Hockey – U12B’s vs Bede’s U11

This was our first match of the season and for some of the team, their first match ever! It was a beautiful sunny day, perfect weather for hockey. Bede’s were always going to be a tough opponent; they are a strong hockey school and their team looked like they had been playing together for a while. However, it enabled us to put into practice what we had been working on in our games sessions and start thinking about rules, tactics and formations. We had to play very defensively, as they were strong at attacking, their dribbling and passing down the pitch was stronger than ours. It was good to see the girls closing down their players and fighting to get the ball back. We often turned over the ball but then struggled with finding the next pass, something for us to work on. There was some lovely attacking play, with Lara passing the ball out wide to Wren/Alia/Bethany, then they dribbled down the line and were looking for that next pass into the D. Cara, Tabitha and Harrie played in defence and stopped the ball in the D several times, then tried to hit it out wide. Charlotte M (y8) was a powerhouse in goal, she must have stopped about 10 goals from going in, she played amazingly! The final score was 2-0 to them and has given us lots of things to work on but was an enjoyable match and everyone seemed positive at the end.

Player of the match: Lara

Coache’s player: Alia – for being solid when defending, and super quick when attacking, running for nay loose balls and trying to dribble down the pitch at speed