This narrow defeat in Bristol sent the Tigers out of the National Cup. They had looked dead and buried at half–time, trailing by a massive 24 points, but showed fantastic spirit to stage a second half fight back. They outscored the home side by 45 points to 23 in the final two quarters, but ran out of time.
You can watch the full game video here or View it on Vimeo. The match report continues below.
A 3 from in the corner by Sean Clifford led the penultimate Tigers' rally with Joe Andrews adding an inside basket before netting his sixth basket from outside, to put Tigers ahead by a single point (for the first time in the game) and the noisy Tigers supporters on their feet. However, a massive basket inside the final minute by Flyers' American McLaughlin–Williams regained the lead before their European import Makowski made one of his two from the line to put them 2 ahead. In the dying seconds, a well worked move by Tigers created space outside for Joe Andrews, but his shot just failed to drop, denying them the win and what would have been a remarkable recovery.
Tom Kambouris was philosophical after the game,
“To bring a 24 point half–time deficit back to 1 up with 47 seconds left says a lot about this team's character. Although it is a huge pill to swallow that we haven't made the Quarter Finals (of the National Cup), our solace is that the last 20 minutes we played Bristol on their court and outscored them by 22 points.”