Men's 2nd Team Vs Wednesbury 3rds

Match report.

Wednesbury v CoBHC Men’s 2s

1. loss for CoBHC.

A competitive game of Hockey between two evenly matched teams. Both teams were a little frantic at the beginning. Both teams gave away possession easily and it became end to end stuff with both team’s sole focus was charging forward. Eventually the visitors settled into more coherent shape, spreading play and holding onto possession. Zach, Kyle, Jahed and Ian bossed the middle of the park getting link up play with the rest of the team. This resulted in lots of good attacking chances from solid build up play and good shots at goal. The wide players of Sean and Parameth also contributed not only in attacking play but supporting the defence when needed. The home keeper definitely had the more work to do in the first half, and he kept a clean sheet to the frustration of the attacking forwards of City of Birmingham. Although Jack in goal didn’t have much to do this half, his defence of Edan, Paul and new recruit David did. Wednesbury pressurised throughout the game, but these trio of defenders broke down the attacks. David slotted into the team seamlessly and produced a great debut performance. Any shots Wednesbury did get in the “D” went well wide.

At half time the visitors were flummoxed as to why they were not in the lead, in fact possibly, why not three goals ahead. We decided to try to be more comfortable in possession and make simple passes to break down the stubborn defence of Wednesday.

In the second half Jack our keeper didn’t have a save to make until the last minute when a late, late breakaway had the visitors back peddling. Trying to get into shape but unfortunately with 60 seconds left, a waiting forward swept at the approaching ball and beating the keeper at the near post. A massive turn around as the visitors had multiple shots in the second half but the chances kept getting saved or going narrowly wide. The City of Birmingham players in the final ten minutes started to tire and the defence kept rotating as fatigue set in, this may have resulted in the breakaway goal but the visitors should really have taken their chances earlier on, as a safety buffer would surely have built the team’s confidence and make Wednesbury to drop their heads.

Taking stock of the whole game I was very impressed with the whole team’s determination, energy and work rate. To build on our next game the whole team needs to improve on passing accuracy.  Also,to pre scan earlier to make better pass choices. A good game of hockey by both teams and only one goal decided the outcome against a team who had won the last two game 6-1.