The undefeated Defiants will take on the Vandals in the next Sun State Roller Girls bout. 

On 23 July, the Vandals will take on the Defiants at Beenleigh Arena, hoping to be the team that ends the Defiants winning streak.

Angie “Slawta Dawta” Dugdale, captain of the Vandals says the Defiants better be ready to taste defeat.

“We’ve trained hard and watched how the Defiants have been playing,

“We’re ready to take them down this time” said Slawta Dawta.

The Defiants want to keep the winning streak going and want to prove that it’s by their skill, not luck that they’re still undefeated.

Defiants captain Michelle “Rola Cherry Cola” Wicklandt is confident that the Defiants can pull off yet another win.

“We’re determined to show how good we are as a team,

“If we can win this one and remain undefeated, we’ll show that we’re a real force to be reckoned with” said Rola Cherry Cola.

This is expected to be one of the biggest games this season with Sun State Roller Girls fans wanting to see if the Vandals can overcome the Defiants.

Date:              Saturday 23^rd July 2011

Time:            Doors open 6.30pm, Game starts at 7.30pm

Venue:           Beenleigh Arena, 2\10 Milne St, Beenleigh, QLD, 4207

Tickets:         Online at www.sunstaterollergirls.com: Adults $11*; concession $9*;

*Plus booking fee

At the door: Adults $15; concession $12; children under 12 free

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On Saturday the 9th of July 2011, Sydney Roller Derby League delivered Pulp Friction: their 5th bout of their 2011 season. The Beauty School Knockouts played a mini bout with the Western Sydney Roller‘s Boutlaws before The D’viants took on the undefeated Team Unicorn. The Knockouts took the  win 62 to 28, but the Boutlaws made them work hard for it.

The D’viants served up a unicorn’s head during their march out, setting the scene to what became an aggressively intense bout! The first half saw the teams almost neck and neck with the Unicorns maintaining a firm lead. The D’viants blocked defensively and ripped the lead from their hooves in the second half. The final jam stood at a one point difference with the Unicorns leading 128 to 127. In the few seconds that followed Winnie Bruise secured the win and the Unicorns took out a victorious 132 to 127 game.

After the bout we sat down with Captain Ratz from Team Unicorn and Bitchy ‘n’ Scratchy from The D’viants for an insight into the thrilling game.

Susy Pow: You guys came into this game undefeated, was there any pressure that the team was feeling before the game, did you work on that.

Captain Ratz: No, not at all. There was a lot of pressure and stress the last game, this game; both teams were completely mellow about it. We knew whatever happens in this game, we both love each other. Personally, I love The D’viants, they’re my ex team, I would love to watch them take the championship, and I think a lot of the girls feel that way. All the girls on The D’viants are the nicest girls and they’ve worked so hard, so there wasn’t that stress going into it, we were happy either way.

Susy Pow: We saw a lot of aggressive play tonight and the scores were tight right until the end. The Unicorns got a last minute win, is there anything that the team picked up while the game was on that you think you could work on?

Captain Ratz: Every game is like this for us, we’ve never had anything in the bag. It’s been down to the last second, one point difference and then something happens and fortunately luck has been on our side. We had a little bit of trouble keeping our cool in this game. There wasn’t anger and frustration, we were mellow, but we started getting frantic because they have big hitters on their team. When people aren’t playing position, it sort of freaks people out, when they’re starting to hit you and it gets a bit one on one, that’s when we lose it.

Susy Pow: In this season every team has a lot of new players. Is there anyone specific on your team that you have felt has really shined?

Captain Ratz: I do, all of them! In the beginning you are so scared when you first start bouting and I think they were afraid of messing up and not living up to what we wanted. When we started playing games, they were really getting it and being really affective. It has been a lot of bonding. I don’t want to name anyone specific because I think they have all had so much heart and courage. They are completely different players from when they first started on the team.

Bitchy ‘n’ Scratchy: Half our team is pretty new; we work on what we do as a team, not what we do as individuals or in pairs. We allhave a game plan; they get taught the game plan. Everyone knows what the jobs are on the track and we coach everyone to learn our game. It’s not an individual sport, it’s a team sport, a team effort, team training, everyone can work with everyone.

Susy Pow: There was a jam in the second half when you tried to call off the jam, but you couldn’t because you weren’t lead jammer. Then you ended up in the bin, we weren’t sure if that was because of a fourth minor??

Captain Ratz: I still don’t know what happened because my team did a ‘no pack’. I’m not entirely clear. I got hit out; if it was recognised as a ‘no pack’ that was an illegal hit. It was just a little mistake, my bench manager told me to call it off. EASY mistake because I thought I was lead as well, I thought it was illegal for her to hit me out. So I called it off, sat on the bench, and points where being score on us. Then Dodge Sportsman comes over “916 not supposed to be in the bin, go back out.” We were all very confused.

Susy Pow: You guys were leading towards the end of the game and obviously it was a last minute win for The Unicorns, how did you guys feel coming into the game knowing that they were undefeated?

Bitchy ‘n’ Scratchy: We’ve always have faith in our team; we don’t look at the scores or who’s who when we’re playing. We play our game no matter who we’re playing or what the score is. We have a calm bench, we stay calm on the track, it doesn’t matter if we’re forty points up or forty points down; we just have a game plan. We try not to get rattled by who we’re playing, undefeated, whatever. We feel, as a team, we’re as strong as any undefeated team.  We’ve had really close games, we’ve nearly pulled the win away, and it’s been ripped away two jams towards the end, again. I thought it was going to be a nice close game, I think we were the underdogs pretty heavily, but I didn’t think we were going to get walked over, so it was what I expected, really close either way.

Susy Pow: Yes, it was really close and we could see some that some of your defensive blocking was really working on their strongest jammers.

Bitchy ‘n’ Scratchy: We have been working on a lot of team blocking; we know a heavy defence is a good offense. It’s not an offensive game. We know, as a team, what we have to do as to who’s jamming, it’s just pulling it off on the day.

Susy Pow: With The D’viants we see a lot of touching/feeling on the track, is that something you’ve worked on in training?

Bitchy ‘n’ Scratchy: It’s our communication; it’s pushing and pulling each other. Walls are only closed when you’re hip to hip. We know where our team mates are even when we’re looking the other way, you know you’re not alone. It’s how we communicate; you can’t hear verbal things out there. A strong team works together.

Susy Pow: Is there anything else that you want people to know about The D’viants?

Bitchy ‘n’ Scratchy: We are really proud to be The D’viants, we love each other, we’re always proud to play as the D’viants and we love our team work. We’re solid, clinical and clean. We’re all on the same page. We support each other, we’re a bunch of friends, and we’re all connected. I wouldn’t want to be on any other team, except The Assassins.

Sydney Roller Derby League’s next bout “Natural Born Rollers” is August 6th. The Screaming Assault Sirens will play the Beauty School Knockouts with a mini bout between The D’viants and The Western Sydney Boutlaws. Keep an eye on out for more information soon.

RDAU wishes to thank Bitchy ‘n’ Scratchy, Captain Ratz, Kim Lee, Susy Pow and  Sydney Roller Derby League.

All photographs by Captain Shutterspeed.

© RDAU 2011
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WIRD hosted an amazing ERRD Round 2 on June 26 2011. RDAU had a chance to chat to SRDL‘s: Haterade and Sideshow Ho from The Assassins and Ova Bearing and Bambi von Smash’er from CRDL‘s Vice City Rollers.

RDAU: How does it feel to be representing your league at this year’s ERRD tournament?

Ova Bearing: It’s fantastic. It’s really nice to come all this way from a couple smaller teams to four teams then a rep team, it’s really nice to be a part of that.

Bambi von Smash’er: You don’t fantasise that you’ll be over thirty one day, at all and representing your sport at the kind of level we have been able to with derby. Derby has been quite quick to grow and very grass roots and all of the above, so to be a part of Eastern Region and get to know Newcastle, Wollongong and Western Sydney is really exciting.

Haterade: This is the highlight: it’s what we really train for. I keep saying nine hours a week, but nine hours a week is a lot of time to find. Sideshow and I are both coaches and we both put a lot of time in. For me, representing the league is one thing, but representing the league with the group of girls we had today is just amazing. We have six girls on the team that have played five bouts in their lives. They’re on the representative squad because they have been working their absolute butts off. I love that about roller derby: if you work and have an aptitude for it you will succeed and you will advance and that’s a really good feeling to see them succeed today.

Sideshow Ho: Absolutely. We also have home teams and a home team season where we play against each other. For me those games are about fun, whereas representing Sydney as the Assassins is what it really is about.

Haterade: These are the competitive games.

Sideshow Ho: We get to play against leagues that we’ve played against for the past year or so and it’s great to see them developing as well. Just to play a game where you don’t know what’s going to happen when get out there on the track and all you know is that we’re going to bring our A game and let’s see what happens.

RDAU: The Vice City Rollers have come up against The Assassins before, how does it feel to play them again, is there any kind of rivalry?

Ova Bearing: Absolutely.

Bambi von Smash’er: Definitely. We had a relationship from the start with Sydney. They were a bit ahead of us in terms of the timeline, they’d been around six or eight months before we started. When we got to the stage where we could bout, they had a shortage in their home teams so few of us were loaned to Sydney and played our first bouts in Sydney teams which was exciting.

Ova Bearing: It was a great learning curve.

Bambi von Smash’er: It started off a great relationship between our leagues. Since then, thankfully Sydney’s numbers came up and they didn’t need us anymore, which was a bit sad but also a great thing for the sport. Since then we’ve played each other: Sydney beat us consistently for the first four bouts and the last two, we’ve taken them!

Ova Bearing: It’s a great rivalry between the teams and we just love playing each other. It’s really nice to come together and learn from each other.

RDAU: What was the highlight in the ERRD Round 2 CRDL Vs SRDL bout?

Bambi von Smash’er: That’s hard.

Ova Bearing: Oooh, there was a couple of really nice hits. I like to controlled games when it’s nice and slow and you’ve got someone behind you and you’re just not letting them through. It’s a very good feeling. Sydney’s a great team to play, it doesn’t matter if we win or lose.

Bambi von Smash’er: Everyone wins in derby. My highlight was taking Sideshow out on the corner when she was jamming, I was sure I was going to get a major, but I didn’t which was great.

Sideshow Ho: The last jam.

Haterade: The last jam, when the jammer couldn’t get through. There’s something really special about owning a jammer defensively. The scoreboard doesn’t matter at that point, just when you’re working really well with your team mates and that jammer cannot get through, that’s a highlight. Even though we did lose on a close one, we finished on a real high point.

Sideshow Ho: And I think the highlight, just in general is to see that all our team’s hard work (this is the second game we’ve played together as this squad) and training has paid off and we have really come together and I feel so proud.

Haterade: Yes, so do I, I really do.

The final score was CRDL 99 to SRDL 87

WIRD will be hosting the ERRD Round 3 July 16/17.

Photos by Kim Lee: Roaringstorm Photography.

 We wish to thank Bambi von Smash’er, CharLotta Pain, Courtney Love Bite, Demolition Daisy, DropBear, ERRD, Haterade, Janis Job’em, Kim Lee, KimOcean, Ova Bearing, Pepã la Pow, Susy Pow, Sideshow Ho, SRDL, WIRD, WSR and everyone that helped over the weekend!