COLTS AND STALLIONS COUNTER AND CANTER

With the regular captain sunning himself in Italy, and the regular scribe absent, it falls on the stand-in to report.

Arriving at Trinity Schools Building site on a warm Saturday afternoon we had the pleasure of watching some fast, flowing hockey played by Sevenoaks 3rd team against Tunbridge Wells. How we would love to play smooth hockey like that. Many thanks to Seneka for coming down to help with the umpiring, going through a warm up routine with Steve Miller that reminded this scribe of how to use french toilet facilities back in the day.

Good play in the opening period of the game through the probing balls and runs from Ravi Wickramasuriya and Phil Goode allowed good link up play with the youthful speed of Harry Southgate on the left, Max Nelson up front and the roving Josh Clarke acting as a suitable foil to Mark Ainley’s guile and precision. Pressure told, and a short corner was converted with aplomb by Phil Goode.

A defensive line-up of Chris Bernard, Phil Kinch, Steve Miller and Matt Southgate looked solid during the first half, only to concede a few short corners, where eventually Sevenoaks managed to get the ball past Tom Conway in goal. With Chris Bernard taking a breather, Man of the Match Tony d’Cruz entered the pitch, dealing well in an unfamiliar right-side defensive role with their probing left side players. Good stick work, breaking up the play, close control and good sensible passing meant that Tony didn’t lose the ball and kept us moving forward.

The second half started with a debut from Chris Smith, whose energy will be an asset to the team. Sensible use of substitutes allowed us to stay strong, until Steve Miller succumbed to injury due to playing the “Tim” line of defending short corners and getting a ball on the ankle from short range. An incisive move by Sevenoaks led to one of their youngsters turning the ball past Tom to give them the lead, before the move of the match with great movement by the team on a counter attack with Chris S getting a great ball into Josh in the D who finished well.

2:2 was probably a fair result, better finishing and the need to avoid giving away short corners would probably have swung the match our way. Still unbeaten (well what can you say after 2 games really!), we look forward to our opening match in the league on the 8th October against Holcombe 6s at Blackheath High School.