SHC Sloths WO35s 4 - 2 Burnt Ash WO35s (A)

Bafflingly, we hadn’t managed to get an entire hockey team to agree to a day out somewhere near Dartford, but ten Sloths assembled on a cold Sunday in Kent, with Jane tapping her watch as Bex ambled onto the pitch having had a near miss with going to the wrong location.

Aliki went from Saturday opposition player to Sunday team mate for a few of us and the confusion of who she was playing for on Sunday clearly affected her decisions about kit. Having forgotten her shinpads, she attempted to make a makeshift alternative with hockey gloves shoved into in her socks before being rescued by a Burnt Ash player, and she promptly finished the warm up on the floor after a shot - being new sadly doesn’t make you immune to being a standout winner of DOD, welcome/congrats Aliki.

Courtney and Laura boldly took on their dual strikers roles despite a distinct lack of picking up a stick in recent times and both did a great job of giving the Sloths options in front of goal whenever we attacked. It’s not 100% clear whether they are holding an official competition at home for who is most likely to dive for a ball, but Courts seemed to walk off the pitch with her knees in a worse state on this occasion. It was great to see both back out there and the post game pint(s) must have tasted extra sweet after playing again.

Aliki slotted into the midfield nicely, providing some great link up play down the left, while Emily was clearly desperate to beat the distance stats she’d logged during Saturday’s game and made some great attacking runs throughout the game. 20 shots, no goals… but a couple of great assists and (whisper it quietly) about the right amount of attempts on her reverse.

Captain Charlotte was a picture of composure pulling off a couple of slick skills and setting the tempo for our play out of the back with some pinpoint distribution. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed Sunny dusting the cobwebs off her hitting stick and joining the attacks down the right, Jane had an excellent game at left half with ice cool composure and some neat passing… and then there was our Club Captain. Regular Sloths fans might be surprised to hear Sian played at centre back, but they almost certainly won’t be surprised that she made several game-splitting passes (with only a couple of seven irons thrown in), slotted home a corner and scored a cheeky field goal after a little dribble upfield. Charlotte’s call of, “Just play two touch!” either fell on deaf ears… or Sian realised Charlotte had said it but that she’d also failed to actually run up and provide support, so just decided to finish the job herself.

We were what you might call a little open at times and Burnt Ash were able to make a few forays through to our circle. Silke might have been panicking about the personnel in front of her, but she didn’t show it and made a number of good stops in both halves, with a second half sliding save the standout. We went into half time 3-0 up, feeling vaguely as if we were cruising to victory.

The game opened up even more in the second half and we either got a bit tired, or took our feet off the gas slightly. Emily decided as well as being a Sloth down in open play, we should also do the same for defensive corners and broke early (“You can only assume she was worried about Charlotte and Sian being faster than her off the line,” as Jane observed). What happened next? Well. While Emily was in the middle of losing a race back from the halfway line against a very nippy Sloth youngster, Burnt Ash scored the next corner.

Courtney pulled off another classy finish a few minutes later, sweeping the ball into the top corner to take it to 4-1 and secure a well-deserved POM award. In between some antics with one or two Burnt Ash forwards getting a bit aggy with Sian and Jane, they scored again (also a nice goal, to be fair) but the Sloths crawled - quite slowly in some cases - to the finish line and into the next round of the WO35s Cup.

Canterbury are up next on Sunday 1st February. The sense of relief was palpable when everyone found out it’s at home… Don’t miss it. We might even manage to get 11 Sloths to play this time.