Write-up By Taff

Once again the National league opposition proved too much for an improving Cardiff City side in round 1 of the BKA cup on Sunday.

After making a winning start to the indoor season, an injury hit City side travelled to London still full of optimism to face national league 1 team Manchester and premier league reserve outfit Trojans II. After watching the other two sides in action against each other, Cardiff took to the court against Manchester, scenting an opportunity to claim the club's first ever victory over national league opposition. With Harry out injured, Taff limping and Ramzi somewhere on the A235, new comer Max Lloyd made an earlier than expected debut for the first team.

The early exchanges saw Cardiff struggle to get into their stride, while Manchester tried to regroup their energy after their earlier outing. It was Midge who broke the deadlock after 5 minutes or so, converting a runner from Lee's feed after a 5 shot attack featuring rebounds from all 4 Cardiff players. A couple of minutes later it was 2-0 after Lee slotted one in from the back after a defensive switch and Cardiff were looking good. After a period of defensive pressure from both sides we switched again at 3-1, but throughout the remainder of the half Cardiff were able to pull away, as Midge produced a carbon copy of her first goal, Lee popped in another, Kristina lunged past her defender for another runner, and a typical piece of opportunism from Taff added a 7th after Midge kept the ball alive battling for a rebound against much taller opposition.

Half time came at 7-3 and time for some words of advice from Steve Jones, and some oranges kindly provided by Susan.

Manchester struck first in the second half, but this was followed by an instant reply from Zoe, her first shot sailing through the korf without touching the sides! Manchester wouldn't lie down though, and, realising our reluctance to take long shots, successfully crowded the post and stopped our ball recycling. Several long Manchester attacks followed in a period of relative parity between the sides. Goals were traded, but we only hung onto our lead thanks to some excellent shot selection and a high shooting percentage. Lee and Ceri completed hat-tricks and Taff took advantage of a free pass mix-up.

With only a few minutes remaining City found themselves 12-7 up, but any thoughts that our position was down to tired Manchester legs were swiftly dispelled, as their 'never say die' approach brought them three quick goals courtesy of some sloppy defending. Perhaps another 5 or so minutes would have brought a different result, but time ran out on Manchester's comeback and the game finished 12-10 - our first ever win against a national league team! An excellent performance all round, with some passages of play as well drilled and organised as we've ever managed. 12 goals and 6 scorers in 40 minutes play is an excellent attacking effort against a side used to playing at a much higher level. Apart from a few minutes near the end, the defending was tight and coordinated, with plenty of examples of us defending as a unit. Well done to everyone.

Certainly a good win can boost confidence, so with Ramzi in for Taff, Cardiff stepped out to take on the Trojans for a place in the next round. Continuing where he left off, Ceri sank the first goal of the game from a free pass, but in fairness, from then on it was pretty much all Trojans. Goals rained in with depressing regularity as we were given a lesson in playing organised, team-korfball. Individually, the Trojans players were not especially superior to Cardiff's players, but as a unit, the passing, understanding and shot selection shown by the team reaped plentiful rewards. Lee turned his player neatly for one of our goals, Ceri and Ramzi landed penalties, Lee completed our scoring by nailing a long shot (moments after missing a sitter under post), and full time finally came at 16-5. No disgrace, but a lesson learnt against a team two leagues ahead of us!

While the Trojans game was clearly a steep learning curve for a side that only gets to play at this level once per year, many positives can be taken from the day out. Our first win in the BKA cup is obviously worth shouting about, but equally pleasing was the way it was achieved through disciplined play and good teamwork. The scorers were spread out nicely and carefully fashioned chances were put away more often than not. Possession was, for once, not given up easily, and there was plenty of hard work put into dominating the post. Against the Trojans we stuck to our task depsite tiring legs, and continued to get goals on the board until late in the game. Next year we'll be back looking to improve again and maybe, who knows, make the quantum leap into the second round!

No pictures, sorry - hall lighting way too yellow!

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