3rd Team Vs Lichfield 6s

3rds with a squad of 14 travelled to Whittington Barracks to play Lichfield 6’s for a 13:30 start on a fine sunny day. 3rds first challenge of the day was to find somewhere suitable to abandon, sorry park their cars.  Having successfully managed to find various legal parking spaces, 3rds met at pitch side in good time for the match. With Old Wulf’s winning the toss, OW elected to have possession, and duly got the game under way.  For the first 5 to 10 minutes the game was mainly played between each sides 23m lines, however it wasn’t long before OW’s got into gear and started to threaten Lichfield’s goal. OW’s were working hard and began to press Lichfield high up the pitch, fwd players were finding space, midfield were finding fwd’s all aptly supported by OW’s rear guard. OW’s were creating chances, and the early ones came and went without result. On 20 minutes OW’s got the break through their play deserved, Jandu fed Gary in the D who beat the keeper with a well-placed shot.  1-0 OW’s. OW’s didn’t have to wait long for their second with Jandu converting with a fierce shot directly from a penalty corner, injected by Nic.  2-0 OW’s.  From the restart OW’s maintained their high press winning the ball back and instantly went on the attack.  Lewis received the ball on the left, and hit an accurate ball which Gary dispatched effortlessly into Lichfield’s goal. 3-0 OW’s, which is how the score remained at half time.

HT 3-0 OW’s

With both sides rotating players for the start of the second half it was Lichfield who restarted the slightly stronger side. OW’s still had good possession and movement, but it was Lichfield who converted first, when play broke down at around 10 minutes in, Lichfield capitalised, with a looping shot from just inside OW’s D which Rowley couldn’t quite get a hand to. 3-1 OW’s.  However, within 3 minutes OW’s had restored their 3 goal advantage when Vish advanced into the opposition’s D having survived several challenges on the way. The ball was slipped to Jandu who put the ball into the back of the net. 4-1 OW’s.  OW’s continued to press and continued to create chances, but the score remained unchanged.  Following such an OW's attack, a Lichfield 16, which on this occasion OW’s failed to cut out. Lichfield built the play with some momentum through midfield, the ball was moved out wide on OW’s right  and then inside the OW's 23, a diagonal ball was cleanly struck towards the far post where a Lichfield attacker had snook in, to tap home from close range. 4-2 OW’s.  However as before OW’s within 3 minutes restored the 3 goal advantage when Gary’s ball found Jandu for his third of the match and his 100th hattrick in Saturday league Hockey. 5-2 OW’s and a Club Jug at the end of season awards…. Perhaps? With around 6 minutes left to play there was still time for OW’s to try to increase their lead, or concede.  Seconds from the end Lichfield were awarded a penalty corner, with the full time whistle blown following the award, Lichfield brought everyone up in an attempt to reduce the deficit, but the penalty corner fizzled out without Rowley having to face a shot.

Full Time 5-2 to OW’s.

Another game where Old Wulf’s were in control for most of the game and took the game to Lichfield. Again, OW’s keeper had little to do and in his words should have had 3 touches, got 1 but missed 2. The defensive, midfield and forward units all working well together. a great team effort.

With the players votes in, there was a clear winner with over 50% of the vote for Man of the Match; Nic Anderson, others who received votes were: Martin Cox (2), Martin Jandu (1), Gary O’Sullivan (1), Vish (1) and Noah (1).