1st Team Vs Evesham

Old Wulfs made the journey to Evesham for a 3pm pushback at Demontfort School for a game very much of two halves. The first half began rather frenetic with game rushing from end to end with a lack of quality from both sides in keeping the ball. Old Wulfs were indecisive on the ball and Birch emphasised this twice in the first half when Old Wulfs had a 4 v 3 situation and twice played the ball into a flat open stick, when the ball should have been released a lot earlier. First touch seemed to an issue for Old Wulfs players as the ball bounced away off sticks and miss traps happened frequently. Evesham found the break through first through. An Evesham forward go around the back of the Old Wulfs defence. Palmer and DC got back to slow the forward down; however the forwards shot (going well wide of the goal) was superbly deflected into his own net by DC, leaving Colin watching the ball fly past him into the net.  Evesham in truth were good value for their lead, breaking down Old Wulfs attacks and launching their own counter attacks. 1-0 to Evesham at half time.

Old Wulfs knew they had to up their game if they were to take anything from this fixture and so key things, such as early release of pass, first touch and most of all patience was important. Within in the minute of the restart Old Wulfs were level. Shave in the D collected swivelled and flicked the ball into the bottom right hand corner. The second followed quickly after with Ablard driving a shot in from the top of the D after some good patient play from long corner. Litchy made it 3-1 to Old Wulfs after Will reverse stick shot across goal was deflected in by Litchy. 4-1 came after DC went on a mazy after stepping in front of his and man and winning the ball on the half way line. His pass into Griff was slotted away on the reverse after his first shot was saved by the keeper. By now Evesham were getting tired, having only 11 players the space began to open up more and Old Wulfs began to exploit this. Birch unmarked at the back post had his effort stopped on the line by an Evesham foot; Ablard stepped up and scored the resulting stroke 5-1. Palmer added a late sixth to add additional gloss to the score line, his flick from the top of the D was deflected and looped over the Evesham keeper.  

6-1 flatters Old Wulfs to some extent, while they played much better hockey in the second half; their first half performance did not merit much, this is partly down to poor play from Old Wulfs but also credit to an Evesham side who frustrated Old Wulfs for the first 35 minutes. Redditch at home next week in a big promotion game.

Nationwide Platforms man of the match: Matthew Litchfield