Men's 1st Team Vs Newtown

This week’s hockey report:

NEWTOWN   3        YARDLEY   2

Yardley’s final league game of the season in Warwick Printing MRHA West Midlands Division 1 ended in another disappointing result, in spite of building up a two goal lead.

Playing the bottom team in a re-arranged game, Yardley had hopes that they might salvage something from their season. The home team started much the stronger and forced Yardley keeper, Neal Makepeace into a couple of crucial early saves. Finally spurred into action Yardley began to impose themselves on the game, creating plenty of chances. Eventually the pressure told and good work by skipper Zach Jarvis put the ball into space in the D for Zakariyya Asif to run onto and sweep the ball into a open goal. Yardley continued to press with some great attacks down the wings by Usamah Iqbal, Zakariyya Asif and Rahman. However, there were no more goals in the first half and Yardley found themselves in the unusual position of being in the lead at the break.

Yardley continued with their early dominance showing good individual skills. Good work involving Alex Makepeace, Noah Jarvis  and the skipper himself again who again fed Zakariyya Asif in the D  for him to score his second and give the visitors a two goal lead. Newtown seemed to finally click into gear and as Yardley were pressing upfield Newtown began their own counter-attacks chiefly through some clever use of aerial balls which proved difficult to defend but effective to run onto. Now behind for the first time, Yardley could not make a series of short corners count and eventually seemingly lost their drive and eventually lost a game that they had for the taking but could not keep control.

So ends a disappointing season. There have been some very positive performances at times but it has also been a steep learning curve for the many young players coming through into the team. Next season the team will hopefully be wiser and better able to hold on to a winning position.