Write-up By Taff

The Royal blues kicked off their defence of the EKL first division championship with a competent but slighty ring-rusty performance against league debutants Taunton. With every player experienced in first division action, a comprehensive win could have been on the cards, but Taunton executed a score restricting game-plan to good effect, and a final score of 12-6 was the best we could manage.

After a lengthy opening attack by Taunton that eventually yielded a shot, Cardiff looked a little rushed, and took quite a few ill-advised shots before Lee's 7th minute goal calmed the nerves.

An equaliser was cancelled out a few minutes later as Midge opened her season's account with a nicely taken runner, and when Kristina's short range effort took the lead to 3-1 two minutes later the goals were finally beginning to flow. After Taunton pulled one back Zoe got in on the act, leaving her defender for dead and slotting a runner of her own, and within a minute Ramzi's long shot took our total to 5. By then Taunton had their third and last goal of the half, but City's goals kept coming. Susan's mid-range shot came two minutes later and Ceri became the 7th city player on the scoresheet when he converted Susan's penalty a minute after that. 2-1 had become 7-3 in 9 minutes and City were starting to play some excellent korfball.

A quiet period followed with defences dominating and shots not quite dropping, Lee picked up a hatful of interceptions and Harry cleared up everything by the post. Eventually, as time wound down in the first half Harry found Kristina in space and her second shot of the day yielded her second goal. Half time came at 8-3.

Taunton definitely seemed to get the better half time talk, and with City still adjusting to the two substitutions they got the first goal of the second half. Susan soon cancelled it out with a nice long shot from Ceri's crisp pass, but from then on things went down hill a bit. A fifth goal for Taunton swapped the ends around and the goals simply dried up. Zoe and Ceri in particular showed plenty of rebounding skill to keep Taunton at bay, but the only way Cardiff could find to score were two penalties, both won by Kristina and converted by Ramzi. A minute after the second of these it was Ceri's turn to find himself on the spot, and he made no mistake for a 12-5 lead.

The remaining 12 minutes of the match saw one more goal for Taunton, and play from Cardiff which, through no lack of effort, was just mis-directed enough to become frustrating to watch. Terry and Ramzi showed some good touches around the post and the City attack carved out plenty of chances, but with lady luck against us 12-6 was how it stayed.

Many thanks to Josh for stepping in at the last minute and ref a game which was surprisingly good natured given it's physical nature

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