Away to Clydesale 2s

“An honourable defeat” is my description of Saturday’s loss to Clydesdale. Their 2nd XI have become a consistently strong squad, which plays fast and accurate, attacking hockey. Containing them with 4 of our senior players missing was always going to be tough.

They started brightly with plenty of territory yet failed to create a clear chance until midway through the first half. The Dale took the lead soon enough from a penalty corner, but then butchered a 3-on-1 against the keeper. We then went through a torrid eight minute period where it looked even direr than the incoming weather – hailstones! Andy V deflected one into the back of the net and then they capitalised on an errant pass. 3-0 at the whistle and heads were a little low.
An epiphany was reached just as I moped towards the dug-out that would hopefully drags the boys up a bit. Most of their pressure was coming from unforced errors, if we could avoid these, we were actually defending their own build-up work reasonably well.
With goals to chase, we pushed Stumpy higher up the park to pressurise their players running screen passes and this became fruitful as their CM no longer turned freely or we picked off longer passes they attempted to play in the spare channel.
A quick, four-pass move took the ball nicely from our 25 to their D, where a simple 2v1 was converted by Weavers. At 3-1 did we have a slight sniff of something heroic?
It wasn’t to happen. Clydesdale put their foot back on the accelerator and got their fourth before once again sitting back, safe on a 3-goal lead.

My thanks to our opposition for a good game, providing both umpires and then some warming grub afterwards.