Broncos and Colts – June Update

June, following on from May, was no less busy for the club.
Broncos Update – Big Bowl XII – 2nd/3rd June
While some of the Broncos have travelled to Big Bowl in the past, this was the first time the Club had entered the Big Bowl tournament. The competition, in Frankfurt, Germany is one of the biggest in Europe, if not the world.
There are always some really strong teams in attendance, including some National teams. When the groups were drawn, the Broncos had been put into one of the toughest, simply because any one of six teams had the potential to win against the others.
Travelling for the Broncos were – Liam Fleming, Joe McIlwaine, Scott McKenzie, Matthew Ross, Fraser Thomson, Jimmy Thomson, Kevin Woods and Callum Woods. Louise Donnelly, who was playing in the Ladies competition with the East Kilbride Pirates also played with the Broncos when the schedule allowed.
In the first game against the Kelkheim Lizzards, the Broncos got their wake up call. A tight game against former finalists, the short game time left us on a 20 – 13 loss.
Second game against the Sheffield Giants on paper should have been a tighter game than it was. The Broncos were now awake and ready for action. A 27 – 6 win win felt really good.
The momentum carried on into the third game, but the Wurtzburg Wombats were not going to go so easily. The Broncos kept their heads and recorded a 21 – 20 win. (Wurtzburg went on to take 8th place)
Then came the game that changed the whole Broncos year. While the Broncos were cruising to a 34 – 6 win, both Fraser Thomson and Kevin Woods went down with injuries that saw them being carried off to hospital. Kevin had dislocated his knee and Fraser had ruptured his achilles.
The final game of day one was against London Smoke. A win in this game could see the Broncos into the top bracket in the competition, a loss would mean consined to fourth in the group. With both Fraser and Kevin missing we came up just a little bit short, losing 14 – 21.
On day two of the competition, the best the Broncos could play for was 28th. Their firs game against the Vienna Sentinels got us off to a good start with a 34 to 26 win, that despite the fact that we played a good part of that game with only five players when Liam came down hard on one of his spectacular leaps.
Things were looking even better when the Broncos won their next game against the Duisburg Dockers 27 – 6.
In the final match of the weekend, the Broncos came up against the Mustangs. Maichingen Mustans. That game came down to the final play of the game. The Mustangs QB put a Hail Mary pass into the end-zone and while some of our Broncos players have good vertical leaps, so did the tallest of the Mustangs players and he came down with the ball. 27 – 31. The Broncos had to settle for 29th place. In the circumstances it was actually a fantastic result.

Back home and back to league duties…
Colts Update 23rd June
The Colts travelled to Glasgow to play the Killer Bees and the Aberdeen Silvercats.
Having beaten the Killer Bees in their first encounter, there was a degree of optimism around the Colts, but tempered with the knowledge that there had been a bit of a sea change in the Killer Bees game planning. In the end, the Colts defence dominated giving them a 20 – 0 win. Touchdown and Conversion combos for both Steven Cliffe and Mark Wallace, plus a Pick 6 for Andy Brown doing the damage.
In the game against the Silvercats, the Colts defence seemed unable to cover one of the plays. A 19 – 30 loss brought us back down to earth. Two TDs and an XP for Mark Wallace and a TD for Steven Cliff were the bright spots.

Broncos update 24th June
This was the second of the Cross Conference fixtures, this time played at the Oriam in Edinburgh. Indoor venue for a Summer Fixture!
The Broncos first opponents were the Leeds Samurai. With Kevin and Fraser both out of the game, the Broncos barely faltered. While the Samurai are a decent team, they just don’t have the quality to beat the Broncos. A 33 – 0 was the outcome with Callum Woods getting 3 TDs and an XP, Kevin Simpson getting 1 TD and 2 XPs, and Matthew Ross getting a TD.
The neext game was against the Sheffield Vipers. The Vipers had under-performed early in the season, but were now coming strong. Having said that, the Broncos got too cute for their own good and failed to score the go ahead TD as time expired. 32 – 25 loss. Jimmy Thomson got 2 TDsCallum Woods, Kevin Simpson and Matthew Ross caught two TDs and Matthew Ross caught an XP.
The final game of the day seemed to be a game too far for the Broncos. The Sheffield Giants had turned up with a squad full of talent and the Broncos seemed to run out of steam on a fairly hot afternoon. Matthew Ross, Kevin Simpson and Callum Woods all scored a TD each with Matty geting an XP in a 19 – 34 loss.
An interesting footnote here is that of the 30 games between the Premier HNC and MEC teams Scottish teams won 21.
A July Update should follow shortly, after the stats have been collated.