U11 v Craigclowan

It was a beautiful day for hockey and the run down to the Dunbar astro was the perfect warm-up for the third match of the season, which was against Craigclowan.

Yet again, we started slowly. Despite spending half an hour yesterday working on where people should stand for free hits, and who should take them, we were poor in this department. Despite spending an equal amount of time on working the ball to the opposition’s weak side, we seldom did so. I am beginning to think that certain brains are attached to their owners’ trackies and get left on the side of the pitch when the match begins...

Despite all this, we managed to keep them from scoring for nineteen minutes and thirty seconds of the first half. Our tackling was quite good and boys showed a lot more determination to fall back and cover when necessary. Wee Jamie at left half was excellent and kept his position well; once again, he made a number of important tackles. Angus and Archie seem to have settled into their positions at the back and were solid. Charlie and Geordie did a lot of work both in attack and defence. The four boys up front played well at times but tended to hang too far up the field and waited for the ball to come to them – this is not good enough and they needed to show a bit more hunger for the ball. Ollie, as usual, was rock solid in goal and kept us in the match.

Calamitously, in the final seconds of the half, a litany of errors led to a goal being conceded: a tired set of halves found themselves flat and too far up the pitch; the ball was passed behind them; they failed to get back in time; a defender was forced to charge up-field; he missed his tackle; a curious (Intended double entendre?) headmaster distracted the goalkeeper; and the ball was knocked in. Gutted.

The second half was a closer affair. We didn’t spend quite as much time in our own half and many of the set pieces worked quite well. We won a couple of penalty corners but didn’t make the most of them. They came close a number of times but couldn’t get the final shot on target. As both teams tired, we made a number of breaks down the pitch, sometimes leaving us with a two-on-one situation. These should have been converted, but weren’t. Will had a great chance late on but forgot to get low and slap it in, opting instead for a big hit, which he missed.

I was pleased with our play in the second half and most of the boys seemed keen to get involved, some even showing moments of flair. I would like to see us using our wide men a bit more but this gives us something to work on.

Belhaven Hill    0    -    1    Craigclowan

M.O.T.M. Jamie, who was the hardest worker on the field.