THE 2016/17 season kicked off with a tasty National Trophy fixture between Bradford Dragons and last season's ‘clean-sweep’ quadruple winners Manchester Magic.

It looks as though Manchester are going to be the team to beat again after inflicting a convincing 99-85 defeat over their West Yorkshire hosts.

However, it was Bradford that started the game brightest, with newbie American point guard Marcus Gooding sinking what looked like a fantastic three-point basket, only for it to be ruled out due to a side-line violation.

Gooding soon made amends, putting the first points on the board with a two-pointer from just inside the D.

But Manchester weren't behind for long and quickly piled up the baskets to build up a six-point lead.

That lead was extended to 15 points and it was only some clinical three-point shooting from Gooding that kept the home side in touch. The first quarter ended with the Dragons trailing 27-21.

Whatever Bradford threw at their visitors, Manchester had an answer and as the teams left the court at the end of the second quarter, Magic’s lead had been stretched to 53-42.

Halfway through the third period, Manchester’s lead had been trimmed to four points, but once again Manchester gained some momentum and by the time the quarter finished the gap was back to 12 (73-65).

Manchester’s superiority was never in doubt and they finished the game on a real flurry, returning back across the Pennines as victors.

Despite the opening day loss, the Dragons are looking a much more solid unit and can take many positives from the game, not least Gooding’s three-point shooting – he took a total of 25 points, of which 21 were from beyond the three-point line.

However, it was Dragons’ longest serving player Rihards Sulcs who finished with a game high of 28 points, whilst also taking eight rebounds.

Dragons’ head coach Chris Mellor commented: “We didn’t get off to a great start and were pretty much playing catch up the rest of the way really.

"We cut the lead numerous times to four or five points in the second half but they came up with scores at the right time to stop our momentum.”

Dragons now travel to Team Northumbria on Sunday before returning to the Dragons Den the following Saturday for their final National Trophy group game against Lancashire Spinners.

l THE Dragons had four of their junior players (Joe Barrett, Haben Malcolm-Warner, Alex Gabbitas and Samuel David) in the Yorkshire under-15s team at Basketball England’s Regional Development Tournament on Saturday and Sunday.

Yorkshire won all four of their group matches on Saturday, but then lost the semi-final match against London, who went on to win the tournament. Yorkshire then won the third and fourth place play-off game, to finish the tournament in a very respectable third position.