Vol. 1 · No. 8/ Tuesday 27 October 2026/ Published in Melbourne, Australia/ Independent · No broadcast rights · No affiliate links/ 한국어

MATSIDE

The grappling paper of record — Asia & Oceania desk matside.com.au
The Record · NSWBJJF Spring Cup · Sydney, 4 October

Every One of 259 Contests Says How It Was Won

Three weeks after this paper printed the Spring Cup's podiums, all 118 children's brackets are in the register: 244 children, 259 contests, and a method against every one of them. 157 ended by submission, 85 on points. More than half the submissions came inside the first minute.

By The Cornerman · Matside · Melbourne

Melbourne — When Vol. 1 No. 5 went to press, the Spring Cup's placings were in the register and its contests were not. The 118 children's brackets sat on separate pages, and this desk promised to read them and put them in at the same addresses. They are in now. Each of the 118 division pages carries every contest, who won it, how, the score, and the time on the clock when it ended.

The record is complete. Of 259 contests between two named children, the organiser recorded a method for 259. 157 were won by submission, 61 per cent. 85 went to points. 4 were referee decisions, 8 walkovers, 3 no-shows and 2 disqualifications.

A children's tournament, run on a commercial platform, kept a fuller record than the international federation did a fortnight later.

The clock is in the record too. Of the 154 submissions with a time against them, 80 came inside the first minute; the median was 55 seconds. These are the organiser's times, as published. This paper has not checked them against video and does not characterise any child's contest beyond what the bracket records.

The comparison is now uncomfortable for the international federation and for this paper. At the Pan Pacific in Melbourne a week ago, IBJJF's brackets recorded who lost each of 1,686 contests and gave no method for the 1,563 decided on the mat. At the Spring Cup, run by a state federation on Smoothcomp, every contest has one.

And reading these brackets properly showed that this paper had been wrong. Vol. 1 No. 4 led with the claim that the Wollongong kids record said how none of its 186 contests were won, and No. 5 built a comparison on it. The Wollongong brackets, on the same platform, carry a method for all 186. The page draws the names; the method, score and time are in the match data the page loads, and this desk read the drawing and stopped there. The full correction is below and in each issue it touches, and every Wollongong division in the register now carries the organiser's methods.

The Spring Cup also ran 102 adult brackets the same day. Their match data carries methods as well. They are outside this register's Spring Cup scope, which has been the children's divisions since No. 5.

Sydney · NSWBJJF Spring Cup 259 contests · 259 with a method
BRACKETS118
SUBMISSIONS157
INSIDE 1:0080
The Roll Call Every child in the Spring Cup brackets, Sydney, 4 October — no longer only the podium.  
Competitor—
Division—
Event—
Result—

How the children's contests ended

The Record · organiser's match data · read 27 October 2026

Every contest between two named competitors in the children's brackets, by the method the organiser recorded. Wollongong is shown corrected.

Method, as recordedSpring CupShareWollongong
Submission15761%107
Points8533%70
Referee decision42%3
Walkover83%1
No-show31%3
Disqualification21%2
Total259100%186

Who records how a contest was won

The Record · four events this paper has recorded
Event · where the record livesContests with a methodNote
NSWBJJF Spring Cup · Sydney · Smoothcomp259 of 259Every contest: method, score, time
AFBJJ Wollongong Open · Smoothcomp186 of 186Corrected today; reported as 0 in No. 4 and No. 5
Asian Games ju-jitsu · Nagoya · official system214 of 215One quarterfinal blank
IBJJF Pan Pacific · Melbourne · bjjcompsystem0 of 1,563 decided on the matA reason only for 123 disqualifications

The Wollongong line replaces the figure of none that this paper printed in No. 4 and No. 5.

The bracket

NSWBJJF Spring Cup 2026 · Sydney · 4 October 2026

Four of the Spring Cup's largest children's draws. Every contest shows the method, score and time the organiser recorded. All 118 divisions are at matside.com.au/brackets/.

RoundMatchMethod
SFCarolina Falzon def. Navina Bennett
Match 4-49 · Mat 4
Points · 0–6 · adv 1–0 · 04:00
FCarolina Falzon def. Navina Bennett
Match 4-55 · Mat 4
Points · 8–0 · adv 1–3 · 04:00
3RDNavina Bennett def. Tia Psyhogiou
Match 4-53 · Mat 4
Submission · 0–14 · adv 0–1 · 02:09

The full record for this division →

All 118 divisions recorded from this event, and every bracket before it →

The Corner · Editorial

We said the record was not kept. It was kept. We were not reading it.

The Cornerman Editor · Melbourne · 27 October 2026

Melbourne — For three issues this paper argued that a children's tournament in Wollongong had kept no record of how its contests were won, and used it as the example of what a sport loses when nobody is paid to keep the record. The record was there. The organiser kept it, published it, and left it where any careful reader could find it. We were not careful enough.

The mistake was a reading mistake, and it is the kind this paper exists to prevent. We took the drawing on the screen for the whole of the published record. It was not. Behind it sat the method, the score and the time of every contest, in the data the page itself loads.

So the correction runs in full, at the top of the issues it touches, not in a footnote here. The Wollongong pages now carry what the organiser published. And the argument changes. A state federation and a commercial platform are keeping the record. On the evidence of these pages, the international federation is not.

We would rather say this ourselves than have a reader find it. That is the only promise a paper of record can make about its errors.

Corrections

Standing log · § 4.1

27 October 2026 — Wollongong: a method was recorded for every contest. Vol. 1 No. 4 led with the claim that the published record of the 186 contests in the Wollongong kids divisions said how none was won. Vol. 1 No. 5 repeated it and set it against Nagoya's 214 of 215, and Vol. 1 No. 7 repeated it in one sentence. All of that was wrong. The organiser published a method, score and time for all 186: 107 by submission, 70 on points, 3 by referee decision, 3 no-shows, 2 disqualifications and 1 walkover. The bracket page draws the names only; the rest is in the match data the same page loads, and this desk read the drawing and missed the data. A dated correction now heads the affected articles in No. 4 and No. 5 and appears in the corrections of No. 7. The original text stands in each, as § 4.2 requires. Every Wollongong division page now carries the organiser's methods, with the correction on the page. — The Cornerman

27 October 2026 — publication day. This paper promised one issue a week and has appeared on a Monday for most of its life. No. 6, No. 7 and this issue appeared on a Tuesday. Sunday's brackets close in the evening, and this desk does not read a bracket until every mat has closed. From this issue, Matside's day is Tuesday.

How this was checked

Every Spring Cup and Wollongong contest, winner, method, score and time in this issue and in the register was read on 27 October 2026 from the organiser's match data on Smoothcomp (afbjj.smoothcomp.com, events 34097 and 33137), the data each bracket page loads to draw itself. Placings come from the same pages. No secondary source was used.

One Spring Cup final was checked by eye against the organiser's bracket page before anything was written. Each of the 186 Wollongong contests already in the register was matched to the organiser's data by mat-and-match number, or by names in the two round-robin divisions that have no numbers; in all 186 the names and the winner agree, and the method was added. Nothing else in those records changed.

Times are the organiser's, as published, and are the time on the contest clock when it ended. Under § 3.3, a junior entry carries what the bracket records: name, division, academy and result.

Standards & Practice →