We came into our home game against Cardinal Langley knowing that they were a definite contender for the league title again this year and we'd need a win to strengthen our lead at the top of division.

Both teams had key players missing and with only one ref on the night, we knew we'd have to accept that some things were gonna get missed. It happens!

We hit the floor with Adam Smith, James Burns, Ryan Curley, Ant Worthington and Adrian Willey.

Langley took the early lead, but we quickly picked up some momentum and broke their lead to two points. The first half saw Langley lead throughout and they held it well as we attempted to cut into it with our fast breaks.

We tried to stamp out the turnovers that had cost us in games against Tameside and Bury and it was evident from our passing and shot selection that we were playing more like the team that had started out the season 5-0.

Adam Smith was lighting it up again from the outside for us and he did it from the inside as they stepped out to play him closer. On top of Smith's 32 points, we also ran the floor extremely well. More importantly, we ran it as a team and there were several points from dump offs under the basket.

We tied the game in the second half and on the back of some more fast breaks, we found ourselves up by 10.

Langley were determined to bring it closer and shot the ball extremely well in the closing minutes. Some sloppy defence from us lead to some much needed "and 1" plays for Langley who's press was causing us no end of problems.

Fortunately, through error or not, Langley didn't take a time out on the final possession of the game (maybe they didn't have any left??) and they inbounded from their baseline. We piled on the pressure and held out to win by one.

Very, very close game down the stretch as Langley fought back and they displayed a lot of character. We shouldn't have allowed them to bring it back as close as they did and I think we need to work on our rotations and man-to-man individual defence at our next game.