British Champs Round 4 - Report
HBB 68 - 450 FFC
We may have lost, and lost heavily, but we proved the Banditas are mighty!
It is often said that scorelines don’t truly reflect what happened in a bout and while it is true that the Furness Firecrackers dominated from the outset, the Banditas were far from pushovers. It’s no secret that the Banditas have had a tough few months. Since out last British Champs appearance we’ve had a pretty major team restructure including an almost entirely new jammer rotation and haven’t had to opportunity to put it to the test against an opponent. But these past 4 months have been spent hard at work training up new team members and bonding the team into a cohesive unit. Thanks to our referee, Scooby Zoom of NWO, stepping up into a coaching position we’ve focused in on our core tactics and created a super solid foundation on which our team will build up to greatness!
We were excited but anxious going into the bout, eager to show everyone we were back in business while knowing Furness are a formidable team.
Furness lived up to their reputation. They were tough, intelligent, at times utterly immovable and knew how to exploit any advantage given to them. But the Banditas never gave up. We had a skater foul out during the second period but the remaining 11 skaters stepped up and took it to Furness. We came away with a lot to work on but took away so many positives from the day. The amount of grinning and hugging from the team goes to show how proud we were of ourselves and each other. Our modest cheering contingent of 2 at the start spread throughout the course of the bout so that by the end the entire crowd cheered their hearts out when out captain, Fury, got one of our few Lead Jammers statuses.
We never let our heads drop and that is something to be proud of. Or fighting spirit was definitely on show. Who’s betting we have a few new fans after that game… ;-)
In terms of game play, we made some simple errors that cost us dearly and we’re all still getting used to our new roles, something that will come with time and experience. We’ll be using the next 6 weeks in the run up to the next British Champs bout against Sheffield Steel Rollergirls to work on the major gaps on our game. We’re more fired up than ever to bring our all to Sheffield and show everyone that the Banditas are back with a BANG!
Bout Awards:
Best Blocker - Bob 'n' Weave
Best Jammer - Sonic Ruth
MVP - Fury
Well done ladies!
