Mens 3rd XI
Matches
Sat 13 Oct 2018
Cambridge Nomads Hockey Club
Mens 3rd XI
3
1
City of Peterborough 7
Men's 3rd XI Dig Deep to Mine 3 Valuable Points

Men's 3rd XI Dig Deep to Mine 3 Valuable Points

Peter Jarvis21 Oct 2018 - 22:23
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And Garth suffers a bad case of déjà vu as he finds himself lining up with another teenage Watts

Q: What does it say about a man when he lines up on a hockey field with a teenaged Watts for the second time in his life?
A: I don't know, but whatever it is Garth can now tell you.

Always one for a good stat, I could not let it pass without mention that Garth has now lined up for Nomads with two teenagers from different generations of the same family. Congratulations mate, and I would simply take it as indicative of your long term loyalty to the Nomads cause! We all look forward to you completing the Watts hat-trick, so long as Ireland O-80 do not have a game that weekend.

Nine other Nomads also lined up for Peterborough's visit, with two others waiting on the bench to step into the breach when needed. One of those was the skipper, who thought this would be the best place from which to rip up his carefully prepared rotation plan based on the team he had published the night before, and to work out a new one based on the team which had actually turned up at Coldhams. National League managers may think they have a tough job, but let me tell them that running a team in East League Division 6 North West (South) demands additional skills that they can only dream of. And as has been pointed out previously, our league is the only one in the country whose name includes all four points of the compass, so it is just like playing in the National Premier really.

While the pointy haired skipper was trying to work out how to organise everyone, everyone somehow just got on with the job of taking a 2-0 lead. I am going to confess that I didn't see too much of that first quarter, but I can only assume that without my steady guidance it can only have been a complete farce, mitigated only by Ellis somehow fluking a couple more goals to put us comfortably in control. Some time after that I entered the fray, and managed to lead the team to no further goals by half time. But at least everyone got to feel like someone was in charge.

Meanwhile, we actually played some pretty good stuff in that first 35. Picking up from where we left off against South, a game I missed completely, we managed to move the ball nicely again, and a 2-0 lead at the break did not flatter us. Not a lot for me to say at half time really, just more of the same please lads.

However, Peterborough had other ideas, and opened up the second period with their best spell of the match. We were struggling to get the ball clear, we were not managing to hold on to it when we did, and it felt a little inevitable when Peterborough pulled level. We had a couple of opportunities to break up another attack, took neither of them, and when the ball broke to one of their young forwards in the D he finished past Rich with some aplomb. 2-1, and frankly starting to feel like we would do well to hold on for a point.

To our credit then that we refused to settle for that, upped our game a notch or two and gradually managed to whether the red storm. We managed to put a few moves of our own together again, and from one of them Matthew Huchu managed a delicate little reverse stick dink, which came to rest about halfway between the goal line and the backboard. This is quite possibly the first time in the history of the English language that the words "delicate" and "Huchu" have appeared in the same sentence, but after a brief check of rule 8.1 (look it up on-line) had confirmed that there is no particular requirement for any clunking sound or bulging net, Rick simply shook his head in disbelief and awarded the goal.

The two goal lead thus restored, Nomads managed to ride out the rest of the game without too many alarms and banked another three points. Good performances all round this week, with the continuing form of the new junior members of the side a particular plus. Ellis already starting to feel like a senior pro.

Two concessions and two proper wins so far. Maybe I will just continue to step back and allow the anarchist collective to do its thing.

Match details

Match date

Sat 13 Oct 2018

Kickoff

14:00
Team overview
Further reading

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Kit Supplier - Mr Cricket Hockey
Physiotherapy - Injury active