WCBU preview : Netherlands Mixed

By @SimonCocking

Happy to catch up with Rogier Postma: co-captain of the Dutch mixed team for WCBU.

How has the training been going? 

Really well. We started about a year ago with this team so we could practice and play together a lot. We are very satisfied with our progression as a team and our chemistry is awesome!

How geographically spread out is your team? How do you manage meeting up?

Well, The Netherlands is quite small, so that’s  quite easy. Most players live in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Den Haag which are not far apart. Travel time for practice for most team members is under an hour.

Where have you been training? You have beaches, but not too near, were you using them over the winter to train?

We have mostly practiced at the beach of Zandvoort, but because we wanted to be able to practice if the weather was really bad we also found an indoor-beach accommodation. We have practiced there about 6 or 7 times, which was awesome. The field was a bit smaller than the official beach field, but we could work a lot on playing in a small space and run very intense practices. Coolest thing though: we didn’t have to pay for the indoor hall, because they are sponsoring us! After WCBU we’ll give a couple of clinics there, this also helps to make ultimate more known in The Netherlands. We also practiced at a city-beach in Amsterdam.

Have you played any warm up tournaments with the team?

Yes, quite a few since we started so early with preparations. We won our first one in Bibione (Italy), played some open tournaments in which we ended up quite high, won our Open National Beach Championship, ended 9^th at CFC Lanzarote and 3^rd at MOW (after Portugal, Germany and ahead of Ireland and GB).

What are you hoping to achieve at WCBU?

We hope we can consistently beat the teams we are supposed to beat and win a couple of games against teams we know we can beat, but used to lose to by one or two points. And of course have a lot of fun!

Which teams are you looking forward to playing?

There are many teams in our pool which we never have played before so that’s really cool. I think playing the Philippines and Uganda will be special, but also playing European champions Sweden and of course Canada which will probably have a very strong team.

Have any of you been to Dubai / What do you think it will be like to play there?

No. It will be very warm, so we arrive a couple of days early to acclimatise. It must be cool to play on a beautiful beach with huge skyscrapers behind you.

Predictions

who do you think will contest the final in your category?

Mixed: probably the USA, but the other finalist is hard to predict. Sweden played very well at ECBU, so let’s go with them.

Where do you think / aim / hope to finish? 

It would be very nice if we could make it to the quarter finals. We are seeded 9^th, so if everything comes together top 8 could be possible…

What else would you like to add ?

I wish all teams good luck! We are looking forward to play hard and have fun together.