St. Marys 1st VII Vs Strathallan
On Wednesday 11th March we set off to Strathallan for the second week in a row for a standard block fixture against a strong outfit. Having seen Strathallan make it to the 3rd/4th playoff at their tournament the boys would have to be at full sharpness throughout the 40 minutes.
St. Marys won the coin toss and hit off; every week this term the boys as a collective have gone from strength to strength adding that clinical cutting edge to their game. The opening 30 seconds of the game went as well as it could have gone. The ball gets passed back to Will, who sent it wide left to Ruben, Geordie made a run down towards the by line where him and Ruben exchanged a 1-2 with Ruben putting it in the back of the goal. The early goal settled the nerves a lot for the team and allowed us to play a bit more expensive hockey.
The message from now on was to be more compact in defence and wide when attack, making the pitch as wide as possible gave options for our wingers, as well as space for Magnus in the centre of midfield. Strathallan had a few players with very good stick skills and could make good contact with the ball when shooting. For the first half of the game, we were playing with the sun in our eyes and when Strathallan won a short corner they took full advantage and placed a good shot into the bottom corner.
The boy’s approach didn’t change and we generated some great chances to retake the lead, in the last 10 minutes of the game, the message was when St. Mary’s got in a position to get a shot away, take it. Ruben let rip once again, blasting the ball around knee height past the goalkeeper to give St. Marys the lead going into the final stages.
Harry produced a number of key saves in the game in open play and short corners. James started in defence for the first time and played exceptionally well with his positional awareness and quick passing. Will was the rock at the back sweeping the ball up the pitch at pace, he had one moment giving away a short corner where he went for a golf swing and failed to hit the ball which was quite amusing. Magnus ran the centre of the pitch, winning the ball back high up the pitch to give us great attacking opportunities. Ruben was on the score sheet twice and provided a good outlet for us down the wings to build attacks from. Caleb worked tirelessly bombing up and down the pitch and was unlucky not to get an assist or two by taking the ball right along the byline and pulling it back. Geordie led from the front not giving the opposition defenders a moment of peace and made constant runs in behind after winning the ball back. William came on at centre back and used his stick skills to draw players onto him before giving the ball away. Sholto made his 1st VII debut and didn’t look out of place one bit, his consistent high levels of performance in the 2nds merited a call up where against Strathallan his awareness to move to space before receiving the pass created a number of good opportunities. St. Marys won the game 2-1 and by far played their best hockey of the term, the performances have been there all the way throughout the term so getting a winning result against a good hockey team will give the boys that extra boost going into the final game of the term against Loretto.
Mr S Rooney MH