The third weekend of Premier British league visited Cardiff on the 9th of January and was held in Sport Wales national centre in Sophia Gardens. The top eight teams in Britain were all in action, including Cardiff City TTC as the race for the title and also the race for survival in the league heated up.
Cardiff entered the weekend in joint 6th position alongside London Academy, who were to be their first opponents. With teams finishing in 7th and 8th place at the end of the season being relegated there was a large onus on gaining a good result to try and cement a place in the division for next season. Cardiff’s team for the day would be Gustav Ericson, Craig Bryant, Dan O’Connell & Patrick Thomas.
Things did not start well for Cardiff as Gustav lost to St Louis 3-0 and Craig was beaten by Kawai 3-2. Dan then got a point on the board for Cardiff as he beat Beerling 3-0, but unfortunately Patrick then lost out to Achampong 3-1. This left Cardiff 3-1 down at the half way stage and with a lot of work to do to gain something from the fixture.
Gustav lost his second match to Kawai 3-1 and Dan lost to St Louis 3-2 so despite wins for Craig against Achampong 3-0 and Patrick against Beerling 3-1 London secured all the points on offer and moved ahead of Cardiff in the table.
The second round of matches saw Cardiff face off against Drumchapel Glasgow who came into the weekend in 2nd place in the table. With the addition of current world number 88 He Zhi When to their line-up they certainly had quality in their team, however they were missing several players who had played the last time the two teams faced off.
Again things started slowly for Cardiff as Craig lost to He Zhi When 3-0. Gustav then quickly got Cardiff back into the match with a 3-0 win over Wheeler. Drumchapel then took the lead a further two times as Patrick lost to Guang Shi 3-1 prior to Dan beating Razouk 3-2 and Gustav lost to He Zhi When 3-0 before Craig beat Guang Shi 3-1. This left the scores level at 3-3 with Dan and Patrick left to play and a great chance for Cardiff to pull off an unexpected win and gain valuable points which they did so as both Dan and Patrick won 3-0 against Wheeler and Razouk to seal a 5-3 victory for Cardiff.
Cardiff remain joint 6th with London but just behind on sets difference heading into the final weekend of matches on the 13th/14th of February in Middlesbrough.
Cardiff will play London Fusion, Ormesby, Kingfisher & BATTS in a weekend where every point gained could prove vital in deciding who gets relegated and who survives in the premier league.