EH u-18 Plate Final – Ashford 1 Eastbourne 4
Firstly, I am very proud of the boys for having got to a National Final – they played some fantastic hockey to get there and deserved their day out at Finals day.
On the day we were beaten by a better team – who incidentally were older, bigger and better at breaking up play than us. We needed our A game to beat them and only showed this in flashes and individual moves rather than sustained play.
We definitely had the best Coach on display out of the 8 teams at Sheffield, of course it had a lot of wheels but even so…the game started off pretty even and uneventfully but Eastbourne had more possession as we struggled to hold the ball. This had the effect of the team dropping back 5/6 metres and defending too deep which invited more pressure. They had a goal disallowed and Wheeler pulled off 2 top-drawer saves from their first 2 shorts – the first diving up and to his left to tip it round the corner and the other high to his right. Eventually the pressure told and they scored from close range.
On reflection, it was the first half that was crucial…we had 4 good opportunities to equalise (meanwhile up the other end Wheeler was performing heroics!), Rosie and Ryan worked 2 excellent chances close in which weren’t finished off, their defender made a stunning save on the line off our first shortie and a backstick clearance by the goalie was missed. If we had equalised from any of these, I feel the second half would have been very different as our boys are a bit of a ‘confidence’ team.
Second half, they went 2-0 up before Charlie, who was our best outfield player, deflected in a Shanie slapped free hit. but we didn’t build on it and they forced a penalty…of course James dived full-length to his left – another stunning save. Another chance for us to really get at Eastbourne but then we were down to 10, although I don’t know why nothing happened to the oppo player and they scored while we were down to 10…and the game floated away from us; they scored the fourth 2 seconds before the hooter.
Obviously, everyone was disappointed but this was a lot better to take than last year in the semi’s!
Finally, some thank-you’s – to all our supporters who got up the day after the Club Dinner to come, to Lynne and Sherpa for subsidising the coach, to Cliff for his guidance and support throughout the season but especially to the Boys, who have been fantastic to work with - they are great lads! - and who are a credit to the club and their families.
Finally (again), thank you very much to everyone for your support over the last few years.
U1-18 Squad: James Wheeler, Shane White, Elliot Smith, Phil Lewis, Fred & Charlie Cottrell, Dan & Ryan Holland, Simon Pocock, Shaun Smith, Dan Rose, Alex Betts, Dasmesh Sandhu, David Merchant, Dominic Hillman, Ian Doggett
