Dazzlers v Dragons
The Crouch End Tigers, Hendon Dragons hoped for some good fortune from the Celestial Emperor to celebrate the new year. We were up against the unbeaten Dazzlers. Their most formidable player was absent, which gave us a glimmer of hope, but they still had a pretty strong line up. We came out fighting, and their own overconfidence led to a first game rout. Not my finest hour, as I managed to duck into a ball, but a good start. Then they woke up to the danger we represented, winning the next two. We held on to a 2-2 draw in the third game though, and if a couple of calls hadn't gone against us we might have won the next. But we didn't, and with two games to go we were two games down. A determined effort brought the vital win in the sixth game. Now we had to do it all again to save the match. It started slowly, both sides cautious. The Dazzlers' strength in depth, with good throwing from all their players, looked like it was edging things their way as we were down to half our players. Then came a true moment of the match from Libs. Her catch turned the situation around, giving us one more player than the opposition. "NO CATCHES!" was captain Kevin's battlecry - as long as we kept the status quo we would finish ahead. So we didn't let ourselves be tempted to try catching anything, and didn't throw anything that could be scooped up by the Dazzlers. We managed to more and more of them out by sensible, consistent play, thus cementing the game. When the countdown timer ran out, we walked off the court heads held high. A draw, but one that felt like a victory. Halfway through the season, we are the only team to even take a point off the Dazzlers. And there was a further boost when we saw that we had scored more bonus points than them too.