Bradford Dragons returned from their trip to the capital empty-handed, losing 81-68 to London Leopards in their final English Basketball League National Trophy pool game.

Dragons started brightly but Leopards pulled it back to take a 23-20 lead at the first break.

A poor second quarter by Dragons saw Leopards pull 40-31 clear at half-time.

The London side also won the third quarter to lead 61-48 before the Dragons finally raised their game to tie the last quarter.

Michal Ciesla scored 15 points for the Dragons, Bobby Edmunds making 13 and Chris McGrew 11.

Coach Chris Mellor said: “We were good for the first five minutes and the last five minutes but for the rest we were awful.

“We allowed them too many easy transition baskets and didn’t get physical enough on the boards.

“We had already qualified for the final knock-out phase but I don’t think this was a factor in anyone’s mentality. Leopards were better than us on the day, simple as that.”

Dragons play their first EBL Division One game of the season against Worthing Thunder on Saturday, tip-off 6.15pm at Trinity Green sports hall, Trinity Road.

On Sunday they are home again in the eagerly-awaited National Cup third-round derby against Leeds Met Carnegie for a place in the quarter-finalsat (4.15pm tip-off).

Elsewhere, there was a mixed bag of results, with Dragons 3 losing 100-42 at Mandela Warriors in the Leeds League Knockout Cup, while the under-14s were losing heavily at home to Leeds Carnegie when the game was abandoned following a serious injury to a Leeds player.

The under-18s lost 70-54 at home to Leeds Carnegie and the under-16s spilled an early lead to lose 75-70 to visitors York Vikings.

Dragons 2 recovered from 40-28 down at half-time to beat Oldham Titans 71-60 for their first EBL Division Four win of the season.

Valdis Kravalis top-scored with 16 points.

The following day, Dragons under-16s lost 96-68 at Leeds Carnegie in the Sureshot Cup and Dragons under-18s also went down 99-34 at Trafford in the same competition.