly proud of as well this year is the work that especially Courtney [Buckley] and Sam [Chittenden] have done in encouraging female ball-handling in the chaser game, and the strength and depth of our female chaser lines is one of the main strengths of our team now. On pitch everyone trusts and backs each other, and off pitch we have a really fun club/team culture. By far our greatest achievement as a team though is the fact that Brandon [Frisson] now actually passes. On a more negative note, what’s one of the biggest hurdles your team has had to deal with?As I’ve alluded to above, we’ve been plagued by injuries all year. At the start of the year, we lost one of our newest recruits, Gunny [Gunewardene], to a broken ankle. Following this, we had Nick “The Fridge” Albornoz fall to a torn knee ligament, Mirjana Stancic out with an eye injury, Max Brenner out with a fractured wrist, and both of our captains affected by injuries at various points as well – Sam with hip issues after a rough tackle, and me dislocating my ankle – just to name a few of the physical injuries. With so many ups and downs through the year, it’s been a tumultuous year, and a lot to manage. Nevertheless, the team has clearly pulled through each and every hurdle so far and continued to exceed all expectations, and we’re going to hit the ground running at QUAFL. What are some future directions of the club for after QUAFL?While some of the Unspeakables will be moving on at the end of the year, a substantial core of excellent players across all positions, alongside some absurdly talented Unbreakables who have been playing at an Unspeakables for a long time, will ensure that the team continues to be one of the most competitive in the NQL. The presidency of the club is also in the new hands of Ava McConnell, who this year acted as the Director for our Internal league. Backed by an experienced and capable executive, the club is in extremely good hands to continue to consolidate what we’ve done over the last few years with the expansion of the competitive side of the club, as well as our internal league, and continue to expand in the future. It’s only onwards and upwards from here for Usyd Quidditch. #SixTeamsAndAMovie.Many thanks to Regina Atkinson and Tegan Diep for their work putting this interview together

QUAFL Through The Ages

Regina Atkinson and Dean Rodhouse have put together this amazing piece about the history of QUAFL. 

2011

In 2011 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 was released, signalling the final instalment of the book and film series that influenced a generation. Quidditch was catching on around the world, and a group of students, led by the Quidditch Universities Australia Federation League Cup Organiser Justin Chau at UNSW put together the then-biggest quidditch tournament Australian quidditch had ever seen. Five teams; UNSW, UWS, Newcastle, Wollongong, and ANU attended the first ever QUAFL on November 26 at UNSW Physics Lawn. The tournament went for one day, with a hard cap of 30 minutes game time, seeker floor of 10 minutes, and off-pitch seeking from then until 18-24 minutes. UNSW won the Grand Final, cementing their place in the quidditch history book. While there is very little information about this tournament available online (such as any scores), the Facebook event was never taken down and can be found here. WINNER: UNSW SECOND PLACE: UWS TEAMS: 5 NEW TEAMS: UNSW Snapes on a plane, UWS Thestrals, Newcastle Fireballs, Wollongong Warriors, ANU Nargles

2012

 In its second year QUAFL doubled in size, with new attendees coming from host Macquarie University, as well as the University of Sydney (USyd), and interstate teams making the trip over from Perth, (Melbourne) Manticores, and JCU. Before the weekend started Newcastle were favourites to win [taken from a source authored by “James Hosford”], and even though they had a shaky start to games on Saturday they still arrived at the Grand Final ready to face off against UNSW. The Snapes who were hoping to become not only the first team to win QUAFL once but the first team to win QUAFL twice in a row, and after a low scoring game UNSW’s star player Andrew Culf got the snitch and the second trophy for UNSW. UWS’ Chrystal Player won Player of the Tournament. 2012 saw the birth of a different, but still wheel-y fun, adaption of Quidditch, one with “an equally popular” Grand Final taking place before the official final. The inaugural QWAFL – Wheelchair Quidditch – Cup was won by ANU Nargles over the JCU Galleons. The official title of the tournament seems to have changed, while “QUAFL” is still present the acronym has been replaced with “Oceania Regional Championships”, a bold yet technically correct claim to make when at the time Australia was the only country in the Oceania region to play quidditch. More details on QUAFL 2012 can be found here, and the Facebook event can be found here.WINNER: UNSW SECOND PLACE: Newcastle THIRD PLACE: Macquarie TEAMS: 10 NEW TEAMS: Macquarie Marauders, USyd Unspeakables, Perth Phoenixes, Melbourne Manticores, JCU Galleons

2013

In 2013 QUAFL was held at the University of Western Sydney and saw 12 teams attending thanks to new arrivals UTS and Monash. Teams were split into two pools and coming into finals UNSW and ANU were top of their pools having won every game and all but one game (to Wollongong), respectively. However, neither team made it to the Grand Final, with Macquarie and Perth taking to the field for the gold medal game. Macquarie had the home state advantage but that wasn’t enough to stop Perth’s Palmisano from catching the snitch and winning the cup for WA. There was Wheelchair quidditch across both days of the tournament, at the end of day 1 UWS were top of the 6-team ladder and at the end of day 2 UWS were still on top. 2013 also saw the final games from the JCU Galleons, who had attended two QUAFLs and only played 3 games, forfeiting the rest away. The top four teams of the tournament; Perth, Macquarie, Newcastle, USyd, qualified for World Cup VII – the seventh instalment of USA’s semi–international nationals. More information about QUAFL 2013 can be found here and the Facebook event can be found here. WINNER: Perth PhoenixesSECOND PLACE: Macquarie THIRD/FOURTH PLACE: Usyd & Newcastle TEAMS: 12 NEW TEAMS: UTS Opaleyes, Monash Muggles

2014

Held at Macquarie University, the fourth edition of QUAFL was attended by 13 teams, with JCU departing the national scene while the Basilisks and the Wrackspurts made their debut outside of Victoria. Again, two pools were used to divide the teams, coming into the semi-finals the undefeated UNSW found themselves the only NSW team present against the Basilisks, while the Manticores and Wrackspurts faced off. UNSW continued their winning streak all the way to the Grand Final where they were bested by the Melbourne Manticores, who took the trophy back to Victoria for the first time. The weekend was marred by awful weather with the Grand Final was played “in the midst of a torrential late evening rainstorm”, despite a weather report at the time predicting 31-degree heat. UWS retained their titles of Wheelchair Quidditch champions, again in a competition of 6 teams. Again, there is a change in the event title, now doing away with both an explanation of the acronym or a claim at being a regional championship, the event is simply “QUAFL 2014” More information about QUAFL 2014 can be found here and the Facebook event can be found here.WINNER: Manticores SECOND PLACE: UNSW THIRD/FOURTH PLACE: Basilisks & Monash TEAMS: 13 NEW TEAMS: Basilisks, Wrackspurts

2015

In its fifth year, QUAFL was held outside of NSW for the first time with the Monash Muggles hosting the 19-team tournament. The tournament was directed by Monash Team Rep Nicola Gertler.Due to the increase in attendance teams were split into three pools, at the end of pool play the Manticores were favourites to win again after an undefeated Vic Cup and QUAFL day 1. When they got to the Grand Final they faced off against the also undefeated UNSW, and at the end of their rematch of the previous year’s Grand Final the Manticores again came away the victors. Wheelchair Quidditch took place on the Friday before QUAFL weekend, again with 6 teams entering and Western Sydney winning the competition. This year marks a noticeable change in the Quidditch atmosphere – Western Sydney have changed their name and dropped the Harry Potter association. While this change was brought initially brought about by a change in their university affiliation status, the previous murmurs around Quidditch and its status as a real sport compared to a fan club are becoming stronger. This conversation will presumably last ad infinitum, or at least until the name of the sport is changed (if that ever happens) the community across Australia is clearly starting to take things a bit more seriously. The Facebook event for QUAFL 2015 can be found here.WINNER: Manticores SECOND PLACE: UNSW THIRD/FOURTH PLACE: USyd/Newcastle TEAMS: 19 NEW TEAMS: QUT Lycans, Adelaide Augureys, USC Dementors, South Melbourne Centaurs, Melbourne Unicorns, La Trolls.

2016

Now known as international gold medallists following the 2016 IQA World Cup, QUAFL 2016 marked the first time the competition wasn’t held at a University campus, and instead was held at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra. The Tournament Director was Matt Ingram, originally from Newcastle. With 23 teams each team was split into four pools, with Western Sydney, Monash, and the Wrackspurts dominating their respective pools at the end of pool play, while the Manticores placed top of their pool despite losing a game to Perth. For the first time in QUAFL history a third place play off took place, with the Manticores forfeiting the bronze to Monash. The Grand Final saw Western Sydney and the Wrackspurts face off in a battle of the blue jerseys, both teams fielding world class players that kept the score tight until the Wrackspurts came away with the snitch and the victory. Wheelchair Quidditch again took place a day before QUAFL kicked off, this time with 5 teams and still Western Sydney won it all. 2016 QUAFL was a tournament of firsts; the first time a B team made an appearance - by the University of Sydney Unbreakables - the first time QUAFL was held on a professional sports field, the first time a third place play off took place, and the first-time trading cards were available at QUAFL. The name for the event again changed, no longer the Oceania championships the tournament is the “Australian Quidditch Championships” The Facebook event for QUAFL 2016 can be found here.WINNER: Wrackspurts QC SECOND PLACE: Western Sydney QC THIRD PLACE: Monash Muggles FOURTH PLACE: Melbourne Manticores TEAMS: 23 NEW TEAMS: UQ Dumblebees, USyd Unbreakables, SA Bunyips, Macarthur Weasleys, ACU Paladins

2017

In 2017 QUAFL returned to the AIS, with 25 teams in tow. The continued use of the Canberra venue was largely viewed positively, as the fields themselves were top standard and any negatives to do with the location were not as important was fantastic fields. The Tournament was Directed by Merryn Christian Teams were again split into four pools with games played across 6 pitches simultaneously. The game of the tournament was predicted to be between the newly formed and state league dominators, Serpents and Willows, however this face off took place in the Semi Finals following Willows’ seeker/chaser/keeper Morton snitch catch with less than 5 seconds on the overtime clock against Western Sydney. The Willows again came out on top in this game and continued on to the Grand Final. The third place play off was again forfeited by the Manticores, however the Serpents and the Manticores still took their scheduled time to play a fun game. For the first time since 2013 the Grand Final was played by teams from the same state, the Willows hoped to make their mark in their first year while the Wrackspurts aimed to defend their national title. The game was won by the newest team on the block, and the Willows took the trophy back to the same state it’s been in since 2014. Wheelchair Quidditch did not make an appearance this year. Its presence was missed, however hopefully it will make a comeback before too long. The weather over the weekend was atrocious. A few days out from the tournament the schedule had to be pushed back to accommodate for the rain damaged fields, and two of the six fields played on were synthetic grass while the other four were natural grass. Scoresheets were too damaged to be read, so the scores from a few games are either missing or potentially inaccurate. The Facebook event for QUAFL 2017 can be found here.WINNER: Whomping Willows QC SECOND PLACE: Wrackspurts QC THIRD PLACE: SerpentsFOURTH PLACE: ManticoresTEAMS: 25 NEW TEAMS: Melbourne Unicorns Blue, USyd Unforgivables, Whomping Willows, Monash Mudbloods, Glenelg Gargoyles, Sydney Serpents

2018

In just under two weeks, QUAFL 2018 will take place. This year we’re back to a University campus, but for the first time in history QUAFL will be held in Queensland, at the University of the Sunshine Coast. The Tournament will be Directed by Alistair Yap. This year the competition will be fiercer than ever, with 24 teams will be attending spread evenly across 4 pools. USC Dementors have the home advantage and coming off the back of winning the Queensland League they’re sure to want to add another trophy to the collection. USyd Unspeakables have the largest club in Australia and the largest depth of players in Australia, through winning the NSW League they’ve shown one or two injuries can’t phase them. Out of all the state league winners, the Melbourne Manticores are the only team to have previously won a QUAFL and they’ve shown this year that their top performance is not in the past. Who will take home the trophy this year? Will it come back to Victoria for the 5th year in a row? Will it come back to its home state of NSW? Or will Queensland finally get a grab at the gold? We’ll find out #soon The Facebook event for QUAFL 2018 can be found here.