Easter Saturday saw Wellington's Richter City Roller Derby host a double
header, showcasing their recent Fresh Meat grads and a better known
Convicts team against Mixed Mayhem and Vagine Regime Aotearoa respectively,
two teams made up of representatives from around the country.
First up were the recent RCRD graduates, skating under the name of "Primal
Cuts", against a team of 'tender' meat from the lower North Island calling
themsevles Mixed Mayhem. With skaters from Bay City Rollers (Hawke's Bay),
Whenua Fatales Roller Derby (Levin), River City Rollers (Wanganui),
Rimutaka Roller Derby (Upper Hutt), and Kapiti Coast Derby Collective (er,
Kapiti Coast). While some of those on the Mixed team were popping their
bouting cherries, some had a little more bouting under their bout, and
some even more. Even though it was a mixed team with little to no
experience playing together, this varying experience up against the very
tender Primal Cuts was soon apparent. A very natural looking jammer in Indy
Way (River City) with help from Scrappy (Kapiti), Diabolical(Fatales) and
Sweet-ish Chef (Bay city) helped Mixed Mayhem rack up the points, despite
some good displays of blocking from Ninety Nine and MelPractice and the
rest of the Primal Cuts. Going into half time the scores were 184 to 46.
Half time dressing room pep talks worked for the Cuts, they came out firing
and winning more lead jammer status than in the first half, but were unable
to get points whilst preventing Mayhem from picking up some themselves, so
the gap in points was never really closed. An expulsion, an successful
panty stash, and a strange attempt at a panty pass made the second half a
bit more eventful than the first. There is definitely some promise in the
newest skaters to join Richter City, I'm looking forward to watching them
grow, especially Adrienne's Wall, Frankenslide and Deb Auchery. Final
scores 114 to 292, Mixed Mayhem taking the win.
Second bout of the evening saw RCRD's B team Convicts against
Vagine Regime
Aotearoa,
a team made up of queer and supportive skaters from throughout New Zealand, in which
I spotted at least one skater from Auckland Roller Derby League, another from
Christchurch's Dead End Derby, a handful from Bay City, a couple from
Nelson's Sirens of Smash (a team who sadly had to pull out of the top 10
tournament), and a few ex RCRD skaters in Venom de Plume, Meat Train and
InvisiGirl. The derby virgins next to me rightly noted as they observed
warm up that these skaters were much more confident on their feet compared
to those in the first game, but that's to be expected when most of them have several
years experience under their belt. Commentary from Ella Kazam and Tuff
Bikkies throughout this game made me positively squee from excitement of
what's to come this season for Richter City and the skaters in question.
VRA teammates Moose Hoof and Killer Mayhem, both more than holding their own
against some more established Convicts, have recently transferred from
Fatales to the big time of Richter City, unfortunately missing cut off for
making the travel teams, but give them time!
Another recent transfer from
Fatales was Berocca Bomba, who featured heavily in the Convicts' jammer
rotation, showing that Levin has been a training ground punching well above
it's small town weight for upcoming skaters. Another Levin skater in the
match, Crazy Crab, made an impression for managing to score heavily as
jammer despite being up against the solid formidable walls and tag team work of
Gael Force and Poise n Dart (Force n Dart?); it was unfortunate Crabs was
later expelled for dangerous penalty box entry. VRA had the advantage of
some good strong and fast jammers in Bay ladies Dee Capitator and Kill
Billy, and despite the help from MacKenzie (previously known as Beatrix
Skiddo, Team NZ 2014), Convicts jammers Margaret Snatcher, Berocca Bomba,
Tu High and May Maim couldn't keep the score gap from widening, thanks to
solid blocking from Arse'n'All and Evenger. The half time score of 94-65
in favour of VRA ended up growing to 235-133.
With these newly graduated skaters, transfers and returnees, the new
home
teams have now been announced. First look
shows it's going to be an interesting year and hopefully closely contested.
Some previously noted talent have stepped aside for various reasons this
year, so we should get to see some good growth from those new and sticking around.
2016 is going to be a busy year for the travel teams also, with both All Stars and
Convicts involved in the
NZ Top 10 Champs tournament
, the All Stars travelling
to the Gold Coast for
Royal Rumble on ANZAC weekend
and the Convicts heading
to Adelaide for
The Great Southern Slam (TGSS) in early June, it is not a surprise they're
pushing their
GiveALittle page to help
offset some of their costs.
Next Wellington game is April 30th, a pool play bout for the Champs
tournament against WRDL from Whakatane, who recently became WFTDA
apprentices and are also heading to TGSS. It will be good to see how far
this team has come since we last saw them on Wellington soil in
April 2014. Details for this bout are available on
Facebook.