Dunfermline Carnegie Hockey Club - Scotland's Largest Hockey Club

MENS 5TH TEAM MATCH REPORTS

Sat, 27th October - Peebles 2-3 Carnegie V

Another 3pm start this time in Dalkeith with yet another delay homeward caused by the Bridge works - this time 80 mins delay!!

The game started with Peebles as always full of running and direct play. However today for 60 minutes we played simple passing hockey forming all sports of triangles of play. This resulted In Peebles really chasing shadows at times as we cut through them time after time - ask J. Lees why he didn't score at least one hatrick. A good move was deftly finished off by Mini and Doc added a second with a shot from the top of the circle and mini adding a PF to make it 3 - 0 at half time (It should have been 5 or 6 - 0).

The second half carried on as the first but after about 20 minutes we seemed to stop playing the simple passing game and allowed them to get at us and turn over a lot of possession which was quickly thumped into our circle in the hope someone could get onto the ball.

Guess what - tiredness, lack of composure and inexperience gave them far too much possession from which a couple of half stops in the circle enabled them to pick up a couple of goals. However we did respond and realised we should hang on to possession and created another couple of chances one of which was flicked into the net after a penalty corner broke down. The flick from about the PF spot went straight into centre of the goals down an empty channel - guess what - their umpire disallowed it for being high therefore it must be dangerous. Even the attempt by our umpire Graeme Paterson to explain the actual rules failed to convince him so the goal did not stand and for the last 5 or 6 minutes we withstood attempts by Peebles to equalise.

Anyway a good first league victory in this our third league game. A special thanks to Dave 'the cat' McIntosh for going in goals and giving a great display.

Scorer: Gordon Johnston, Andrew Lambert (2)

Sat, 13th October - Waverley Inveresk Trinity IV 2-1 Carnegie V

A late afternoon game at Pinkie and the prospect of another hour or more delay at the bridge on the way home was not the most welcome of match days. The game started poorly for us with Wav- Esk employing two seriously fast forwards against our aging backline.

It took our defence about 20 minutes to work out how to limit the speedsters freedom - oh for Mike McInally today - he would have had them sorted out within the first five minutes even on a slow day. Anyway the inevitable happened after one break away and we were ! - 0. Spurred into action we began to press at the other end and a deflection from Doc from a Duncan Griffiths free hit from wide right hit the keepers kickers and seem to take a wicked spin backwards behind the keeper and into the goals 1 - 1 at halftime.

The 2nd half was all Carnegie for the first 20 or so minutes with the Wav-Esk (1st/2nd XI) keeper making great saves from Dougie Rutherford and Doc. At this stage we tired badly and after inept play between midfield and defence lost the ball in a bad position from which Wav-Esk took full advatage to score the winning goal.

So a second defeat in two league games but there are inklings of good play at times but concentration and choice of pass needs to be worked on by all age groups.

Scorer: Gordon Johnston

Sat, 6th October - Carnegie V 1-5 Grange VI

The game against Grange was a real wake up call for the team. Grange played a fast aggressive game which took us 15 minutes to rise to but thereafter we knucled down in spite of losing an early goal. Just before half time our improving play saw Doc break through into the circle bounce off a few Grange lunges before pushing the ball back to the far post where Ashley Harrower was rushing in to sweep first time a great shot across the keeper and into the net. An excellent goal which hopefully will be the first of many for Ash.

The second half continued as the latter part of the first with both teams competing well but then suddenly a couple of defensive howlers - due mainly to the pressure Grange kept us under allowed them to take a 3 - 1 lead. Thereafter while we chased the game Grange on a further two occassions caught us on the break to make the final score 5 - 1. a bit flattering to Grange but truth be told they have several players who if in our club would be playing in the firsts or seconds so over all we did quite well with our five over 50's and five 15 year olds. I haven't included Charlie or GK Stephen.

Scorer: Ashley Harrower

Sat, 22nd September - Carnegie V 0-1 Kinross

A rather large and physical Kinross team set the 5ths a number of difficult questions during this contest. Kinross played three up front and at times a fourth as a right winger meant that the recently formed 5ths had to adapt to being pressed back into their own half for the initial 20 minutes.

To the teams credit it coped quite well and when any break through happened El Stephano in goals dealt with it extremely well. Charlie marshalled his defensive Maginot line with his usual precision. Gradually we started to cope with their press and John Lees linking up with Dougie Rutherford created several reasonable chances. 0 - 0 at halftime and all to play for.

The second half was much more open with end to end play. However as we were now able to apply pressure on their defense a number of uncompromising physical challenges occured on our forwards. A quick hit taken by a nameless person who says he plays for us went straight into John Lees who was still lying prostate after the foul that gave us the free hit - needless to say Kinross broke away with the ball and after some smart forward play the ball was in our net. The final few minutes saw us have a series of penalty corners which we were unable to convert.

A 1 - 0 defeat but a really good display by the team notably Sean, Ashley, Gordon and Craig who had I think for the first time taken part in a more physical game of hockey. Lots to build on from this performance.

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