Devils v Giants - Sun 4 Mar 2018 - Challege Cup Final - FO 6pm - Chat/Udates

[ASHIPP]

The Giants demonstrated tonight what most already knew but had lost sight of in our euphoria that their below par league performances recently have been helping the Devils' league hopes.

Giants are a damn good team.....of course they were going to be a completely different team tonight to the one that lost down here last week! Stupid to imagine otherwise! Arriving in Cardiff ( possibly as underdogs) after all the horrendous disadvantage of bad weather travel and distance plus the 'hype' in the Devils' camp of home advantage, current cup holders etc. Suited the Giants just fine. They played a blinder.

Congratulations to the Giants and their fans. In Adam Keefe's first season as coach, it will be special to collect that Cup - a feeling Andrew Lord will understand.

Devils have no Godgiven right to retain the Cup frustrating as it is. Hopefully there will be some serious analysis of what the Giants did right to win it. Afterall, we meet them in some crucial games in the next 3 weeks.

Hopfully Devils pick themselves up now and as professionals know that there are still 3 competitions to strive for. Now go on and win those remaining league games against Giants and Steelers to secure the League and Conference titles. Tomorrow the Sun rises.

 

[Wannabe2]

We won the first period but Giants wanted the next two more than us
Better team won on the night - they outplayed us in the 2nd, and by the 3rd our heads had dropped
Credit to the Devils fans - especially those around us - who sang their hearts out right up to final whistle and even got the red army chant going

Spot on

 

[Mazzoak]

Wow. To be critical on hear you have to be a Hockey Expert, yet to praise you just need to be a fan.
Anyway enough with the childish arguments. The better team won. I’m not surprised, we will win the league, basically because we’ve been consistent, other teams haven’t been and others imploded. The playoffs will be interesting.

 

[Gaz G]

Ok. The Devils were out coached today in the sense that the Giants worked out exactly how the Devils play. They then turned it around and did it better than us. Adam Keefe is using the Devils prototype in his first season as a way to win.

 

[Hedd Wyn John]

Big congrats to the Giants, the best team won. Apart from the 1st period the Devils just weren’t in it. The Giants clearly wanted it more and when they got their noses in front they kept up the pressure while the Devils lost their composure. By the looks of it the Giants has been saving this performance up over the last couple of weeks.

 

[Rich Best]

Was sat in block 14 tonight right behind the goal. Whistle made an unbelievable triple save in the second (from Pope), and Benedict then skated down and scored what to me looked like a goal that bowns would want back. That to me swing the game. If we had gone 3-1 up I think we would have won comfortably.

 

[BillytheWiz]

Congratulations Giants , better team on the night, seemed hungrier and grittier tonight, had a game plan and executed it forcing turnovers and being aggressive all over the ice. Didn’t allow the Devils any time on the puck to build up any momentum . I felt we didn shoot enough when we had the chance either ....oh well , no time to dwell on this , need to get back to winning ways in the league.

 

[Wannabe2]

Tonight we won 1 out of 3 periods, and that ain’t going to win you anything. Too many players were anonymous tonight, they seemed to want a night off, with the exception of 10/15 mins we were second best. Belfast are one very good team, don’t turn up against them, then you suffer the circumstances. One big anti climax tonight, Home advantage, bigger crowd, top of the league, tonight it meant jack all, well played Belfast, you wanted it more and justice was done, the best team on the night won. Tomorrow is another day, thank god.

 

[Rabbitohs4]

Bowns had a nightmare tbh tonight and would want a few goals back.
Hotham got caught in the puck to many times but hey ho he been doing that for a few years now

Fournier was my only outstanding player he is absolute class fair play.

Any reason y no one stands up to the dirty hits?? Bentivoglio and Martin getting involved and it shouldn’t happen.

Oh by the way Goulakos is really really dirty

 

[kingmo19.1]

I feel for the owners, they don't get much chance to see the team live. On this occasion they've made the huge effort to fly over en-masse and we failed to live up-to expectations.

 

[RedDevil17]

Bowns had a nightmare tbh tonight and would want a few goals back.
Hotham got caught in the puck to many times but hey ho he been doing that for a few years now

Fournier was my only outstanding player he is absolute class fair play.

Any reason y no one stands up to the dirty hits?? Bentivoglio and Martin getting involved and it shouldn’t happen.

Oh by the way Goulakos is really really dirty

Completely agree with you. Hotham’s turnover account tonight was unreal. So many turnovers. We are missing Louis so bad no one has the balls to actually stand up to players. Someone should’ve battered martinelli tonight. Guys a donkey. Would love him and Spiro here. Say what you want about them they’re very good players. Towe impressed me too. Can’t complain about the score. Belfast deserved it 100% and probably should’ve scored more.

 

[august04]

If ever a team played in the mould of their coach, it was the Giants tonight. They played desperate, hard, physical, nasty, fore checked like crazy, and smothered us all over the ice. No complaints at all from me, they were by far the better team on the night and well deserved cup winners. They looked like they wanted it more which is difficult to accept. It’s OK for Lord to call out the fans for wanting more noise, but bloody hell, you’ve got to give the fans more than was served up tonight. That was a shocking performance all over the ice. Poor netminding (why wasn’t Bowns pulled after the third goal, he didn’t look right all night and we have a more than adequate back up), turnover after turnover in defence and no attacking threat all night. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing in such an important game, and in a tournament where we've put so much in of late. Where was the fire in our bellies? We'll comfortably win the league and that’s great and enough for most fans. As mentioned earlier, because we've been consistently better than the rest, who usually turn up at IAW with nowhere near the intensity that we saw tonight from our opponents. Our owner has been on here shooting down posters who dared to suggest that we've lacked the physicality and nastiness this year. My God, that was so obviously clear again tonight, with Martinelli and co riding roughshod over us all game and no-one standing up to them time and time again. It’s all well and good if the ref polices the game but if they don’t, you’ve got to stand up to these guys. We failed miserably in that department tonight, with Batch in particular hardly getting a shift, never mind being sent out to challenge them. I can’t stand Martinelli but he’s exactly what this team has lacked this year - a mean, no nonsense SOB defenceman.
We saw the blueprint for how to beat the Devils in the big one off games tonight, which worries me for the play offs. Hugely disappointing tonight.

 

[matbur]

Don't agree with all of the above post but would love to see Martinelli dress in a Devils jersey

 

[Wannabe2]

So how do we argue with that comment, think it pretty much sums up the night. August04 thread that is.

 

[august04]

Don't agree with all of the above post but would love to see Martinelli dress in a Devils jersey

I don’t expect you to. We all see the game differently and have different opinions.
What don’t you agree with, genuinely interested?

 

[Jonesy83]

Can’t complain about the Giants winning tonight, for the last 40 minutes they were the better team by a country mile.

It drives me nuts that we played pretty much 2 lines for 2nd & 3rd periods. When it becomes clear and obvious that ain’t working surely it’s worth putting out Batch & Faryna to lay some hits / get a bit nasty?

Martinelli was an absolute d*ck tonight and someone should have shown him he wasn’t going to get away with it, Final or not.

Onwards and upwards from here. Keep the eye on League and I’m sure we’ll have it wrapped up in the near future.

 

[BillytheWiz]

I know the conference title doesn’t matter to many fans but i dont want to see the Giants clinch that on our ice too !
We need to step up for the remaining games as Steelers ain’t going to be pushovers especially if they have seen how the Giants played tonight !

 

[Big Gazza]

Giants were a long way in front of us tonight. Keefe knew what had to be done, and how they needed to play and they did it to a tee. Although I think the intro videos are great, tonight's was a bit OTT right at the end 'We slay giants' .....for the Giants players stood on the blue line watching the video and seeing that....probably gave them that extra little bit of motivation, if ever they needed it. Seemed like it was a done deal and the Devils though they only needed to turn up. Players need to step up and step in, we need to rebuild our reputation....opposing teams need to know what we are not only a team with a winning mentality and an ethos of " you score four and we'll score five" but also one that doesn't allow our players to get pushed around....going back to the intro video......it said we 'go to war', tonight we took our knives to a gunfight, once again.

 

[katie.sinclair1]

Giants deserved winners. Hopefully, this will serve as a wake up call for play offs. On a side note, forced to watch at home and got so annnoyed with commentary; in their quest to be neutral became so biased even David Simms commented on it!! Well move on and focus on getting that league title.

 

[august04]

Giants were a long way in front of us tonight. Keefe knew what had to be done, and how they needed to play and they did it to a tee. Although I think the intro videos are great, tonight's was a bit OTT right at the end 'We slay giants' .....for the Giants players stood on the blue line watching the video and seeing that....probably gave them that extra little bit of motivation, if ever they needed it. Seemed like it was a done deal and the Devils though they only needed to turn up. Players need to step up and step in, we need to rebuild our reputation....opposing teams need to know what we are not only a team with a winning mentality and an ethos of " you score four and we'll score five" but also one that doesn't allow our players to get pushed around....going back to the intro video......it said we 'go to war', tonight we took our knives to a gunfight, once again.

Spot on. I usually like the intro videos but that was like a red rag to a bull. Asking for trouble and boy, did we get it.