Milton Keynes Bucks, BKA Cup
6-13 Remco Broekhuis (2), Angharad Morgan (1), Lee O’Sullivan (1), Chris Gubby (1), Joey Niblett (1), Helen Gubby, Rachel Knight, Sian Hunt, Josh Cockburn
After a comfortable victory against Invicta, Dragons had to beat Milton Keynes to qualify for the last 16 of the Cup. It looked a tough game as the Bucks had appeared very strong against Invicta, and certainly stronger than the team that had drawn with Dragons in Cardiff last year.
The early stages were quite even, MK twice taking the lead, but being pegged back by Chris’s nice move from a free pass and Joey’s turbo-charged run from half way. But the rest of the half was extremely difficult for Dragons as they had countless passes intercepted, found it very difficult to create space for shots and didn’t take the opportunities when they did have them. The defence held fairly solid, but occasional lapses in positioning, combined with some good shooting from range saw the Bucks build their lead up to 7-2 at half time.
In the second half the Dragons came out determined to cut out the feed in defence and to be more aggressive with their shooting in attack. Unfortunately, they swiftly conceeded another brace of goals to shots around the post. Finally after 7 straight goals against them, Dragons found the basket through Remco’s free pass. This led to their best period of the game as the defence tightened up and half-chances were more regularly created in attack. Lee ensured that everyone in the team scored once over the day by landing a long shot, and Angharad scored from under the basket. When Remco scored a penalty the deficit was only 9-6 and hopes of a great comeback were alive. Sadly MK got back in control thanks to their 4th penalty and then added 3 more goals as Dragons took risks in an attempt to get quick scores. 13-6 was the final score and the Bucks were deserved winners, but Cardiff will feel they didn’t really do themselves justice, partiularly in the first half.
Thanks to Angharad for organising and driving the minibus.