Cardiff Devils v Belfast Giants - Sun 6pm - Chat/Updates

[cardiffdevil]

I left after the second due to the fact my sister who was driving has to be up at 5.00 tomorrow. We werent playing well however we still managed a win so well done Devils.

What the hell was McMorrow on, he didnt skate much and when he was on the bench all he did was drink water, mouth off at the Devils bench and bang the boards every time something went against the Devils.

All in all a very strange game, I was also at the game when we played Durham and the game didnt start until 9.00 and we left the rink at midnight, if memory serves it was a Saturday so didnt really matter. We won that game as well.

 

[drainage]

can anyone answer why there was no notice of the delay ? According to info at rink their flight at 10 (or somewhere around there) was cancelled - so by my reckoning thet were making contingency measure 7 hrs before I left home. Surely at some point between 10 and 4 the options were defined and the likely arrival known ??? Why on earth couldnt something be posted to stop people sitting in the rink waiting for over 2 hrs ? I cant believe we ended up like that - not blaming the Devils (seems all the players were there so guessing late notice to them) but how much notice did the Giants give ?

 

[nmase20]

Got to be said, giants lost themselves that game and if they hadn't been so indisciplined they would have won it. We played well over 1 period and luckily got a way with it, maybe a sign of a winning team or just a lucky one.
The devils were the worst i've ever seen, sloppy was an understatement, i think about 1 in 10 passes managed to connect. Although in the third period they were a lot more precise, don't know what happened in the break but something seemed to work. They really need to step up though if they want to be in for a shout this season, it so tight that even a few games like tonight and you've lost yourself a few positions in the table.
Darnell was shocking in the first and missed sooooo many calls, although he did slowly start to pick up and call more which can be seen by the amount of pims belfast had, he's still the most useless official in the league at the moment though.
Mcmorrow is an absolute goon, he spent more time gobbing off across the bench than anything else, belfast really don't need him.
Anyway, glad we got the win even if it was a slow night by all accounts.

 

[TheStub]

I left early, as starting a new job in the morning

Well, totally shocking performance from both teams. The Giants dominated us, and never gave us a chance to play our game. Our passing was awful, and we just didn't allow ourselves time on the puck.

Double practice this week, as although we took 2 points we didn't deserve to win. Passing drills, and make space!

We should dominate our pad, and tonight we were dominated in our house. If we had been precise, we could have made space and capitalised on those thousands of pens the Giants gave up.

This is the first time I have seen the Giants this season, didn't like what I saw.

 

[Ger-Devils]

Not the best game by any means but a wins a win. Passing was well off and seemed like they had just met each other for the first time the way they played. Romfo still concerns me on occasions.

Darnell was a joke. So many calls not given.

If anyone off here knows me and seen me walking like a 70 year old down the rink then I tweaked my back/trapped a nerve playing football this morning so was struggling for quite a while!

 

[Russky]

For the first two periods the Devils were flat, lacking a spark and urgency especialy during the powerplays and 5 on 3 opportunities! You would have thought that it was the Devils who had played last night rather than Belfast. I expected the Devils to come out all guns blazing, trying to put the game beyond their opponants in the first period! In fact the Devils didnt really turn up until the start of the third! The only standout players for me were Lyle (because he had to be on top form!) and Miller (who never stopped trying)! I dont know what Franny and/or Gerad said to them in the 2nd period break but it had the desired effect! I noticed a distinct raising of their pace and general game play in the third. Great goal by Towe and by Gerads reaction, a planned move that came off!

McMorrow in my opinion should have been given a major miscon as he was constantly chipping and trying to instigate fights primarily with Voth, but later on with Hartwick, Miller and Jarvis when he realised that Voth just wasnt interested!!!

A good but scrappy overtime win!

 

[Gazza272]

Frustration was the name of the game for me this evening.


Frustration that every time we went into the Giants zone we sported the new Belfast Giants Rucksack, comes in Johnson, Cook, Jacobson or Phillips and all you have to do to be (un)lucky enough to win one of these is where a Devils shirt in the Big Blue tent and wait for Rucksack itself to jump onto you back and not let go!

The lines looked a little lost to start with but i think massive Credit must go to Gerad Adams tongiht, he made a desicion in the second to Swap Michel and Latuillipe around and it paid off in spades, both lines looked like they benefitted from it and i think it changed the game, i also think his play deserves mention for the way he chased down the puck in the corner and fed it to the point for Towey's tip in.


All in all i dont think we were woeful i thought we were as i say frustrated with the way things were going, thankfully we brushed that off for the Third and i thought we played a lot better. Miller seemed to step up a gear and Tylor was his usual industrious self.


D and Lyle again played well with Hartwick being my MOM again i really like the way he has settled, sadly i still cant say the same about Romfo, for me he still goes puck chasing instead of knowing who he is meant to be watching and his desicion making is sketchy, there are signs at some points he is looking slightly more comfy, but i think its getting to the time now where he has to settle or maybe we should have a think about him being on the bubble, i really hope the guy turns it around though, as i think he does show signs that he is trying and that he does care.


All in all another win ground out, and another boring boring Belfast perofrmance where they tried to hug the life out of the game. Shame really as when they were being expansive they looked like they could kill any team in this league.

Credit and Criticism for Darnell credit for being better than Thompson in dealing with the Giants clutch and grab, Criticism for the following basic errors.


When its a powerplay the team who is on the powerplay gets a Face off in the offensive zone.

When a player punches another in the face, not calling it then going over to his bench and having a word with him shows you saw it and just didnt have the balls to call it.

When you go over to the bench of a team who's player (Mcmorrow) has been warned 3 times by you to stop shouting at the opposition bench and to stop quetioning every desicion, its probably time to give him a 10 minute misconduct.

I could go on, but i'm tired :lol:

 

[Diafol]

I suppose the main thing we can take from tonight (apart from the extra point) is the knowledge that this team can play as badly as that and still grind out a win, because in games when we've done that in the last few years, we've been spanked.

It certainly looks like being the tightest title race in years ! Onwards and upwards...

 

[Max Beerbarrell]

"This is our rink, our puck, we control the game by our determination" (or something along those lines)is what we say in our intro. Well that didn't happen tonight. I've never seen us bullied so much at home.

It was frustrating to watch. Fair play to McMorrow, he knows what he's paid for and tonight there were several times when the likes of Benedict, Szwez & Bateman behaved in a way which should have seen them have something to answer to, but nothing was done to them. This was because every player knew the Giants enforcer was there!

It's a difficult situation. Brad is so important to us as a presence and also a point scorer but I thought tonight that our pride took a hit as we didn't stand up to some of the bullying tactics in our own rink. Ah well, I suppose the 2 points is the main thing, although I did wish we'd matched their physicality when needed.

Max

 

[W3LSH]

As above really.... poor game IMO especially the first two periods.

McMorrow is an absolute goon! A shame Voth didn't sort him out. Voth seems very quiet lately? In terms of fights and even hits... don't think a unkown would realise he's the Devils enforcer.

On a better note, we got the points which is what matters, hopefully they'll sort things out by the next match

 

[Finny]

Not a great game in which Darnell's standard of refereeing really needs to be looked at.

Belfast are definately the dirtiest team this season. They carry their sticks around at head height most of the time - several Devils players were nursing facial cuts by the end of the game. Benedict in particular needs to be given a warning before he injures someone.

They picked up 28 minutes of penalties but with a firmer ref it could easily have been 58. You can understand referee's missing off the puck incidents due to the speed of the game, but not when they are right infront of you.
Belfast seemed to have a tactic of "if you get called - try to drag the other player into one too". Devils kept ignoring it but Darnell not once called the second offence.
Szwez got called for an obvious punch on Richardson. Darnell called it, play stops and Richardson gets back up. As he does, Szewz skates over to him and butt-ends him in the face - right infront of Darnell - yet Darnell ignores it. It must have happened 5 or 6 times.
I don't like criticising referee's so I'll leave it for someone else to explain how truly terrible he was at times. A team with a decent PP would have destroyed Belfast tonight but our PP was dreadful. We had a 5-on-3 for 50 seconds and not only did we not get a shot on goal - but spent most of it outside of the Belfast zone.

Onto the game, Belfast started the quicker before the Devils slowly got back into the game. Period was pretty even until Belfast scored a fortunate goal. Yet another awful Devils PP was cleared down the ice, and the defence got in a right mess. The puck kept falling to a Giants player and as they swung taking hopeful shots the puck bounced off two players, off the boards and to Cheverie at the far post who tapped it in.

Second period was dire. Devils couldn't pass the puck, how PP fell to new depths and Lyle had to make two very good saves when we gifted the breakaways. 5-on-5 we didn't look too bad but as soon as we had an extra player we looked clueless. Other than one shot which hit the pipes (Miller?) we never really looked like scoring and were thankful to Lyle that we were only 1 goal down.

Third period and the Devils finally started to get their act together. 2 minutes in and after some good work by Ben Davies, Jason Stone fired the puck towards goal and Matt Towe deflected the puck past Craze. Devils sensed the tide was turning and created several good chances but the puck would never drop kindly and Craze was playing well.

Into overtime, and after a Belfast attack was broken up, Latulippe broke away down the right wing. As he skated in on goal he was hooked, slashed and held by the Belfast Dman, stopping him from getting the shot away. I'm not sure whether that confused Craze, but as it looked like he had gone too far, he finally took the shot and it somehow got past the netminder and into the net.

I hope Belfast don't play their home games like they do their away games. That's two games we've played against them now and they have been the worst two games I've seen this season. Thankfully we don't have to play them for a while now.

And I know McMorrow has a role to play - but what a complete waste of an import slot. And what a classless idiot at times too.
During the warm-up Voth went over to the bench to have his photo taken with some kids who were puck sponsors. McMorrow took this opportunity to skate over and shout nonsense at Voth. Voth turned, stared at him and just chuckled. McMorrow then started shouting more abuse and swearing at him and Francis on the bench. Right infront of the kids. Nice one. Idiot.

1st shift of the game and he is on for the face off. Goes for Voth straight from the face-off but Voth just shrugs him off and gets on with the game. McMorrow eventually gets the messages and slopes off to the bench with his game pretty much over. I think he got about 6 shifts for the rest of the game, 1 of which included him trying to check Birbraer but totally mis-timing it and sending himself flying into the boards headfirst. I do like DevilsTV replays! The rest of the time he spent leaning over the boards shouting abuse at the Devils players who were good enough to be getting regular shifts.

Ah well, 2 points is 2 points. Hopefully the League will dock Belfast 2 points for the flights farce, though I doubt it.

 

[Wannabe2]

Not a great game in which Darnell's standard of refereeing really needs to be looked at.

Belfast are definately the dirtiest team this season. They carry their sticks around at head height most of the time - several Devils players were nursing facial cuts by the end of the game. Benedict in particular needs to be given a warning before he injures someone.

They picked up 28 minutes of penalties but with a firmer ref it could easily have been 58. You can understand referee's missing off the puck incidents due to the speed of the game, but not when they are right infront of you.
Belfast seemed to have a tactic of "if you get called - try to drag the other player into one too". Devils kept ignoring it but Darnell not once called the second offence.
Szwez got called for an obvious punch on Richardson. Darnell called it, play stops and Richardson gets back up. As he does, Szewz skates over to him and butt-ends him in the face - right infront of Darnell - yet Darnell ignores it. It must have happened 5 or 6 times.
I don't like criticising referee's so I'll leave it for someone else to explain how truly terrible he was at times. A team with a decent PP would have destroyed Belfast tonight but our PP was dreadful. We had a 5-on-3 for 50 seconds and not only did we not get a shot on goal - but spent most of it outside of the Belfast zone.

Onto the game, Belfast started the quicker before the Devils slowly got back into the game. Period was pretty even until Belfast scored a fortunate goal. Yet another awful Devils PP was cleared down the ice, and the defence got in a right mess. The puck kept falling to a Giants player and as they swung taking hopeful shots the puck bounced off two players, off the boards and to Cheverie at the far post who tapped it in.

Second period was dire. Devils couldn't pass the puck, how PP fell to new depths and Lyle had to make two very good saves when we gifted the breakaways. 5-on-5 we didn't look too bad but as soon as we had an extra player we looked clueless. Other than one shot which hit the pipes (Miller?) we never really looked like scoring and were thankful to Lyle that we were only 1 goal down.

Third period and the Devils finally started to get their act together. 2 minutes in and after some good work by Ben Davies, Jason Stone fired the puck towards goal and Matt Towe deflected the puck past Craze. Devils sensed the tide was turning and created several good chances but the puck would never drop kindly and Craze was playing well.

Into overtime, and after a Belfast attack was broken up, Latulippe broke away down the right wing. As he skated in on goal he was hooked, slashed and held by the Belfast Dman, stopping him from getting the shot away. I'm not sure whether that confused Craze, but as it looked like he had gone too far, he finally took the shot and it somehow got past the netminder and into the net.

I hope Belfast don't play their home games like they do their away games. That's two games we've played against them now and they have been the worst two games I've seen this season. Thankfully we don't have to play them for a while now.

And I know McMorrow has a role to play - but what a complete waste of an import slot. And what a classless idiot at times too.
During the warm-up Voth went over to the bench to have his photo taken with some kids who were puck sponsors. McMorrow took this opportunity to skate over and shout nonsense at Voth. Voth turned, stared at him and just chuckled. McMorrow then started shouting more abuse and swearing at him and Francis on the bench. Right infront of the kids. Nice one. Idiot.

1st shift of the game and he is on for the face off. Goes for Voth straight from the face-off but Voth just shrugs him off and gets on with the game. McMorrow eventually gets the messages and slopes off to the bench with his game pretty much over. I think he got about 6 shifts for the rest of the game, 1 of which included him trying to check Birbraer but totally mis-timing it and sending himself flying into the boards headfirst. I do like DevilsTV replays! The rest of the time he spent leaning over the boards shouting abuse at the Devils players who were good enough to be getting regular shifts.

Ah well, 2 points is 2 points. Hopefully the League will dock Belfast 2 points for the flights farce, though I doubt it.

This is how bad he was.
God i have witnessed some shite referrying in my time, but for gods sake that abysmal trash takes the friggin biscuit. Darnell was a total disgrace to the sport tonight, if you are going to be trash then for heavens sake have the balls to be trash to both teams. This idiot can totally destroy a game singlehanded, there is being a moron, and being a moron, but this little peepsqeek is the lowest of the friggin low. If this moron got paid a tenner tonight it would be a tenner too much, total disgrace.

 

[rolf]

Bottom line tonight we were scared of them. Aside from McMorrow they had far more big guys who were up for it and we weren't. First period, Michel gets dangerously x-checked from behind into the boards. Protagonist gets 2 mins boarding call duh? First man in to settle it is...............Matt Towe. Spookily enough his helmet is displaced by 3rd or 4th man in. Towey looks around to see..........Jeff Szwez holding him by the scruff of his neck and offering him. Towey gives it the old oh didn't mean owt Jeff, honest (who can blame him - giving him 40lbs and about 4 inches). Question is, where were the big guys on the team??????? Errrm skating off for a line change coach!!!

They had far more toughness in-depth than we did and it showed, Bateman (cheap shotting scumbag), Walsh, Cook and Johnson enjoyed the freedom of Cardiff tonight along with Benedict (1970s pornstar lookalike haha). Never mind McMorrow who is fast becoming a bit part marginalised player like Andrew Sharp (except he don't know where the net is....) - proved tonight by his desperate antics from the bench. His desire to dance with anyone is almost as desperate as a two-bob old whore whose best days are in the past, looking at 10 to 2 in the morning with no cab fare home. He is a pantomime, but I guess he allows the others the freedom of expression shown tonight. As it happens I believe them to be the best team in this league which is why we looked so dire tonight. You can only play as well as the opposition allows.

That all said, they got away with lots of really naughty stuff tonight, at least 3 high sticks to the chops, that nasty x-check from behind, unsportsmanlike conduct and the butt ends, not to mention the holding, interferance etc all indulged by Darnell. He did call more on them than he did on the chavs the other week, but he only got about 40% of it and made damn sure he evened a lot of rough calls out by sharing them with us. Max 2 mins for elbows, Miller 2 mins for tripping when one on one with Craze stand out head and shoulders above the rest from my vantage point. I'd like to believe that he is inept, but on his recent showings I am fast thinking he loves a pound note, if you catch my drift.

 

[Jacko]

i was disappointed to loose tonight i didnt think we played poorly enough to loose. but i didnt think we were good enough to win either. A point given the circumstances is fair enough imo.

Alot of the talk has been about darnell who again imo had a standard game for him, he was no more pro giants than pro devils, and in our tin pot league is all you can really ask for is consistantly. something certain other refs dont give.

the rest of the chat is about McMorrow, who didnt take a single Penalty minute tonight.......perhaps if you'd been more worried about the actual players on our team, maybe you'd have won in reg.

we had craze in nets tonight and i think he played great, as he has anytime we've callled on him. not yet a eihl started but definately the best back up nettie in the eihl.

Lyle imo was NOT the difference between the 2 teams, he was solid and all but at no point did i think or say "dam giants should have scored that"

as i say disappointed but its justice after we stole the extra point last time.

 

[Merthyr Devil]

the rest of the chat is about McMorrow, who didnt take a single Penalty minute tonight.......perhaps if you'd been more worried about the actual players on our team, maybe you'd have won in reg.

Lyle imo was NOT the difference between the 2 teams, he was solid and all but at no point did i think or say "dam giants should have scored that"

Perhaps if Belfast had a player who was actually capable of playing hockey on their shifts instead of just trying to fight they would have won in reg. McMorrow wasn't on the ice long enough to take a penalty either :lol: Although after the 5th time of Darnell skating over to 'warn' him you start to wonder how he didn't get any penalty minutes. That Szwez guy should have had a lot more penalties than he did have too.

And personally I'd say Lyle had a lot more to do than Craze. Every other team in the world would at least try to make the back up work, we looked like we didn't want to shoot on him at all. And the shots we did have were straight at him. He's definitely the best back up in the league though, and I hope he becomes a starting netminder in the Elite League one day as I like to see Welsh players doing well (plus he's from Merthyr ).

Darnell is just generally rubbish, I'll never forget the stupid delay of game call he made against Sheffield earlier in the year which gifted them a point! At least he's consistantly rubbish I suppose. At one point tonight we were calling a time out before a 5 on 3 and Darnell was to busy talking to the linesman to realise and when he finally looked back he decided it was too late to call a time out. Franny was not happy. And the Giants hit the puck straight out over the plexi and Darnell signalled that it deflected. There was no Devils player anywhere near it! At least one of linesman came over and made the call on that one as Darnell who was standing right next to it didn't have a clue.

Felt we were lucky to get the win tonight, Belfast just seemed a lot up for it and faster than we did but it doesn't matter now, a wins a win.

 

[ledgend777]

Awful first 2 periods. Must have had about 7 powerplays (or more?) and managed about 1 shot per powerplay plus conceded whilst on powerplay and Lyle had to pull out a couple of awesome saves whilst we were on powerplay.

Glad I stayed for the 3rd though - Devils were a completely different team. I left the rink just shocked that somehow we'd won the game despite 2 awful periods. Defence done well and Lyle was awesome against his old team. Craze did well for Giants as well. Giants were ridiculous with their dirty play - as someone said earlier, they could easily have had 4 skaters (or less) for the entire 60 minutes if everything had been called.

Oh well, that's 4 games I've been to and 4 wins this season! Long may it continue!

 

[DevilDom]

It wasn't pretty but at least we won.

IMO the game was very similar to the last home game against the Giants. We allowed them to push us around and intimidate us on our own ice. I think there is too much pressue on Voth as the Giants had probably 3 or 4 guys who are prepared to go whereas we have Voth and Miller (who isn't that big but is a psycho!). If there are to be any changes to the team (and I stress IF), I would be looking for a big D man, a bit quicker then MacIver was, who is prepared to step up when needed (possibly to replace Romfo).

Devils were terrible for 2 periods with the PP especially poor. Third period we picked it up and got some reward. I think we missed Smith badly. His invention and quick passing would I think been the difference between the teams had he played.

Its slightly annoying we have now let Belfast take 3 out 4 points on our patch, but as I think the officiating played a big part in that and was (again) very poor.

I do think G should have the boys in for extra passing and PP practice this week and Romfo should be given lines - "I will not ice the puck on the PP"!

 

[drainage]

i was disappointed to loose tonight i didnt think we played poorly enough to loose. but i didnt think we were good enough to win either. A point given the circumstances is fair enough imo.

Alot of the talk has been about darnell who again imo had a standard game for him, he was no more pro giants than pro devils, and in our tin pot league is all you can really ask for is consistantly. something certain other refs dont give.

the rest of the chat is about McMorrow, who didnt take a single Penalty minute tonight.......perhaps if you'd been more worried about the actual players on our team, maybe you'd have won in reg.

we had craze in nets tonight and i think he played great, as he has anytime we've callled on him. not yet a eihl started but definately the best back up nettie in the eihl.

Lyle imo was NOT the difference between the 2 teams, he was solid and all but at no point did i think or say "dam giants should have scored that"

as i say disappointed but its justice after we stole the extra point last time.

McMorrow probably failed to get a penalty on ice due to the fact he had 5 shifts in first 40 mins - always going to reduce your ability to get a penalty that !!! His constant gobbing off from bench should have earned him something - or at least ear plugs for everyone having to listen to his drivel !

We played badly but got the 2 points - the shame is we gave up 1 point to a defensive error, and then some the D c**ked up royally to let that one in!

 

[mazza03]

McMorrow is an absolute goon! A shame Voth didn't sort him out. Voth seems very quiet lately? In terms of fights and even hits... don't think a unkown would realise he's the Devils enforcer.

Voth did exactly the right thing and laughed at him and kept laughing, the guy is a goon, not the sort we want Brad sitting 2/5/10 minutes in the bin for.

 

[Finny]

I would have been disappointed if Voth did fight him. With Smith injured we were already one import down - to lose Voth for 5 minutes would have been daft.
McMorrow offers nothing else to his team. You could see how disappointed he was when he came off having not had a fight.
He got by my counting 6 shifts all game. 3 in the first, 2 in the second and 1 in the third.

Someone suggested that Voth was quiet because of McMorrow - I think he was just unable to check people like usual as the Giants were constantly grabbing players, and when one of our players did manage to throw their body around they were met with an elbow or a stick to the face.