Taunton Away, 1sts
15-5 Joey Niblett (4), Remco Broekhius (4), Chris Gubby (3), Amy Willis (2), Felicity-Good Knight (1), Josh Cockburn (1), Angharad Morgan, Helen Gubby
The Dragons continued their winning streak in the EKL on Sunday in Taunton. Despite losing two Welsh internationals, the reds were able to welcome back Remco and Rachel, and give an rare outing to one of last years’ stars, Amy.
Taunton were first out of the blocks, but a few minutes in Josh ran in the equaliser and the Dragons never really looked back. Remco tucked into his usual spot under the post, allowing Joey to run his poor marker ragged, launching a barrage of long shots, two of which dropped in for a 3-1 lead. It was then Amy’s turn from slighty shorter range, clearly relishing her return to action.
The game turned round at 4-2, but the Dragons continued to build the lead, Remco slotting the first of his 3 penalties after Helen was unfairly marked by a bloke, and Joey following this with yet another long shot as his defender didn’t dare get too close. Amy’s next goal was a more conventional running in shot, although she still had to loop it in over the onrushing male defender!
At 7-2 the Welsh went to sleep a bit, allowing two more goals from Taunton, punctuated only by Remco’s second penalty. Halftime came with our lead pegged back to 8-4
Taunton continued with what had been their best patch by scoring straight after halftime. A simple rebound put-back cut the lead to 8-5, but from then on it was truly all Cardiff. An attritional spell followed where the Dragons stopped Taunton from getting a shot worthy of the name, but were unable to take up useful positions in attack, and saw a few decent shots spin out.
With the third quarter winding down we finally got back into our stride. Chris sank a runner to cap a nice move, and Remco increased the momentum with a text book free pass. It was the first half all over again as Joey landed another shot from distance, before Chris scored one from even further out. Chris’s marker promptly stepped out to mark him tight, but the flow of goals would not be dammed, as Chris raced past him to complete his hattrick.
The last couple of minutes saw two more goals, Rachel rattled in a longshot, before drawing the foul going for a runner, leaving Remco to tie things up with his third penalty.
Overall the Dragons will be impressed to cope with re-jigged ends, and the loss of Sian and Lee and still win comfortably, but unltimately there’s still room for improvements. The defence, particularly in the second half was immense, but the fluidity in attack was only sporadic, and we missed our chance to run through some of the moves in our repertoire, prefering to rely on improvisation at times.
But still, another convincing win and the Dragons continue to sit at the top of the pile in the EKL, next up, fellow table-toppers Bristol Uni.
Thanks to Tony for an impeccable reffing performance, to Joey, Amy, Magnus and Chris for giving lifts all the way to and from Somerset - and to Taff for the match reports.