With a dearth of players this week 12 of us cobbled together and all cards were on the table for the formation. So when Barry got the call to play centre forward, with no time for acclimatisation or oxygen canisters to hand, he headed for the high altitude zone of Sudburys D....more on that later.
Mens 3s players Oli Hill, Jason Jarvill and Tom Dykes stepped in to help, playing fantastic roles in mid field and defence, calibrating their play perfectly so we had a well balanced game against Sudbury with beers shared in the clubhouse after rather than fists in the car park. Thank you guys. Oskars friend Robert had come along to support but with gum guard and shin pads in the car he was straight on the pitch getting stuck in at left midfield and then left wing. Well done Robert, great to have you with us! Knowing we were short on players Max turned up even though he was very under the weather and stuck out the first half. Thank you Max, this allowed us to put 11 players out until Tom could get to the game. Oskar was on fire spending most of his time rolling around in the Sudbury sand and letting his defence know exactly where he wanted them. Daniel Rice was solid in centre defence helping deny Sudbury any goals and clearing effectively to the mid field. Greg enjoyed a game at right wing drawing the Sudbury defence with his fast attacks. Andrew Dahl relished a high energy spell in mid field eyeing up the goal a few times. Will Peck was busy and dangerous at right midfield always offering an option to start an attack.
The game was great open hockey, we played maturely with many good passes, strong support for each other and so much more thought about our positioning for different phases of play. The evenly matched game allowed us to do this and showed the hockey we can play, well done, this is a huge improvement on the start of the season.
Barrys goal...where do we start? Having quickly adapted to the prima donna role of centre forward and loitering high on the pitch: the through ball came from no where, with deft stick work to outwit the keeper and a little flick the ball was in the back of the goal before any of us knew what had happened. Barry followed with several more close chances for furthering his tally even to the point of trying to pinch Roberts attempt on goal in the last seconds of the match. How are we going to get him back in defense....?
The second half saw numerous attacks from Bury as we built confidence and upped our tempo. Earning four short corners showed the pressure we managed to put Sudbury under. In the end our second goal came from a melee in the D offering a rebound and quick shot from Sam.
Barrys celebrated goal and role in attack certainly puts him in contention for man of the match however I feel this would make him completely impossible to live with for the rest of his family so the accolade goes to Oskar for a fine performance in goal and communicating with his defense so well.
I`m sure most of us are aware that Seb Konrath cant be with us for the rest of the season as he recovers from an operation. Sebs passion for hockey is incredible and he has had a great season. On behalf of all the 6s team we look forward to having Seb back on the pitch as soon as possible.