This was the best team performance so far this season by Yardley Badgers. All the players worked hard in very difficult wet blustery weather conditions. The team is showing signs of gelling together, which for me was far more important than the result. Improvements each week in everyone’s performance is so pleasing to witness.
The visitors today had two stand-out players. One youngster could sprint with the ball quicker than I have seen any youth run in Badgers hockey. The second had outstanding stick skills. He constantly managed to “squeeze” the ball over our defenders flat sticks, and on our pitch that is saying something. He had a low centre of gravity and was continually putting the defenders under pressure.
Our game play was excellent from the back, throughout midfield right up to the forwards. We tried to play to our strengths against a well drilled disciplined team. We tried holding onto possession by finding space to be available for passes and to make strong accurate passes.
Chances were few and far between for Yardley as the visitor’s adult defender was able to snuff out our attacking options. This didn’t deter our strike force and all credit to them, they never gave up.
Barakah was having a very good game and her role in midfield was an important one stemming the oppositions attacking options and getting her strikers involved in the game.
We were beaten by the better team this week, but as long as we can keep the team performance at this level or higher we should have a very promising second half of the season.
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