Ladies 6s Retain Top Spot with OCs Win

Ladies 6s 4 – 0 Old Cranleighans 3s

POM: Joint between Becky & Hatchy

DOD: Tiff Chapman

Sitting fairly pretty, albeit not totally confidently, at the top of the table; each game now comes with an added pressure as Spencer & Barnes 4 are chomping at our heels.

There is everything to play for in the next few games and putting a super rosy spin on things, Saturday’s game was straight out of the German national football team handbook: score four goals in the first half and then defend as if your life depends on it. I believe in football they call this: ‘game management’.

I don’t think that was necessarily our strategy, but that is what happened. The first half was champagne hockey – led as ever by our stellar captain. We passed, we played, we drove, we scored!

The goal highlights (for me) were the first: go-go gadget arms reaching beyond what is quadratically possible (by me, natch) to get to a long ball and then a slice across the D finished effortlessly by Hatchy in her usual languid manner. And the third (?) goal, which was a beaut! Top corner by Val, fresh off the slopes with renewed vigour, but not lacking any of those terrific diplomatic skills that get her a lovely one-to-one chat with the umpire each week. There were two more goals, but I can’t remember how they happened. I’m sure they were amazeballs too.

So that was the first half. So far, so awesome. Two things happened at half time which changed everything. The first was that we had about ten million bags of sweets. The second (and this is conjecture) is that someone told OCs that they do actually know how to play hockey.

So to the second half. Imagine 11 hyped-up toddlers running around in circles off their faces on e-numbers: that was us. Then imagine 11 grown ups using their hockey skills to play the ball around us and drive into our D at every opportunity: that was the oppo. Somehow (awesome keeper Becky) we managed not to concede, despite our best efforts to give the ball to OCs at every opportunity. Sometimes, just to make it extra exciting, we gave it to them at the top of our D. In fairness to our brilliant defence, we did the same everywhere else on the pitch.

As for the DOD-ery, this took place during one such incursion by OCs into our D, where facing the immovable brick wall that is MY STICK, the only other option was to hit the ball at said stick as hard as possible. Cue ball bouncing off the stick into my face. This led later that day to one of my all-time favourite text chats with my mother following a photo of swollen eye showing all the colours of the rainbow. Tiff’s mum: ‘are you in A&E? is it broken?’ Tiff: ‘No, I’ve gone Bavarian axe throwing… obviously.’

Bring on next week’s game!