Day 3 – Match 3 2010-06-24
There was some heated debate before this match started as to whether we would actually be playing it or not. Our other “superteam” team (today we are in a superteam of 2 teams again, which is a disadvantage) seems to want to play it as well, and are a bit put out that we are assigned to play 5 matches and they are assigned to play 4 out of the 9 posible slots today. But we do need to play this match again against the Dream Team again after the way that the match we had against them before ended. The other superteam team has won so many matches already that they don’t really need the points – they will be into the finals for sure. It’s time for Tairo (the Japanese professor in charge of RCJ soccer) to intervene. He and the boys disappear for a while.
The Dream Team seem to be fairly voluble, and our paired superteam is as well. This could go on for a while. At least the Dream Team mentor is not involving himself in these discussions. Julian just returned from having been watching the humanoid leagues downstairs. He’d had to remove his orange TechnoBotts t-shirt as the ball that they play with is orange and extraneous orange objects in their field of view would be too confusing. Fortunately he had a white one on underneath.
The boys have been gone a long time now – we’re still anxiously awaiting the results of the discussions they’re having. The best possible decision for us would be that we don’t play the match against Fuyong (who wiped the floor with us twice yesterday) and that we do play both the Dream Team and Team Victory. Fingers crossed. Well, we got the Dream Team match to play, and, sadly, the Fuyong match, but not the Team Victory match, which is a big shame. We would have enjoyed playing them again, and the result of it would have been anyone’s guess as we are so well matched with them.
The Dream Team pulled into an early lead, scoring the first goal. Their robot is having no problem seeing the ball now, but we find it hard to believe that the ball in the earlier match was faulty as we are finding it pretty much the same. They are certainly seeing it a lot better than we are, which is a big advantage for them, as is their superior speed and power. They score again.
They pushed the ball up the pitch to the yellow goal – the wrong end – and almost scored an own goal before doing a long dribble back to the blue goal and scoring again. They take the ball up to the right hand corner by the yellow goal, and the ref moves the ball to the neutral spot close by. They sweep down the pitch and score again, and then again. It’s now 5-0 in their favour.
They take the ball up to the yellow goal end – and thoughtfully pop it into the goal for us. It’s now 5-1. And then 5-2, as they score another own goal. We really aren’t seeing much of the ball in this match – it’s frustrating. If only they would score a few more goals for us!
Dream Team take the ball down to the blue right corner, and get it stuck. The ref moves it to the closest neutral spot, and they quickly score three more goals before the end of the first half. 8-2 to them. After half time the TechnoBotts are summoned back from the table in the pit area where they had been making some quick modifications to the goalie robot. Within moments of the second half starting, Dream Team scored twice, then threatened to score an own goal but thought better of it.
We actually gained possession of the ball briefly, and had a long kick towards their goal, but hit the post. There was then a tussle up by the yellow left corner, with TechnoBotts defending vigorously, before the ball was moved to the neutral spot and then Dream team scored again. We couldn’t help noticing that the poor ref seemed somewhat nervous about putting his hand between the two opposing teams’ robots to retrieve the ball. This was not really surprising given that the Dream Team’s robots were roughly triangular, with sharp edges and corners, and rotated fast every few seconds, whereas ours was kicking violently. I’d have requested stout leather gauntlets.
The speed with which the Dream Team robots both drive forward and rotate is way superior to anything our poor little Lego robots can manage. We’re outclassed by the other team’s superior power again. The score soon rose to 13-2.
The Dream Team then went the wrong way, dribbling the ball backwards, and put it straight into the blue goal – another one for us. 13-3. And then they did it again – 13-4, and again – 13-5. We saw our forward robot giving the opposing team’s robot a few crafty kicks as it drove past – taking out its frustrations, no doubt.
The Dream Team robot then started aiming towards the correct end of the pitch again, and scored three more goals in quick succession before the final whistle blew. The final score was 16-5, and all those goals were scored by the opposition – not a great match for us. But we’ve had worse defeats, and we feared we were soon to have another at the hands of Team Fuyong.