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| Hockey Under 9 Boys Team 'Blog' |
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Wednesday 12th March U9 A Team v Highfield This was to be the final game of the season and the aim was to go out with a bang! Highfield have a fairly lumpy and bumpy grass pitch and the wind was blowing an absolute gale…spectators were wrapped up and resembled Eskimos! From the first pass, we dominated and spent 90% of the game camped in their D. Goals came from Michael, who put away a great cross from Harry with one touch and Ben who sent a rocket from a quick break away into their D. Our midfield was firing well, keeping the ball up in the Highfield end. At this stage our defence was under little pressure…all that was to change! Halftime saw us set some targets as we felt that we had missed some opportunities in the first half to go further ahead. However, Highfield had their own agenda that would spoil this party! The game reversed with our defence being stretched to breaking. Highfield put 2 goals away to level things and without Lucas, I suspect that they could have had at least a further 2 goals. The game ended a draw at 2-2 which was a fair result as we could not get the ball to a well marked Brendon up in their D. The boys have learned a great deal this season. The Highfield coach commented on the exceptional stick work that our boys possess. They have played on almost every surface imaginable and most importantly, they have displayed that passion and desire to learn that I am sure will steer them well next year. I wish all the U9s success in this sport…it’s fast and it’s my favourite! Parkside Under 9 Hockey Tournament Tuesday 4th March 2008 The team played very well in this tournament and deserved to finish better than 7th in the competition. We won two against Lanesborough and Parkside B, drew one against Durlston Court and lost two against Hoe Bridge and Cranleigh putting us in 4th place in our group. We then played St Georges in the 7th/8th place play-off and won 1 – 0., taking us to 7th place in a tournament of 12 teams. Brendon Parvess was our striker and scored most of the goals, but Hassan Rubbani, Alvaro Rivas De Anta, Ben Barnard and Michael Gimson worked hard to get the ball to him from the wing and midfield positions. Our defenders, Lucas Bamber, Harry Rees and Max Hammond played very well also and would have stopped most of the goals against us if the midfield had worked back quicker to help them. Hal Quinn in goal made a great deal of excellent saves and gave the whole team the confidence to attack, knowing that Hal would be able to save them again. A good tournament performance. Well done boys, I really enjoyed taking you!! Paul Orechoff Wednesday 27th February U9 A Team v Edgeborough All the boys have thrown themselves into their Hockey this season and competition for places in the teams has been fierce! Hence, I was more than a little surprised to find that following the half term break, a chance to recoup and focus the minds, we appeared to have a spate of thrill junkies throwing themselves into extreme sports one of which required surgery 24 hours before the game. One of the first things that Alvaro asked when he came around from 30 minutes of surgery was could he play on Wednesday? I of course said yes but was over-ruled by the team of surgeons…sorry Alvaro! So those walking took to the field and vowed to play for Alvaro, who incidentally had twisted Miss Barrett’s arm, acquired a wheelchair and was positioned between the 2 matches!?! We started with our usual wariness for the opposition and did not fully engage them for the opening 5 minutes. However, in this time we did work the ball around the D with growing confidence. This drew our defence further forward and there were occasions when Hal and Max had to track back fast to stop some ominous looking attacks from the Edgeborough forwards. At half time it was scoreless and we set ourselves a target from the first push to use Hassan and Brendon to make faster breaks into the D. With more accurate clearances from Ben and Michael and Harry we soon opened up the game which brought about 2 cracking goals that were pretty much unstoppable. However, credit to the Edgeborough defence, they stepped up their game and kept out a number of really well worked moves that could have let the game run away from them. This commitment left them a little short up front and hence they struggled to build up an attack, leaving Hal and Max with a quieter second half. With a final score of 2-0, I want to pass on congratulations to Edgeborough who have only just started playing since half term, there was a great deal of ‘heart’ being shown from both teams. Tim Calvey U9 B Team v Edgeborough
Saturday 9th February U9 A Team v Cranleigh We started looking into the sun and this certainly made things tricky! The game plan was to keep in touch with Cranleigh and turn this to our advantage in the second half. Cranleigh certainly made the most of this advantage scoring 2 early goals. However, there was much to be praised in our defence. Both Hal and Max were determined and played with real courage. Hal making use of his head at one point to stop a rather high pass! Ben took up a position on the top of the D and thwarted a number of attacks. I suspect that Cranleigh could have gone into half time with a bigger winning margin, however the commitment of Hal, Max, Ben and Michael ensured that we had a good chance to get back into the game. At half time we took stock and brought Hassan back a touch aiming to bring Brendon into the game. Within 8 minutes we had drawn level with both Brendon and Hassan scoring great break away goals. Michael had more space and made the most of his powerful strikes releasing our forwards to good effect. With very little time left, Cranleigh came back with 2 goals that broke hearts! However, there was some great hockey played and I would suggest that 4 - 2 is not a fair reflection of the game. Tim Calvey Wednesday 6th February U9 A Team v Hoe Bridge This was our opening game of the season and we had prepared for the game to be on grass. However, due to good timing we found ourselves on the Hoe Bridge astro which was a great opportunity to play some fast hockey. We took a while to get going and in this time Hoe Bridge put some smartly struck goals past our defence. To be fair to Hal and Alvaro, they were adjusting from upright sticks for grass to more lateral sticks for astro. Our midfield started to fire, with Ben and Michael putting good balls through to Hassan and Brendon. With a touch more luck more of these balls could have found their mark. However, a final score of 4 – 2 was certainly fair. I would like to see us hungrier for possession. In addition we need to focus on finding space for passes. On grass you can get away with ‘make room and boom’ but astro requires more finesse! Make no mistake…we have the finesse…we just need to put it together! I’m looking forward to Saturday. Tim Calvey U9 B Team v Hoe Bridge After the games against St Andrew's were called off last week, the boys were eager and raring to go. Eagle House started off well with the defence consisting of Sven Winkler and Mathew Hodge looking solid. They managed to resist a few early attacks by the Hoe Bridge boys and this allowed the midfielders, Oscar Turton, Harry Rees and Max Hammond to start showing off their attacking flair and silky skills. Lucas Bamber started off as the sole striker and was giving the boys in the Hoe Bridge a torrid time. Hoe Bridge managed to score with a superb strike from the edge of the “D” and unfortunately we never recovered from this early set back. All the boys were trying their hearts out but our lack of match practice was starting to show, with passes going astray and some of the lads trying to get past players when a simple wide pass would have been far more effective. Hoe Bridge scored another two goals in quick succession and we suffered another setback when Lucas was struck on the forehead by a rising ball and had to go off for treatment. Hoe Bridge continued to attack and we conceded two more rather gifted goals before half time. H-T 0-5 The second half started in much the same vein as the first half had finished with Hoe Bridge launching attack after attack. Matthew Meikle came on in defence and did a superb job in clearing the line and marking the attackers. Rob Phillips was introduced into midfield and his work rate for the entire second half was very good. Unfortunately the mixture of lack of match practice and playing on astro for the first time got the better of us, and we ended up conceding four goals in the second half. Although the score is very one sided, it was a very entertaining game, and credit must be given to the boys for trying throughout the entire game. Also well done to those boys who played in their first ever hockey match. F-T 0-9 Richard Barron |
