Round 7 Results and Standings

Round 7 Results

Tutshill Tornados	620*	vs	Puddlemere United	90
Kenmare Kestrels	570*	vs	Caerphilly Catapults	220
Appleby Arrows	1410	vs	Holyhead Harpies	1640*
Montrose Magpies	830*	vs	Falmouth Falcons	300
Chudley Cannons	130	vs	Ballycastle Bats	790*
Wigtown Wanderers	570*	vs	Pride Of Portree	570
Wimbourne Wasps		vs	BYE

2012 League Cup Standings

Pos.	Team	P	W	L	T	B	+	-	%	Points
1	Montrose Magpies	6	6	0	0	1	2650	770	77.49	14
2	Wimbourne Wasps	6	5	1	0	1	3870	1730	69.11	12
3	Tutshill Tornados	7	5	2	0	0	3560	2130	62.57	10
4	Holyhead Harpies	7	5	2	0	0	4960	3800	56.62	10
5	Falmouth Falcons	7	4	3	0	0	4420	4430	49.94	8
6	Appleby Arrows	6	3	3	0	1	4730	4110	53.51	8
7	Puddlemere United	6	3	3	0	1	2110	2800	42.97	8
8	Kenmare Kestrels	6	2	4	0	1	9860	6960	58.62	6
9	Pride Of Portree	7	2	4	1	0	4000	3820	51.15	5
10	Ballycastle Bats	7	2	4	1	0	2250	2430	48.08	5
11	Caerphilly Catapults	7	2	4	1	0	1960	2820	41.00	5
12	Chudley Cannons	6	1	5	0	1	1300	5200	20.00	4
13	Wigtown Wanderers	6	0	5	1	1	6420	11090	36.66	3

Round 8 Fixtures

Friday April 27

7:30pm: Holyhead Harpies vs Wimbourne Wasps @ Bodmin Moor

Saturday April 28

2:30pm: Chudley Cannons vs Tutshill Tornados @ Exmoor

7:30pm: Falmouth Falcons vs Kenmare Kestrels @ Ellis Moor

Sunday April 29

2:30pm: Puddlemere United vs Wigtown Wanderers @ Ilkley Moor

7:30pm: Pride of Portree vs Montrose Magpies @ Ellis Moor

Monday April 30

7:30pm: Ballycastle Bats vs Appleby Arrows @ Bodmin Moor

Wanderer snatch forces titanic tie

Wigtown Wanderers - 570* vs Pride of Portree - 570

	Wanderers	Prides
Keeper	Warburton	McCormack
Chasers	Shimpling	McNewton
	Melvina	MacPunnet
	Anstice	Pilliwickle
Beaters	A.Parkin (C)	Van Hoorn
	Thruston	Stroulger (C)
Seeker	B.Parkin	McBride

Following on from the Bats win over the Cannons came another intriguing basement contest between two struggling teams. The Pride of Portree have looked marginally the consistently better team than the Wigtown Wanderers all year, which shows on the table with the Wanderers now stone-dead last thanks to Chudley entering the winner’s circle.

But the ladder was somewhat misleading, as Wigtown have been so awful as to earn the title of only team without a win half way through the season. The Wanderers’ squad is little different from the 2011 team which went within two weeks of the Grand Final. Based on that you would think the Wanderers are at the very least, more than a match for the Prides, especially considering last fortnight’s matches. Portree were insipid in their uninspiring loss to the Tornados, meanwhile Wigtown put in clearly the best performance of the year to genuinely push the Falcons.

Therefore it was somewhat of a surprise to see the Prides run away to such a decisive early lead. Manager Ione Ostensen chose not to cull the starting Chaser trio despite their awful histrionics against Tutshill. The only change to the team was the return of Mordred Van Hoorn to replace the clearly out of sorts Beater Justin Moriattis.  It was a decision that paid off handsomely, with the particularly under fire Stephanie Pilliwickle shining in the early exchanges, and Van Hoorn dominating the Bludger contests.

Wanderers manager Ralph Bobbin made the same singular change, replacing Randolph Toothill. But this was a rather less rewarding decision, as Cosmo Thruston looked clearly out of practice and out of his depth, aiding Wigtown’s early struggles.

The defining portion of the match was the first hour, as the slow-starting Wanderers let the Prides go clear by almost 150. But from then on it was every bit anybody’s game. Every position was evenly matched and for an extended period of more than three hours, nothing could split the teams in an astonishingly even and surprisingly quality contest.

The to and fro was captivating, with the Wanderers more structurally sound and able to score consistently, but the Prides athletic enough to preserve their exciting lead, which hovered interminably just under or over 150.

Just seconds into the fifth hour, the exhilarating extended last play began. Begonia Parkin caught sight of the snitch and hared after it, but Musidora McBride was able to take faster lines of attack and took the lead in the chase. But neither the out of the form veteran Parkin nor inexperienced McBride had what it took to finish the catch.

They soared from post to post, captivating player and crowd alike to the extent that nobody seemed to notice the critically important goals being scored. Chaser after Chaser snapped up a snitch and using both the visual distraction of physical impediment of the duelling Chasers, snuck another goal through.

Wanderers Alaisdair Parkin had once again played little part in the match. But he stepped up when it mattered, flooring McBride with an oomphy Bludger strike. This freed up his sister Begonia to stretch her legs.

As Begonia Parkin neared the snitch, with the Prides leading by 150, Aileen Anstice was able to score a crucial and potential match-winning goal. But in return Belarius McNewton darted quickly up field and surprised Marcie Warburton with a long shot to hit back for the Prides.

Barclay Shimpling went on the counter-attack in turn for the Wanderers, but before he could win the match for his team, the understandably oblivious Parkin, who had to fight the recovering McBride, snapped up the snitch.

For a few moments nobody was quite sure what happened before it became painfully clear to all present, that BIQL 2012 had seen its second tie.

The result may have been frustrating for both teams, but it was both a fair indication of the competitiveness of the match, and well and truly an appropriately dramatic result after such a spectacle.

Wigtown Wanderers - 570: Shimpling 18, Anstice 14, Melvina 10, B.Parkin Capture

Pride Of Portree - 570: MacPunnet 23, Pilliwickle 21, McNewton 13

PLAYER OF THE MATCH: STEPHANIE PILLIWICKLE (PRIDES)

Bashful Ballycastle dominate kamikaze Cannons

Ballycastle Bats - 790* vs Chudley Cannons - 130

	Cannons	Bats
Keeper	Trimble (C)	Malkin
Chasers	Munch	Quigley
	Oglethorpe	Prod
	Rumstich	Thomsonicle
Beaters	Redfern	Nutter
	Buttermere	Skively
Seeker	Prang	Shettigar (C)

After such a stellar 2011 effort, 2012 has gone from bad to worse for the Ballycastle Bats. Clearly their goblet of bad luck is far from running dry, for they found the most inopportune time to get their supposed ‘free win’ against the Chudley Cannons. Having come off a rare win, Chudley’s confidence was sky high and they took the rather unprecedented step of naming an unchanged line-up.

But it was change a-plenty for the Bats. Marcus Montgomery chose not to use a Cannons clash to play his existing line-up back into form, but instead made four alterations. Instead he brought in Clay Prod for his first start this year as well as reverting back to Nobby Nutter and Biana Skively (a previously untried starting Beater combination), and to Xavier Malkin in goal. The question was whether all these axings was respect for their high-flying opponents, or a decisive punishment for mediocrity.

Either way, Montgomery’s managerial axe left the desired mark. With the twin thuggery of big Ignotus Thomsonicle and even bigger Clay Prod at her back, Demeter Quigley was able to dominate the Quaffle. Old Charlie Trimble was as gallant as ever, but could do little to stop the flow of goals. He received little support from his troops. Xanthus Munch was sluggish early and eventually allowed himself to be taken out by a suspiciously damp squib of a Bludging from the club of Skively. Rose Oglethorpe and Rebecca Rumstich showed glimpses of attacking prowess, managing to slowly tick over their goal count thanks largely to Xavier Malkin’s notable lethargy.

But in defence the Cannons were hapless. Their Chasers lacked the size or covering agility to stop the Bats, while their Beaters were downright embarrassing. Gavin Redfern tried his best all week to bring scorn and embarrassment to his club. First he claimed he was somehow responsible for the decidedly-snitch decisive win over the Harpies last week, then was quoted as saying he was the Cannons’ “undisputed Beater leader” and could not understand why “I wasn’t brought to Bludge for Bleedin’ Englan’!”

When the small, nimble and usually anonymous Hesper Buttermere showed herself by far the least incompetent Beater on the day, a red-faced Redfern swung early at a Bludger in anger, shaking it flush into Buttermere’s face. The backlash has been fierce, with critics accusing Redfern of deliberately taking out his own team-mate. In all likelihood Redfern lacks the sufficient aim to so thoroughly knock out another person and the blow was probably a horrendous error borne out of selfish anger. But in neither case was it excusable, and the effect was the same.

With one (incompetent and unsupported by his own team-mates) Beater in play, any chance of a reasonable defence was gone. And so the Bats rampaged clear without ever looking particularly energetic or threatening in the grand scheme of things.

Captain Ajax Shettigar decided that sealing the two points and getting his charges off the pitch fresh was more important than pressing on unnecessarily for a marginally useful minor percentage boost. So when the snitch came into his sight late in the fourth hour, he wasted no time in snapping it up and completing a rare good day for Ballycastle.

Ballycastle Bats - 790: Quigley 40, Prod 14, Thomsonicle 10, Shettigar Capture

Chudley Cannons - 130: Oglethorpe 7, Rumstich 5, Munch 1

PLAYER OF THE MATCH: DEMETER QUIGLEY (BATS)