Reports 20th November 2010
Men's 2nds claim an excellent 3 points against Spalding
Men's 3rds lose to Market Deeping
Ladies' 1sts draw with Market Deeping
Cambridge South Men's I 2 - 0 St Neots I
H/T: 2 - 0
Scorers: Russell Johnson, Graham McCulloch
MoM: Rob Garrett (Great tackling in midfield.)
LoM: Jack Chalk (45 minutes late for the meet.)
South took to the field on a bleak midwinter’s day against St Neots, hoping to continue their fine start to the season.
Despite the returning centre back George Wych helping to add some much needed “discipline” to the defence, it was St Neots who started the brighter, spraying passes around the back from left to right, and winning an early short. However, the returning Wych was out like a flash, and snuffed out the danger.
As the half wore on, South grew in stature (and number too- Chalk arrived to replace the injured Bhardwaj), and started to string together a number of good attacks. The team were also winning a number of short corners through some last ditch defending from Neots in the area. After an initial effort from Bristowe was charged down, a small bout of hockey pinball ensued. However, McCulloch was well placed to reverse slap the ball home into the net to put South one up.
This gave South the confidence boost they needed, and they started to string together the hockey we all know they are capable of. Mark Williams and Rob Garrett were running the show in the midfield- Garrett’s reverse stick tackling being particularly worthy of mention. Down the flanks, McCulloch and Johnson were ably supported by Chalk and Wych and South’s pace was clearly causing Neots some problems. Simon Ta up front was always causing problems with his pace and harrying. Further short corners followed before half time, which were expertly diverted away by the opposition defence.
However, South were not to be denied the second goal before the break that their play merited. After an initial shot from Bristowe was saved on the line (when will that man score?), Johnson was first to react, and lifted the ball over the line at the second attempt.
At half time, captain Garrett was keen to stress that while the first half had gone well, the game wasn’t over, and South would have to work hard to maintain their advantage.
The second half began in much the same vein as the first had ended; hard work from the attack and midfield leaving the defence with little to do. Manu returned to the field of play and had a fine display at right back, showing great composure on the ball and starting a wave of attacks. Wych was sharp as ever in the middle, and Bristowe mopped up anything that came through. Parker was alert for any shots that had to be clawed away - a fine palm off his far post being a good demonstration of this.
As the half wore on Neots began to pour more and more forward (and more or more into the umpires with various expletives and descent), but despite two or three short corners, no further shots ensued. Whilst South were slightly wasteful on the breakaway, with a number of promising openings going to waste, they never really looked like letting Neots back into the game, and they professionally closed out victory.
Next week sees South make the trip to pace setters Rutland, which will surely be their toughest test yet. However, no teams should be feared by South, and if they play to their best, they will definitely cause the leaders problems.
Team played: Steve Parker, Manu Bhardwaj, Dave Aston, George Wych, Nick Bristowe, Russell Johnson, Mark Williams, Rob Garrett, Jack Chalk, Graham McCulloch, Simon Ta, James Cobbe
Cambridge South Men's II 3 - 2 Spalding II
H/T: 2 - 1
Scorers: Ian Glover, Richard Claes, Rob Barton
MoM: Tom Watson (For commanding the midfield.), Phil Crowhurst (Ditto.)
LoM: Rob Barton (For a variety of reasons.)
A spate of organisational challenges saw Cambridge South 2s scrabbling for players in their away match against Spalding 2s. New recruit Phil Crowhurst was promptly pressed into service, despite a troublesome back; to back him up, 4s were gratefully relieved of their semi-injured Simon Jelley. To add more complexity, the team had to assemble from three different locations, with Andy Passmore even coming down from a weekend in Sheffield to add his might to the fray.
Having overcome all these difficulties, the team started the game brightly. The speed and energy of Richard Claes and Tom Watson put the Spalding midfield under pressure, while Rob Barton and Jelley expertly frustrated any attempts of the home team to build from the back. Pretty soon, this pressure paid off: a mazy run of Phil brought him through into the D, where he found Rob lurking to bury the ball. 1-0 to South.
Spalding, however, did not take this lying down and found their feet in the game. For a while, the game hung in the balance, with South incapable of extending their lead, while Spalding could not find an equaliser (although both sides had their opportunities). Spalding were the first to break the deadlock, when a cross was - rather nicely - deflected into the top corner. All square.
South responded instantly, with Rich driving the ball at lightning speed up the left side and into the D. With teammates scrambling to get into finishing positions around the P spot, Rich decided to keep the honours to himself and coolly despatched the ball at the tiniest of angles. Half-time, and South was again in the ascendancy.
In the second half, fatigue was clearly taking its toll, with both teams struggling to keep up with the see-sawing ball. In between much ping-pong hockey, though, there were moments of composed and beautiful play. In one of those, South’s right wing duo of Ian Glover and Sanjay Agarwala gave a master class in using triangles, surging up the pitch and into the D. In a clear bid to upset the fantasy league tables, Ian insisted on finishing the goal himself, giving South a 2-goal lead.
To Spalding’s credit, their heads did not drop as they went in search of the goal to put them back in the game. It was all South’s back 4 could do, to stop them battering down Shahbaz Ali’s goal, and even then the latter’s catlike reflexes were needed at many occasions. Eventually, Spalding did find a way through, when a short corner was charged down and blocked by captain Ron Oren, only to fall to another attacker who unceremoniously dumped it in the net. With a resurging Spalding and a last-minute short corner, it was a nail biting finish, but one were South got the best of the home team: 3-2 final score and the 2s overtake at least three teams in the league.
An even and quite well-spirited game, this must be one of the most enjoyable and attractive ones that the team has played so far, and a win they can be proud of!
Team played: Shahbaz Ali, Tom Watson, Ron Oren, Andy Passmore, Ian Glover, Ian Evans, Simon Jelley, Sanjay Agarwala, Richard Claes, Phil Crowhurst, Nishant Patel, Rob Barton
Cambridge South Men's III 1 - 3 Market Deeping III
H/T: 0 - 0
Scorers: John Greaves
MoM: John Benedikz (Heroic at sweeper, and not a hint of fa??y&ng about. ), Matt Kern (Bionic man; snaffling up attacks constantly)
A game we needed to win. Sadly not to be. A couple of lucky goals sunk CSouth after a largely even, if somewhat heated, game.
The first half was goalless, although John Greaves was unlucky as a goal-bound scorcher was deflected by a Deeping defender's leg just wide of the post. Both teams had their moments, with Deeping more composed, but CSouth the more forceful. Greaves got his reward with the opening goal shortly after the interval, as his long range and sweetly timed effort found the net after a pinpoint pass from Stu Creed into the D.
Deeping retaliated all too soon with a fine flick into the top corner from a short corner. The game could well have finished at 1 -1 which would have been a fair result, but....
A hotly disputed second home goal was given by the distant umpire after his colleague close to the action had ruled a rising shot - deflected off a defenders stick - too high straight from the short corner. The misery was compounded as Deeping snuck in a third when a free hit, taken quickly some distance from the offence which caused it, wrong-footing the away defence, ended up in a short corner, from which they scored with the final move of the match.
The scoreline obscured the excellent defending, particularly from MoM Benedikz & Kern. Their colleagues in defence, Dom Nelson and James Lee, both took nasty knocks on their extremities but manfully played on.
Ultimately CSouth were unable to overcome these misfortunes and the canny "go for the obstruction / foot / appeal" approach of the Deeping players. This leaves us mired in the relegation tussle in a league where most teams are much of a muchness. There is hope from the performance..leaving aside our abiding tendency to give the ball away, and not mark tightly enough...but this needs to be converted into positive results. Soon
The match tea was good
Team played: Chris Collinson, John Benedikz, James Lee, Dom Nelson, Eric Critchley, Jonny Deacon, Wilco Dijkstra, Paul South, Stu Creed, Matt Kern, John Greaves
Cambridge South Men's IV 7 - 3 Ely City IV
H/T: 6 - 1
Scorers: Owen Vaughan, Richard Marley, John Parker (2), Kev Rowland (3)
MoM: Richard Yardley (Great engine and created some great play down the right)
Not only did we have enough players this time but was also able to help out the 2nd team with their last minute drop out.
Owen Vaughan opened the scoring after about 3 minutes from a simple tap-in after some confusion in the Ely defence, but Ely won a couple of shot corners and equalised from the second one with the help of a deflection.
South then scored almost from the push back with Richard Marley finishing off a series of passes. The flood gate then opened with Kevin Roland getting a first half hat trick and John Parker also got in on the act.
We then discovered that Ely only played with 10 players. That must have made the team eased off in the second half, but South struck early to make it 7-1. After that we started to lose our shape and Ely got stronger. South did miss a host of chances, some were due to good work from the Ely keeper and some were due to not very convincing finishing. Ely got 2 second from another deflected shot-corner and a third by very determined run by their striker.
South did use the opportunity to pass the ball around well and played some good hockey, but also need to learn to keep it tight even though we were winning by a big margin
Team played: Harry Clayton, Owen Vaughan, Richard Marley, David Bridge, Michael Hendry, Jim Thorpe, Ky Ho, Mariano Rosenzvaig, John Parker, James Bridge, Richard Yardley, Shahzad Ali, Kev Rowland
Cambridge South Ladies' I 1 - 1 Market Deeping Ladies I
H/T: 1 - 1
Scorers: Sian Tomlin
MoM: Cassie Woodfin
The South Ladies 1s made their way through the fog to play Market Deeping away this weekend. The match started with a minute or two of startlingly good play from South. So much so that we seemed to shock ourselves into mediocraty and the Deeping team up a gear so that the first half was dominated by lots of end-to-end play but little in terms of real chance for either team. South's only goal came about a third into the first half, when a lovely run by Alice allowed Ellie to move the ball from the defensive 16 yard line to well past half way, after which calm dribbling by Alice, a well timed pass to Tash and a smart lay-off to Sian resulted in a very classy goal. Towards the end of the first half, Deeping cranked up the pressure on South, passing well through midfield and using their defenders to move the ball around the back and this pattern continued throughout the match.
The disrupted South team (still missing injured Georgie, and with Caroline, Caroline and Kendra all busy elsewhere) struggled to control the midfield and get the ball upfield to somewhat frustrated forwards.
As a result, South's defenders had to work hard and keep their cool under sustained pressure on the D and through some rather over-zealous umpiring decisions which lead to short after short being awarded against
them. Deeping's goal came from one of those corners - not the first
deflection which richocheted of the cross-bar but the subsequent lightening rebound finish from their star player Gemma. (We could have done with our own Gemma this week - remember her? - but she appears to find hockey tours in the steamy heat of Singapore preferable to Peterborough in the fog, darn it!) Overall, this was a game we felt satisfied not to have lost (though still sad not to win) against a team whose position at the bottom of the table reflects the fact that they've had just nine players on the pitch for several matches, rather than inherently poor hockey. Numerous great saves lead to Cassie being awarded Man of the Match with all the nominations going to defenders this week. And we're still top of the table!
Team played: Cassie Woodfin, Rhiannan Williams, Lindsey Berends, Ellie Raffan, Julie Sadler, Sam Cooper, Liles Dee, Sian Tomlin, Hayley Sharpe, Charlie Orrock, Tash Cox, Alice Hug
