ROADTRIP - JOHOR PAINTBALL LEAGUE 2008 (GRAND FINALE)

JOHOR PAINTBALL LEAGUE 2008 (GRAND FINALE) –JPL08 GF
OCTVILLE GOLF & COUNTRY CLUB, BANDAR SERI ALAM,
PASIR GUDANG JOHOR DT
13th & 14th December 2008

JPL08 GF was going to be Team Nemesis’s final tournament in this fruitful 2008 paintball calendar of ours. 7 of us made the trip there with the 1st car leaving after Friday prayers & the 2nd car with me, soon & jr leaving KL late in the evening. Had dinner at the Pagoh R&R, Soon & myself having Nasi Lemak bungkus & a couple of Pau Daging. Jr had Spaghetti taupaued from home. We reached our hotel in Pasir Gudang at around 10pm,had our bath and did the usual day before tourney routine of changing the loaders and markers batteries etc.

Saturday Dec 13,2008
It’s a 5minute drive from our hotel to the tournament site at OCTVILLE GOLF & COUNTRY CLUB,home of Armour Paintball. 20 teams from Malaysia & also Singapore were there playing in 3 categories. Only 1 field was setup as opposed to 2 fields in the initial pre-tourney info that we got. Maybe the low turnout of teams competing had something to do with it. The field was nicely setup with DXS Millennium bunkers & the grass was great.
For the Open Category there was only 4 teams competing with Nemesis, Raskal, No Mercy & Demonz Red being the 4. Prelims was schedule for 8games & were to be played today. Tourney was schedule to start at 8am but it only started off at around 9am with the rookie division playing 1st. By lunchtime we had only played 3 of our games & the constant stoppage of play by both organiser & Refs really slowed the pace of the scheduling. By end of Day 1, 2 of the Open Division games had to be pushed to Sunday.

We had dinner at a roadside stall near the hotel selling nasi lemak & Sup Gearbox. I had Sup Perut,Urat & Daging plus a plate of Nasi Lemak. The rest of the guys had about the same too. By 11pm we were all in our bed ready for a goodnight sleep.

Sunday Dec 14,2008
We had breakfast at a nearby Mamak before going to the field. Day 2 was suppose to start at 8am but since it was still raining & also a group of MPRB ref were also at the mamak having their breakfast so we weren’t in any rush to eat our roti canai. By 8am we were at the field ready for our remaining 2 prelims game. The game only started after 9am, it was still raining but anymore delay will definitely disrupt the scheduling further. Nemesis qualified 1st in the prelims so we’ll be going against Demonz Red in the Semis. Raskal will be up against No Mercy, who qualified 2nd, showing they are a team to watch out for if they decide to play in Div. 1 next year.

Just as we were about to start playing in our Open Div semis fixtures, game came to a halt once again after a controversial incident by a ref on the field during the match between Raz Legion vs D’Mercy Kid. So another delay while we wait for the MPRB refs to settle their matters between themselves in the middle of the field. There was already talks of two different fractions between them going up against each other. We asked the organiser for an early lunch break so that we won’t be waiting in our full gears till the refs settle their problems and with the agreement from team captains the lunch break was announce from 11am-2pm.

2pm. We were ready for our semis match against Demonz Red. Nemesis won the 1st game while in the 2nd semis, No Mercy won against Raskal. In our 2nd game, it started evenly, with both team losing bodies early on. In the end it was 2vs2 with Mango and Todo both taking out each other while on the other end jr was zooming on to Dennis. Much to our dismay, jr was having a jam trigger and wasn’t able to fire a single shot while trying to bunker Dennis. So it was an easy kill for Dennis & he was able to hang the flag in time. More drama was actually happening on the other end with Todo having a go with the refs for taking him out. Words was said, equipment was thrown so in the end, Demonz Red got the win but with a price where Todo was given a 6 match ban.

The 3rd game was also not without controversy. Demonz went into the field with 5 players but Todo wasn’t in the line up. Maybe it was their understanding that only Todo was ban and they can replace him with somebody else to complete the line up. Refs came to pullout 1 player and in the end it was Patrick who was coming out. So the match started with 5 vs 4 and it was all over in a couple of minute. Gary & Amos was taken out right after breakout and soon it was all over. We were on our way to the finals.

Raskal won both their remaining game to win their semis. So it was going to be a Raskal vs Nemesis final then. It the Novice Div, it was gonna be a final between D’Mercy Kids vs Todak Lockdown.

Finals
1st game was an evenly fought match. We were three up against two from Raskal by in the end we ran out of time. So it was a draw. 2nd game was all Raskal. We lost bodies early in the game and in the end were no match against Raskal. A win for Raskal.

Final game was a do or die for us. Raskal lost 2 guys on the break and soon after lost Aris on the back left temple. With both Pot & Abby being pin on the right side of the field it took a bunkering move by Awe to take out both of them & a win for us with 5 bodies up. Soon after game over , the announcer after getting the go ahead by the UJ, announced that Nemesis is the champion. I had my doubt on this since if we follow NPL or NPPL rules, only a flag hang will determine a win for either team so since both team got 1win each, then it’s still a tie. But with all the amateurish decision done by the MPRB during day1 & day2 of the tourney then anything could happen. Raskal did a protest and for 5minutes Nemesis were the Champion lol. The result was then overruled and the championship will be decided by a 1on1 match. Another boo boo by the MPRB. Aris of Raskal when against Awe of Nemesis and the match was all over in under 1minute. Awe was hit on the face mask with a bounce ball of the bunker and so Raskal is the Champion, this time for real.

Prize giving ceremony was done way after 8pm, graciously of the VIP to still be there since arriving around 5pm. In the end we were a bit disappointed with the end result but also happy with the way we played especially in the final game. The feeling of winning the game with 5 bodies up right after losing the game before was just great.

Overall it was an OK tournament. The field, layout & paint was ok. The organiser should emphasis on a better run tourney, better scheduling & please no more MPRB marshals. The fast pace of the games in Open & Novice Division and with markers on ramping was just too fast for them to input. I guess the vacation trip……………errrr I meant training trip to HB NPPL every year didn’t do any good to them then. The comedies of errors was just hard to swallow by a professional bodies such as the MPRB.

p/s : NO, you don’t need to hang your opponents flag in a Final 1on1 game. Teams are only playing for elimination. No need to pull and hang the flag. I guess NPPL didn’t teach them that at HB. Anyway it was fun seeing Aris running & emptying his marker on his way to hang the flag.

Pros
- Great Prize Money
- Accomodations & Location
- 4k air
- nice field
- Chrono ref(he shoots only 2-3x,won’t ramp your marker).Every pallet counts nowadays :)

Cons
- scheduling delays
- marshalling %$*##@^
- weather (it seems November & December is a bad time of the year to have a tourney. Either you employ a good weather consultant or pray to god it won’t rain during the event.