Winter League Game Week #7 - vs Stellenbosch B (Mens 2s)

Opponents: Maties B

Venue: Stellenbosch

Date: 4 June 2012

Time: 12h00

Game number two of the double header. We headed out to the infamous lil town that is Stellenbosch relatively early on Sunday morning still licking our wounds from Saturdays game, but we were all fired up and ready to pick up a victory.....except for Sparky. At around 11:45 I phone him to find out where he is. The phone call went like this: Deny – “Sparky, where the fuck are you?”, Sparky (sounding dreadfully hungover) – “oooohhhhhhhh the game starts at 12”. I think we have lost count of his number of coach fails. However we had Vis to provide us with our first useful coaching of the season. Another missing soldier was Glenzo, whose ‘GPS’ had apparently sent him on the wrong route, so we went into the game without a coach and a bench of one.

After several minutes we realised it was going to be a long day, with the sun beating down, legs buggered from yesterdays’ game and the Maties players running around like rabbits on ecstasy (which Bob probably sold to them). This eventually paid off as they grabbed the opening goal following a dazzling run from one of their strikers. We then grabbed a goal back compliments to Patches. We however let another goal slip in when we failed to clear a ball in the D (I basically passed it across the goal and Boogs missed it and the Stellies striker slapped into open goals). 

With the 2s trailing 2 – 1 we began to find some momentum with the backs working well together for the first time this season to create chances up front. We eventually won a shorty, zig zag was the call...Bob stops the ball, lays it to Curly to avoid the 1^st wave and at this point Curly was probably thinking “pass it to Bob so he can just miss again, I’m gonna shoot”...this proved to be a great train of thought as he slotted his flick to make it 2 – 2 and led to the creation of the “Zig”. This is how the score stayed until half time.

Both teams came out fighting from in the second half, but the ecstasy was clearly beginning to wear off (Thats what happens when you buy ecstasy from a Mexican) and Mutual began to dominate the game. We won a shorty and the call was for a straight drag. Glenzo obviously noted Bob was taking the flick so he ‘duffed’ his push to Bastick (anyone noticing a trend here??) who then nailed a backstick to make it 3 – 2 to the Green and Blue. This put plenty of wind in our sails and we proceeded to take the game away from Maties through some great attacking play and solid defense (about bloody time!).

Glenzo had a golden opportunity to score his first goal for Mutual since his return, but he duffed his shot terribly (still made more contact than Vis did though). Glenzo made up for this blunder as he scrimmaged his way into the D and set up Patches for our 4^th of the game. Bastick then soon added a 5^th to make it 5 – 2 to Mutual. 

Sparky showed no signs of raging at Tiger til the early hours of the morning when we made a run into the D and released a screamer of a backstick which the keeper managed to get a touch on which hit the post and went out for a long corner. Maties grabbed a consolation goal late in the game but it was too little too late as Mutual took a much needed 5 – 3 win.

A much improved performance from the team and showed ourselves that we can play quality hockey when we put our heads as well as our hearts into it. Patches had an absolute ripper making Maties players look like beacons and of course scoring 2 goals. Good to see youngsters stepping up! Also a huge thanks to our crew of supporters that brought the Green and Blue vibe out to Stellenbosch, it was hugely appreciated. Your cheers/jeers really helped us to a victory.

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Deny