Good morning guys
Well it was a good start to the season, few pointers to work on before our next game
1. Completely dominated our opponents, yet me struggled in the last quarter when finishing.
2. In our next game, let’s get more shots on target, force that keeper to make some saves.
3. Try and be more clinical in the circle.
14 April 2012
Venue: Mutual
Opponents: van der Stel
After a good warm up, we took to the field to hit around and get ready for the first game of the season. We made a huge mistake by showing vd Stel our only weakness during the warm up ozzy, Vis being a spectator and watching all the balls go in. The first 5 minutes in typical Mutual fashion we took a while to switch on but after all the old muscles warmed up #Demon we started to dominate.
Unlike the 1s and 2s strategy, we decided to throw as many overheads as possible from almost every 16. Tosser finding the forwards 9 out of 10 times which Sherman quickly pointed out was on only 35%. We seemed to dominate 75% of the field but our strikers lacked finishing in the last 25. Pete coming closest with a rocket of a shot crashing into the side netting.
Major coaching fail putting Sparky centre link. I assumed that he would be the fittest player in the side since he was the centre link for our TC side. I later realised why they say assumption is the mother of all F-ups. Sparky begging to switch with Caveman so that he could rest.
Blake and Scooter then started to combine well up front, turning the vd Stel defence and putting them on the back foot. Spud seemed to be having fun with the guy marking him. Being younger, quicker and more skilful, he would beat the defender, stop and wait for him then beat him again. The vd Stel ‘Front-Row’ (their defence) were forced to scrum our players off the ball right in front of their…..umm… well I don’t know if I should call him an umpire. Let’s just call him the guy standing on the side with a whistle. He was apparently watching a different game, blowing us up for forward passes not releasing the tackler. I thought he was a spectator until near the end of the half when he finally blew his whistle.
Mick was doing well in the centre of the park in his first club game, holding his space as a roaming player. Pulling off some great tackles when called upon and diving into those 50/50 tackels like his life depended on it.
PF receiving a bouncing ball in the circle and one timing it, only to completely miss the ball but made a clean connection with the defenders foot. Completely against the run of play, a wounded rabbit cross followed up by a weak deflection saw vd Stel go 1-0 up just moments before the half time whistle. Mutual 0 – 1 vd Stel. Keeping things relatively calm during the half time talk, we all knew what we had to do. Outscore the other side, usually this results in a win.
After a few minutes of dominating the breakthrough finally came. Rusty taking a free hit just outside the 25, taking a huge swing and smashing the ball far post to find PJ camping there with an easy tap in. Mutual 1 – 1 vd Stel.
After a crunching tackle from Sherman he then made what has since been nominated for chirp of the season, “Get up, hockey is a man’s sport!”. This riled up our supporters who only got louder. Sherman then backed up his chirp with an amazing full stretch diving save off the backline. Welcome to Mutual! Things only got better from there. Blake receiving a pass from the right inside the circle and slotting it in the goals with a clinical finish. Mutual 2 – 1 vd Stel.
We were all over them, spending most of the second half in their circle. They had one or two break away which our defence broke down well. A couple of the players decided to try win the game themselves, holding on way too long and after beating 4 or 5 players were eventually dispossessed. Things then started to get a little messy I know I hit the same guy in the leg twice. Once in retaliation for smashing my shin and then second after he took a baseball swing at one of the players.
Vd Stel then turned to long ball hockey, just smashing balls thru trying to find their striker. On particular instance comes to mind. Their striker was frantically chasing the ball to try stop it from going over the base line, Vis stepping off his line and superbly dummys the kick. The striker almost shat himself and ended up trying to get out of the way falling on his back and doing an #AwkwardTurtle.
We were almost dominating too much at this time of the match, trying to push for goal number three. We were caught a little by surprise against the run of play again, Sparky with an assist from p-spot who then tried to run around Vis and one-time the ball off the base line. Obviously he didn’t watch Sherman’s goal line save earlier. Although if he had connected with the ball it would have ended up in the train tracks….but he didn’t and it ended up in the goals. Mutual 2 – 2 vd Stel.
We then dropped out of 5th gear and pushed flat out to try get ahead in the closing moment of the game. A ball getting smashed across the circle with Scooter making a great run, narrowly missing it. We got a short in the dying moments of the game. After the ball was slipped to Caveman and his shot was saved, Pete recovered well and flipped the ball into the goals ‘WITH THE BALL CLIPPING THE TOP OF THE BACK BOARD’ …..or so we thought. The only person at the game that day that wasn’t convinced of this was Goose.
We all ended the game in high spirits thou, which is always a good thing. Got back to the club and had a few brewskies.
Final Score Mutual 2 - 2 vd Stel
Next Game:
Saturday 21st @ Hartleyvle
Time: 19h30
Opponents: Milnerton
First game is out of the way, nerves shaken off…as well as a couple of cob webs. I would say next weekend is a must win game, but every game we play this season is a must win. Looking at the logs from last year. The top two sides won 12 games each, so we have a benchmark of 13 wins for the season.
Yours in awesomeness
Tosser
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