Flaming Fircones 19 v 10 Marine Lakers

Report by Rob Marland (West Wirral Snakehips – @WWSnakehips)

Fircones – Wareing, A Marland, Goldup – sub Evo

Marine Lakers – Utley, Doyle, Walker

The Fircones won the toss and their plucky captain, Wareing, elected to start in attack. The first match of the tournament started shakily, with several shots off target. Then Wareing struck gold: the first points of the tournament coming from as clean a volfsball as ever you’ll see. Utley clawed back a couple of points for the Marine Lakers, and teammate Walker punched another Fircones’ shot into oblivion, but this was Wareing’s quarter.

In the second quarter, the Fircones were a well-oiled machine – passing like pros and setting up Andy Marland for his first volfsball. Later, Marland blocked two powerful shots (one with each kidney) and racked up three points with a kick. The Marine Lakers scored nary a point and at the half they were down 13-2.

There was a scrappy start to the second half, with neither team managing to connect until Doyle hit a one pointer on his tenth attempt to bring the Marine Lakers’ tally to 3. Utley finally found his form with a flurry of one pointers, while Goldup scored his first point for the Fircones. Marland showed his chutzpah with a brace of behind-the-back passes and then nailed his second volfsball at the buzzer to put the Bebington squad ahead 19-6 with a quarter to play.

Doyle opened the final quarter with a ferocious doppelvolfsball attempt, but the ball blasted wide. It was a sign of what was to come, as the remainder of the match consisted of a series of missed volfsball attempts. Utley played the percentages with on-target one-pointers but was never going to bring his side within sight of a win. Still, this 19-10 loss could have been a real drubbing if not for the blocking skills of the Marine Lakers, who deflected 11 shots to the Fircones’ 4.