Last Saturday Kent Roller Girls (KRG) took a trip across the channel to play La Boucherie (The Butchers) Roller Derby in Paris.
The first three jams saw The Butchers race off to a 50 point lead holding Kent’s jammers (the pointscorers) behind their braced walls of blockers.
A quick timeout was called for regrouping and Kent put some points on the board. Everyone played a clean game with few penalties meaning the action was on the track with a full five on five dualling it out.
Red Volta was the star Jammer for the French side, whose agility and strength was complimented by the well timed support from her blockers that was a deadly combination that pushed Kent in one of their most challenging games yet.
After sitting high on the top of the leader board for their division last year in the British Roller Derby Championships, Kent wanted a tough game to hone their skills for their first tier two game against Windsor on the 11th February, and they were not disappointed.
At halftime, it may have been the team talk or the line up revisions made by Kent’s Coach, Brute 66, but the team seemed to add an extra level of strength to their defensive line and there were several Lead Jammers called in Kents’s favour with Tenacious, Pickett and the niftily named Bionic Bessie helping add to the points tally.
Three others took to the Jam line during the game, a first outing for Chip and Meg for KRG saw them both barrelling into the French defence trying to make their mark. Blocker Helen Degenerate proved she can turn her hand to any task required and took the star for an epic jam which involved knocking off the French jammer and recycling her back 20 foot, before racing off on a point scoring mission.
As the French defence was so well drilled and tough to navigate through it was clear an dedicated offence strategy was vital to release the Kent jammers from the pack of skaters. Strong performances came from Jenna, Jiggly, Amy, Demi, Roxy and notably Kent’s Vice-Captain Shep threw some almighty hits during the course of the game as well as providing some tactical play to change the pace of the game, however the deficit was just to big to overcome.
The points finished at 252-67 – a scoreline that reflects the power of the La Boucherie but also the grit of the Kent roster who managed to make a solid recovery and scored two-thirds of those points in the second half; and it’s that determination KRG will need to see them progress well in their next game in just a few weeks time.
