Best from the Nest. Wasps win season opener.

Thank you Dave Bushall and our friends at the Wasps for providing us with the match report and Vince Cowell for photographic evidence. Those with good observation skills, will notice a feature name change for 2011/2012. Welcome to 'Best from the Nest'.

Hull Wasps 84 Oldham Titans 39

Hull Wasps got off to a flyer in their National League opener with an 84-39 victory over Oldham Titans on Saturday night.

Another packed-crowd at the Bonus Arena saw the visitors open the scoring through Martin Robert. Wasps captain John Brignell fought back instantly though, hitting 3 free-throws to get the home side going. Hull continued from there and opened up a commanding lead to finish the first-quarter 20-9 ahead.

Wasps defence looked solid in the second-quarter, restricting the visitors to just 2 points in the whole 10-minute period, but putting up 21 points themselves to take a 41-11 lead into the half-time interval.

Oldham began to fight back in the third-period after Wasps’ coach Matt Fawcett gave National League debuts to Sean Johnstone, Chris Mills, Liam Lacey and Simon Coker. The Titans fought back in an evenly matched period but still couldn’t close the gap and the Wasps still lead by 60-29 entering the final period.

Frustrations began to show for the visitors which created a scrappy period of play where they gave away a number of technical fouls. Their frustrations began to boil over shortly after with Oldham’s Chris Gent and Hull’s Miles Anderson being ejected from the game following a minor-scuffle between the two with just 5 minutes remaining in the game.

In the end, Hull Wasps strolled to a comfortable victory with another strong final-quarter performance and sit at the top of National League 4 North after the opening round.

Captain John Brignell top-scored for the Wasps with 17 points. Adrian Blatherwick scored 16 and was named Most Valuable Player, with James Rayner scoring 8.
Wasps travel to another new National League team Rossendale Raptors on Saturday evening, before making the journey to Division 2 Northumbria on the Sunday for Round 2 of the National Cup.