By Katie Vickery
King Power Foxes 9 vs 7 La Indiana
Today’s first match was a replay of 2016’s Final, with last year’s finalists La Indiana taking on reigning champions King Power Foxes. A repeat in result as well as match up saw King Power Foxes come away with the win to start their Gold Cup journey off strongly, defeating arguably their strongest opponent of the zone stages early. Despite a comeback in the last chukka, La Indiana couldn’t make up for the third and fourth chukkas where they failed to score a single goal, allowing King Power Foxes to dominate. Jimbo Fewster once again earned his place in the line-up with two field goals, matching the Pieres brothers, while for La Indiana it was Nic Roldan leading the scoring. King Power Foxes are in a strong position as the tournament zone stages get underway.
Match Progression:
3-1 3-4 5-4 6-4 8-5 9-7
Monterosso 10 vs 9 RH
The second match of the day was as exciting as it was surprising with the favourites of the tournament RH losing to Monterosso, one of the newest teams to join the high goal, in a battle that could have gone either way right up until the final bell rang. Three field goals from Ignacio Toccalino in the 4th chukka brought Monterosso back into the game, having finished the first half down by four goals. RH were shaken and were only able to score two goals in the second half (a field goal in the 4th from Andrade and a 30 yard penalty in the 5th from Tommy Beresford ) to Monterosso’s seven. A chance for Adolfo Cambiaso to push the match to overtime was lost when a safety 60 went wide in the final 5 seconds of the game, leaving Monterosso triumphant and with a huge boost in confidence in their first match of the tournament.
Match Progression:
1-2 2-5 3-7 7-8 9-9 10-9
