TEAMBATH 50-40 CELTIC DRAGONS
Training Village, University of Bath
7:30pm Thursday 3rd February, 2011
Celtic Dragons were full of fight against TeamBath in their FIAT
Netball Superleague third round match at the Training Village at the
University of Bath but were overcome in the final quarter of the game.
It was a testing battle for both sides and gave both sets of coaching
staff plenty of notes for the next weeks of training.
The Dragons have been accused of failing to remember the game plan in
the early stages of their matches so far this season, something they
put right in the first half of this game. The visitors were 3 ahead
at the end of the forst 15 minutes and there was a just one goal in it
at half time. Jess Garland, Bath’s head coach though it was “a very
committed performance from the Dragons, they knew where to shut us
down.”
Melissa Hyndman chose not to make any changes to her starting seven
during the match, while her opposite number tinkered with a few
combinations that really came strong in the last quarter, which is
where the home side was able to win the match.
TeamBath head coach Jess Garland felt her team struggled attacking
wise one-on-one early on but that they responded well in the second
quarter and was pleased with her defence as the game went on: "Eboni
and Stacey turned over lots of ball and really stamped their authority
as the game continued.
"When Kirsty Delves came on she gave another option and created lots
of space for Pam. Our decision making may have been inconsistent but
it was a very good finish in the final quarter, a fantastic response
to be behind the Celtic Dragons for a long time and then come home
strong to win by ten points."
Celtic Dragons head coach Melissa Hyndman admitted feeling only a
little disappointed at the final result: "We went there to compete and
what we’ve learned from the first two games is that we had to start
well. We have been working on that all week and that’s paid off.
"I think we only lost this match in the last seven minutes of last
quarter, Eboni Beckford Chambers and Stacey Francis were able to cut
down the final feed. TeamBath had a good game but I think we
outplayed them. My whole team played really well today which is why I
made no changes. I reckoned
