Ladies 6s Held By Croydon Old Whitgiftians
By Ruth Fraser
Ladies 6s 1 - 1 Croydon Old Whitgiftians
It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon at the hockey club and the Ladies 6s were looking forward to our first game back on the show pitch. In true 6s style we had some banging tunes to motivate our warm up. Our usual coaches weren’t available this week, so Jen bought down her better half Philpo who gave us our pre-match team talk.
Croydon had the first push back and they dominated the first 10 minutes of the game, putting pressure on our defence and midfield. We were missing Giselle and Alex from the squad this week, so Tiff slotted well into the middle, picking up the loose balls and distributing them well. We then settled down and got into our stride.
We were moving the ball around well and started putting pressure on Croydon’s defence. We saw some fantastic runs up the left-hand side of the pitch from Jess O’Hara up to Lily and Maisie, but their defence kept us at bay. Then after some relentless pressure from the team, we got a penalty corner. Jen stepped up to take the first strike which was deflected right back to her and this time she put the ball in the back of the goal. We were 1-0 up. Shortly after that the half time whistle was blown.
After a positive half time talk from Philpo, lots of water to hydrate from the heat and a quick lesson on how to tackle with two hands we were ready to start the second half.
The first 10 minutes again saw Croydon putting the pressure again on our defence. The game was very much one way and then the other. Their forwards had plenty of chances, but our defence kept them from scoring. We then started to move the ball around better with more short sharp passes to each other. We saw a great run down the right-hand side of the pitch from Jess T who smacked a direct ball into the D. Jen threw herself at it but the ball just went wide.
Croydon started to get a few penalty corners, but our defence made some amazing saves. But on their next short corner the ball into the left side of the goal. In Marlijn’s own words, “I would have saved that, if it wasn’t for their centre forward doing a kamikaze in front of me”.
With 10 minutes left on the clock we saw a change of pace from the 6s, we had some great runs from our midfield and forwards, but their defence kept us out of the D. Loren then picked up the ball on the halfway and started an epic run dribbling past five of their players. She headed to the back line and dropped the ball back to the P spot but with our final chance to score we struck the ball just wide. The final whistle went, and the end score was 1-1.
POM – Jen for scoring a cracking goal. She was a close second to getting DOD for showing off her midriff whilst her boyfriend was taking the half time team talk.
DOD – Goes to me. Whilst substituting with Maisie, I knocked our sticks together. The sticks hooked up and as I turned to run onto the pitch, I totally floored Maisie. I then knew I would be writing the match report. Once again, sorry Maisie!