Posted Honey Badgers 32 – 6 Nottingham Bears
Rotherham Roosters 14 – 50 Honey Badgers
A NEW era for Nottingham flag football began on Saturday as the Honey Badgers made an unbeaten start to life in the city.
The Badgers ran out comfortable winners in both games of their season opener, giving them an immediate lead atop MEC Division 1 East and setting down a marker for the year.
The day opened with a rematch of last year’s final fixture as the Badgers took on their cross-city counterparts, Nottingham Bears. A lot of pre-match talk was of a close encounter, but the Honey Badgers dominated the game from the first drive, with Luca Rossoni hitting Tom Wallis for the opening score, followed closely by a quick turnover on defence courtesy of Sam Andrews.
The rest of the contest was a largely one way traffic, with Rossoni and fellow QB Caleb Cockrill picking the Bears defence apart with professional ease. The pair hit Tom Snee for a hat-trick of scores and Dave Hine for a brace, and linked up themselves with Cockrill hitting the Italian for a touchdown grab.
While the Bears did find paydirt with the final play of the game, the Badgers defence were comfortably on top throughout, with Andrews adding a further pick to take him to 47 from his time in purple, and Paul Teague pulling off an outrageous one-handed interception against his former team.
After a short break, the Badgers took on hosts and BAFA debutants Rotherham Roosters. After a good win over Sheffield in their opener, the Roosters came in confident but left feeling a little chastened as they fell victim to a rare Honey Badgers 50-burger.
Rossoni’s accuracy on the deep ball was shown in spades as he hit Snee for a further four touchdowns, with Cockrill chipping in with a further two to Hine – one of which saw him dodge four tackles on his way to the endzone – and Andy Newton.
On defence, it was once again Teague’s day as he plundered a further four picks – one of which went all the way for six in the opposite direction – while Adam “Pacman” Jones marked his Badgers debut with a great takeaway.
The big win rounded off a great first day as the Nottingham Honey Badgers, and the season continues in three weeks time at the side’s new home ground, ROKO Health Club.
