Courageous Catapults fall short of Tornados

Tutshill Tornados - 760* vs Caerphilly Catapults - 440

	Catapults	Tornados
Keeper	Carrington	Stainwright (C)
Chasers	Denison	MacFarlan
	Lympsham	Birch
	Lafarge	Culberry
Beaters	Lofthouse (C)	Jenkins
	Aderonis	Fitzpatrick
Seeker	Bryson	Muntz

After three promising performances from the Caerphilly Catapults, the reigning champions represented their first real high level test of the still new season. The Tornados remain an impressive unit, but compared to the table-topping Magpies and Wasps lack the cutting edge perfection in every facet and more importantly, that intimidating feeling of unbeatability. Therefore the Catapults knew they had to leave this context, if not with a victory, at least having genuinely competed to truly give the impression of being finals material.

For Tutshill, Cepheus Fitzpatrick was back with a Beater’s Bat in hand after Andros White failed to impress against the Kestrels. Caerphilly unsurprisingly made no changes to their burgeoning young Chaser unit. There was a school of thought that Brynmor Bryson should be relieved of the Seeking duty after two largely anonymous efforts. However he was rightly retained, considering that these two matches were against the world class wiles of Zelda Bloch and Ajax Shettigar, moreover, Bryson had brilliant beaten Wasps Seeker Venus Vogler to the snitch against the run of play in Round 1.

From the first minute this was a tense and dense contest, with most positions evenly matched. Antigone Lympsham and Crisiant Lafarge once again shocked with some of their feats of agility. But the far more experienced Tornados Chasers were ever so slightly wilier. With Lucian Stainwright’s typical impenetrability in goal added on, the Tornados slowly eked outa seventy point lead by the end of the first hour. But the Catapults would not go away, with Captain Asgeir Lofthouse Bludging them back into the contest brilliantly. Lofthouse floored Salvatrix MacFarlan and Colwyn Culberry in consecutive minutes, allowing the Catapults to at one stage level the game up at 170-170. But the Tornado intensity ratcheted up again.

This was the to and fro story of a captivating contest. Tutshill were better in every facet, but only ever so slightly, so back from behind Caerphilly would come again and again.

Alaricus Jenkins and Cepheus Fitzpatrick were ever-present with their clubs and against any other Beater than the legendary Lofthouse, would have dominated.

The only substantial difference between two positional match-ups came in goal. As every hour passed, Caddock Carrington faded, making crucial mistakes when the Tornados lead began to flirt with 150. But Lucian Stainwright can never be expected to lose focus and was as steadfast in the fifth hour as he was in the first.

As of the commencement of hour number six, the Tornados lead had reached a game high 590-370. But for a fourth time, back came the Welsh Warriors. It was a nervous time for Tornado fans. The snitch was appearing with increasing regularity as the Catapults crept their deficit back too close to 150 for comfort. But Aurora Muntz was on hand to calm countless blood pressures, cutting short the Catapults charge with a low to the ground catch.

Tutshill Tornados - 760: Birch 34, Culberry 15, MacFarlan 12, Muntz Capture

Caerphilly Catapults - 440: Lafarge 18, Lympsham 17, Denison 9

PLAYER OF THE MATCH: LUCIAN STAINWRIGHT (TORNADOS)