Sunday 27/4/03 at State Hockey Centre
North’s 4 defeated QUT 3
Let me start this match report by reciting a few selective words penned by a famous Australian singer/songwriter:
I wouldn’t cheat on you baby
I believe in monogamy baby
Even though it sounds like wood
What does this have to do with our game on the weekend you might ask, well, absolutely nothing, I just thought I’d chuck it in for a bit of a laugh……..
Let’s start by giving both of you who read these match reports an idea of what we were up against as we were preparing for this game. Not only were we about to play the team who’s currently sitting on top of the ladder, we had to sit around in the change rooms waiting for the umpires to make a decision on whether the field was too dangerous to play on or not because of a torrential down pour which forced the early end to the game before ours. It wasn’t till about 10 minutes after our scheduled starting time that they decided to go ahead with the match. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, it was about the only decision the umpires got right all night (apart from our 4 goals that is!!).
Before I get into the details of the match, I must apologize for not going into much description as to how each goal was scored. To be honest, I can’t remember, I guess I got caught up in all the excitement. If anyone’s that interested, just ask Andrew or Aaron, I’m sure they’ll be able to tell you all about them, again and again and again!!!!!
When you’re sitting on the bottom of the ladder and your coming up against the top team in the comp, there’s basically 2 ways you can go. The first is to go into the game prepared to get a thumping, or the second, to rise to the occasion and make a match of it. Which way would we go????
To put it simply, if Mick Simpson wasn’t on his game from the opening whistle, we would of found ourselves 3 or 4 goals downs after 15 minutes. It’s always good to know you’ve got a good keeper behind you, but when you see someone like Mick throw himself around like he was at the start of the game, making one unbelievable save after another, you can’t do anything but be inspired by it, unless you’re on the other team of course. If you were playing for QUT, chances are this was about the time you were thinking you were never going to get one past him.
After about 20 minutes, the tide started to turn. Strangely enough, this was when we started to work on our short passing and ball security (do you think this might have had something to do with it???). Steve Sawyer really started to take control of the centre and working well with his insides and halves, we managed to work our way up field and put ourselves into some real good scoring opportunities. Now I’m not real sure but I think our first goal came from a short corner. After a rebound or two, Andrew Harrington managed to pick up a scrappy clearance and flick the ball high up into the top of the net (still don’t know if you’ll be taking the next stroke though??). Good ball security and some excellent defence from Marty, Todd and Adam saw us go into the break still leading 1-0.
We started the second half okay but unfortunately lost Andrew for a few minutes with a back injury. It was during this period that QUT managed to put one away on us to bring it back to 1-1. In any game of first vs last, chances are this is the period when heads drop and score lines blow out, fortunately these guys are made of tougher stuff than that and it wasn’t long before Andrew had come back on the field and slotted another one past their keeper to put us back in the lead 2-1.
After another 10 minutes or so of pretty even play, with both teams failing to put away some good scoring opportunities, you could see that QUT’s fitness was far ahead of ours and that they were starting to take control of the match. If it wasn’t for some great scrambling defence by our backs and insides, QUT could have quite easily stormed over top of us and ran away with the game. As it was, they managed to get back on even terms with a goal from a penalty corner and with 10 minutes to go (for some reason the 2nd half was 5 minutes longer than the 1st??) I was starting to feel the win was out of our reach. With 6 minutes to go, QUT managed to get themselves a man over on the left side of the field and after a quick change of play from the right, they ran the ball into the circle, fired off a quick cross and picked up an open player on the far post. Although I must admit this was a pretty impressive goal, I will say that this only came about by one of us not following the game plan I’ve been trying to teach you for the last couple of weeks. Don’t leave your player to chase the ball around the park unless it’s your job to do this, otherwise someone else will more than likely have to leave their player to pick up yours, either way, there’s going to be a man free somewhere!!!!!!
So, here we go, 5 minutes to go, 3-2 down. What will happen now??? The most impressive fight back I’ve seen in years, that’s what. Nobody gave up hope and everybody busted their arse, and because of that, we were sitting in the change rooms after the game with smiles going from one ear to the other!!!!
Unfortunately I can’t give you a good description of Aaron’s goal with 4 minutes to go, but to me it seemed like he picked up a rebound and calmly flicked it up over the keeper into the net (I was trying to sneak in a quick cigarette at the time, calm the nerves!!!). It was about here I remembered that Andrew was out the back when QUT scored their first goal so I had to let him know the score, hate to see him shut up shop because he thought we were up 3-2 when it was actually 3-3. Turns out it was lucky I did because he said after the game he didn’t know the real score, I also thought a couple of the guys might have had trouble counting to 6 with their shoes on????
Woo, setting it up for an exciting finish now. 2 and a half minutes to go and we manage to force a string of penalty corners. It was the 3rd one I think when Andrew managed to blast one straight past the keeper, and to hear the sound of it smacking into the backboard was music to my ears I must admit.
Now all we had to do was hold them out for 2 minutes and the most unlikely of wins was ours. Fortunately, we managed to do this, although I must say, I’ve never seen an umpire run so fast to get the ball for the opposition as that one did with 15 seconds to go, jeez, I wonder who he was going for!!!!
I must give special mention to a couple of people for their efforts on Sunday night, firstly, to Brent, congratulations on making it through the warm up in one piece. Secondly, Isaac, that was by far the best game of hockey I’ve ever seen you play for North’s, keep it up big fella. Andrew, you couldn’t have found a better time to pull out a hat trick. Also, those guys that started on the bench, thank you very much, if it wasn’t for the effort you guys put in, we wouldn’t of come close to getting that win.
Finally, to everyone, congratulations on a great win on Sunday but don’t go thinking we’ll be able to get ourselves out of trouble like that every week. You’ve got to take confidence out of knowing you just beat the top team but don’t go getting cocky. The conditions played a big part in the win and chances are, we’re not going to play under them again this season. Let’s just enjoy the moment and come Tuesday, start concentrating on what we need to do to win our next game as well.
Points
3 Points – Isaac Campbell (I guess you stand out more at your height)
2 Points – Mick Simpson (Mainly on the first half but we wouldn’t of won without you)
1 Point – Andrew Harrington (I guess 3 goals is good enough for a point)
It was hard to single out three players for points from the 14 who took the field, if I could give everyone a point, I would (even myself and Bevan!!!!).
Cheers
Jeff Delisser
PS> What was the go with bringing the little kid along on Sunday Adam, trying to make everyone think there’s nothing in my Aaron/Adam comments of last week or something????