Senior Boys' Hockey News

Scottish National Hockey Qualifiers

Click here for the pdf file

A day full of hockey - what more could anyone want? That it were warmer for a start, as the stalwart supporters would no doubt endorse. The chill factor could, some would argue, affect the players who had been chosen to have a go in the Scottish National Hockey Qualifiers, but it was a more chilling fact that emerged throughout the ensuing day’s play. Skills were not up to scratch and the boys' vision and spatial awareness went through a steep learning curve!

It is never easy to disembark after a long journey, warm up in 15 minutes and then face one of the two strongest teams! Excuses? Of course! But I doubt the boys would relish being woken an hour earlier ....

There is not a great deal of point going through each match - the stats above tell you all you need to know about scorelines etc. What was very encouraging was that all players fought hard and never gave in, many of tem narly exhausting themselves in the process. It is always harder to raise your game when the opposition is that much better, but this squad did their level best to compete.

Geordie Gladwin kept goal exceptionally well and the scorelines would have looked embarrassingly large had he not dived, logged, slid and parried shots at goal. One instance saw him save four attempts one after the other - great stuff!

Rory Barnes and Tom Galbraith were two stalwart players who ran themselves into the ground. Their efforts produced some openings but we were not swift enough to act on them and many chances went begging.
The two young forward players, George Cuthbert and Tom Stodart, showed they had skill and their positional sense improved over the day. They produced some good patterns of play and interacted well together. A few chances were made later in the competition but were not converted into goals, sadly.

Hector Laird was a solid defender and occasionally made small forays into the opposition's half, but you always knew that he would cause attackers a good deal of trouble. Will Jack likes striking for goal and although he found himself in good positions was unable to exploit them - needing to move swiftly towards the ball rather than letting the ball come to him.

Peter Dalrymple is a strong player and he was quite capable of taking on the opposition’s backs, but he lacked self conviction in this competition which meant he released the ball far too early from the right. When he gains that confidence to take the ball down to the base line then he will be a true handful for any defender.

Dougal Forsyth was swapped on and off on a regular basis and showed he has good potential to be a utility player - he just needs to hone his stick skills and keep possession of the ball for longer.

The last two matches we played were better because the pace was not as fast and this allowed our players a bit more time to compose themselves and make the passing count. Both games were entertaining and showed what we were capable of. The underlying message of the day was that we needed more awareness, ball retention and support of the ball carrier. Back to the training ground!

David Peek, 26/02/2009