WEEKLY ROUNDUP DECEMBER 6TH

INTRODUCTION
The bright winter sunshine of midweek had given way to stygian gloom by Saturday and the weather matched Timperley Lacrosse, certainly on Saturday.

The 1sts, after opening their campaign with two impressive wins were looking to make it three when they entertained neighbours Brooklands in the “Battle of the Roundabout”. It was a fight that Timperley were just about favourites to win but Brooklands are a young improving side backed up by an outstanding young keeper in Hal Dwobeng. Timperley were never at their best and without England defenseman Tommy Kirkland and England U19 defenseman Josh Blower they were challenged defensively. Trailing 5-10 in the final quarter Timperley showed real spirit scoring 4 unanswered goals and just failed to level the game.

Early games in the Premiership show that we are in for an exciting season with everyone dropping early points. Pre-tournament favourites Cheadle have lost their two opening fixtures and Stockport have lost one and drawn one. Brooklands may not be the bookies favourite for the title but they are going to give everyone a game.

Let’s fast forward to Sunday for some really good news. The U19 Floodlit League has produced some great and exciting Lacrosse with the winner not being known until the final night. Timperley had a couple of stuttering performances in their opening games with a narrow win over Mellor and a close two goal defeat to Stockport / Norbury. On Sunday night Timperley faced Brooklands in a “must win “match and they gave their best performance to date to take an impressive 13-3 win.

In the night’s other game Mellor took a nail biting 10-9 win over Poynton in a match which was cut short by 6 mins because of a serious injury to a Mellor player which required an ambulance and hospitalisation. (Fortunately the player seems to be OK).The outcome of this situation is that next Sunday Timperley face Poynton in a winner takes all game.

U19 Lacrosse has always guaranteed excitement and next Sunday night (10th Dec) is a must see game. It would be great to have a huge turnout of Timperley supporters to cheer on our team, hopefully to some silverware. Face off 6.30pm.

For the rest of Saturday’s games some good performances did not produce positive outcomes. Our B team faced an unbeaten Cheadle B in a game moved from Cheadle to Stockport Road. A very young Timperley, lacking some old heads, faced an experienced Cheadle team and went quickly 1-5 down before discovering their fight but going down to a 9-14 defeat.

For our Boys’ teams, the U16s and U14s both gave encouraging performances but went down to defeats against Mellor and Poynton respectively. Both teams played with under strength teams with key players missing. Shortage of numbers is a new problem for Timperley and a direct result of the collapse of the LDO programme. Another outcome of Tory misgovernment! Definitely the “nasty” party.

The U12A enjoyed a comfortable win over a very young and gutsy Boardman team.

Our U10 had their first game of the season on Sunday when they entertained Poynton on the Timperley ATP and came up with a 9-0 win.

Getting a strong U10 programme established is in my view essential. In years gone by youngsters did not really get their first taste of Lacrosse until Yr 6 which meant that U12 was the obvious age group to start with. In recent years the starting age for players has gone younger and younger, partly to compete with other sports such as hockey, rugby and Soccer. One of the predictable results was that the age range playing at U12 became much wider with 7 & 8 year olds playing against 11 and 12 year olds. This is clearly not great (unless of course you are 8 year olds Kuba Jenkins or Luka Reid who play like 11 year olds!) Hopefully regular U10 games will become a part of the programme. There will obviously be challenges. Volunteer coaches and managers will be required. There will be a strain on facilities and inevitable clashes with, in particular, Sunday rugby. However, I think that you identify the outcomes you seek and then solve the problems that occur.

MATCH REPORTS

Saturday 2nd Dec
Men’s 1st Team v Brooklands (Home) Lost 9-10
Following their two wins in the opening two games of their Premier programme Timperley were hoping for a win in their last fixture before the winter break when they entertained Brooklands at Stockport Road.

Brooklands are an improving team who will give anyone a tough game whilst Timperley were not at full strength missing long stick defensemen in England’s Tommy Kirkland and Josh Blower.

Timperley have become notoriously slow starters and on Saturday they started slowly, trailing 1-3 at the end of the first quarter and 1-5 midway through the second period. At half time they trailed 3-5 but Brooklands kept their noses in front to lead 5-8 at ¾ time and 5-10 midway through the final period. A late Timperley rally saw them pull back to 9-10 with a few minutes remaining but they could not score the goals necessary to salvage even a point.

The Timperley defence struggled at times during the match and only having 3 long sticks was a distinct disadvantage, particularly in Man down situations where Brooklands got 3 of their goals.

Ollie White was outstanding in the Timperley attack with 6 goals.

Face-off man Tom Bracegirdle was superior at face off but did not enjoy the overwhelming possession he has had in recent weeks.

The star of the match was undoubtedly Hal Dwobeng in the Brooklands goal who showed why he is so highly rated.

Scorers
Ollie White 6.0
Tom Bracegirdle 2.0
Mikey Armstrong 1.2
Ed Loveland 0.1

Men’s A Team v Wilmslow (Away) Won 1-0 Concession

Men’s B Team v Cheadle B (Home) Lost 9-14
Men’s B Team Lacrosse is a funny game. You never really know what you are going to get. On Saturday with 11 teenagers in the squad the Timperley team had plenty of enthusiasm against a strong Cheadle team who had more wisdom in their older team. Cheadle had a strong face off player who won all of the face off in Quarter 1 allowing their experienced attack to make the most of the possession. With only 1 goal from Noel quarter time ended 1-5 to Cheadle. Time for a team talk, a change in tactics for the face offs and for the players to step up. With Rob competing more on the face offs we started to win some allowing more possession in the attacking half. There wasn’t the fast fluid movement we had last week in attack but our defending did improve and we were still in the game at half time 3-8 Cheadle. Three quick goals at the start of quarter three, 2 from Rob and 1 from Sam brought us to within 2 goals of Cheadle and the momentum clearly in our favour. However the Cheadle wise heads kicked in, a time out was called and they came out a more settled team. Their game management was much better than ours today and 4 goals to our 2 in the remaining of the quarter allowed them a 4 goal lead going into the last quarter. With the game finishing 2 each in the last quarter a 7-6 second half performance from Timperley was a great result and something to build on for the rest of the season. We missed the experience of Andy in defence today especially in that first quarter and we never really had the movement in attack that we had last week. However the future is bright for our Men’s B team as the younger players adjust from U16.

Rob Edwards 3 goals
JD Bulmer 2 goals 1 assist
TJ Burgess 2 goals
Noel Harrison 1 goal 1 assist
Sam Hirst 1 goal
Owen Atkinson 1 goal

Boy’s U16 v Mellor (Home) Lost 11-15
I always look forward to the Mellor junior boys games. You know you are going to get a good, close game, with the team who plays best on the day coming out winners. We had already beaten them by 1 goal up at Mellor this season so we knew a good performance would be needed to beat them again. It didn’t start well as we were missing 4 players, meaning we only had 9 for the game. So 8 a side it was. Mellor started the brightest with 3 quick goals and I feared the worst! However we started to get more possession and as usual the dancing Harry came up with a goal to make it 1-3 at quarter time. With Dan, Ewan and Seb all missing from our midfield it meant we only had Will as our only midfield player, so Jack L, Jack O, Tom and Harry all had to help out and support. With Harry winning a good amount of the face offs it gave us attacking possession which we started to make the most off. Three more goals this half to Harry v 2 from Mellor 4-5 at half time. The third quarter was a similar story with both teams fairly even but this time Mellor came out on top 6-8. The last quarter tiredness kicked in and defence went out the widow a bit for both teams. There were a few penalties for both teams during this quarter which allowed for a succession of traded goals, a total of 5 goals from Timperley v 7 for Mellor. Final result 11 v 15 to Mellor.

Mellor were deserved winners on the day however I cannot fault the effort put in by all the team today. With key midfield men missing the boys all stepped up and gave it their all. Gregor is the David De Gea of junior Lacrosse, Ollie Lee has played some great defence over the last three games and even came up with a goal today and Harry is a scoring machine this year. Key call out today was the basics, passing and catching. We had a few missed passes or dropped catches at key points today costs us vital goals. No prises for guessing what we will be doing in training this week!!

Harry Alty 8 goals 1 assist
Will Hirst 1 goal 1 assist
Ollie Lee 1 goal
Tom Wallis 1 goal

Boy’s U14 v Poynton (Away) Lost 7-14
Started the day with a full team but as the morning turned to face off time we only had 5!! Thankfully both Callum & Mackenzie made it for about 10:05 so borrowing 3 players from Poynton we got the game under way. Poynton took an early grip on the game and never relinquished it however as the game went on we did manage to create some chances and defend a lot better.

We lost 14-7, with 3 of the goals coming from Poynton players. The other 4 were scored by Joe Tomlinson x 3 & Matt Fazal. Assists coming from Matt Fazal x 3. Matt was outstanding again, he has such a great engine & gives the team so much. Mackenzie chipped in with a lovely assist and his handling is improving every game. Joe Tomlinson got the last assist

It must be said that Poynton have been the best side we’ve faced this season, they have a big squad even with loaning us 3 each quarter. Plus they do have some talented young players. During the game they rotated well & so were fresh throughout the game on a very heavy pitch. Our lads’ heads were down at the beginning as they did not have a good warm up and took some time to settle. All in all the defeat could have been by a wider margin, but when you have George in net you’re in with a chance every game.

Goals

Joe Tomlinson x 3
Matt Fazal

Assists
Matt Fazal x 3
Mackenzie Baird
Joe Tomlinson

Boy’s U12A v Boardman (Home) Won 15-0
This week the U12A took on a young Boardman Eccles team at home. Timperley dominance was clear from the outset and goals came from Owen 2, Cai 3 and Ben Edwards saw Timperley cruise in to a 6-0 lead. The second quarter continued much the same as the first with Timperley dominating possession but were directed to move the ball around and work on what we had practiced in training. 2 more goals from Cai and 1 from Ben Edwards saw halftime score 9-0. Boardman showed great spirit and battled hard. Their keeper took a nasty blow to the helmet while saving a rasping shot from Jack and had to come off. Tom kindly offered to go in goal for Boardman as they had no subs so Timperley played the second half of the game with no keeper. Timperley played well but Boardman did see a little more of the possession. Alex, Toby and Ben Lawton stood resolute and kept them at bay. 2 more goals from Cai gave Timperley an 11-0 lead at the end of the third quarter. The final quarter saw Timperley enjoy most of the possession and goals from Cameron, George, Owen and Cai finished of the game with a 15-0. I would like to mention the great spirit showed by a young Boardman team.

My MEN of the match this week were Kuba and Cameron who fought for every ground ball and covered a lot of ground.

Stats
Cai Alty 8, 1
Owen Shuttleworth 3, 1
Ben Edwards 2, 0
Cameron Hope 1, 0
George Rommel 1, 0

U12B v Poynton (Away) Postponed

Sunday 3rd Dec
U19 Boy’s v Brooklands Won 13-3
This performance by the U19 was definitely a case of controlling the controllables, and focussing on ourselves.

The early game on Sunday evening was Mellor v Poynton and this game had been held up with 6 minutes remaining for a bad injury to one of the Mellor players (thankfully he is OK we hear). So we didn’t know if we would actually play, then we couldn’t start on time, we didn’t know for sure what the final result would be declared as (and it had a big bearing on the conference standings), and then we had to switch pitch to the green astro. We dealt really well with all of this and finally faced off at 8:10pm, happily putting in the kind of high energy performance that has been missing so far in the past few weeks.

We started strongly, and possessed the ball well in our attack. We were 3-0 up by the end of the first quarter, and after a slight rally by Brooklands we were 6-2 up at half time. The second half saw us stretch our lead, and from 6-3 early in the third we pulled away, not giving up a goal in the last 25 minutes and coming away with a 13-3 win.

The Brooklands team is a young team, and one of their key strengths is at face off. Dan Walker did a sterling job here, nullifying his Brooklands opponent, and allowing us to come up with more than half the possession. We were all over the groundball, the ride was working, and in spite of the slippery surface we were fully committed in our play. At the front we created a lot of chances - some good, and some not so good, but it was a total of >10 goals for the third game running. At the back we were much more cohesive a unit than in previous weeks, and keeping Brooklands down to three goals was a really good effort, Gregor Allan leading his team with a strong performance in goal. A small amount of indiscipline led to four minutes of penalties in the final quarter, but it didn’t cost us anything and gave us a good workout too.

The last league game is next week (10th December). 6.40pm face off v Poynton. Winner takes all. Please come down and support the U19. It could be a great game, and some silverware to finish off with.

Saves – Gregor Allan 12

Goals / Assists
Billy Kershaw 4/0, JD Bulmer 2/2, Ed Loveland 1/4, Patrick McGowan 2/0, Will Greaves 1/1, Sam Hirst 1/0, Louis Humblet 1/0, Toby Doughty 1/0, Marius Robinson 0/1, Dan Flisk 0/1

Boy’s U10 v Poynton (Home) Won 9-0
The first U10s match of the season against Poynton started with unexpected sunshine after a very rainy night. Luckily there was an astro pitch free so we didn’t have to play in the mud. Due to illness and rugby we were down to 6 players but Poynton kindly lent us 2 players, alternating each quarter.

Q1 The match started with great energy and excitement from both sides.

Eddie Warriner scored our first goal within a few minutes getting us off to a good start. Jack McAuliffe then had a goal disallowed for not following the one pass rule. Play was even with the ball passing back and forth between both halves with some good running from Kuba Jenkins. Jack and Zach Lawton played solid in defence winning ground balls, with some excellent passing from Jack. Our strong midfield made up of Khalid Jussab and our 2 loaned players kept the ball moving and Joe (our Poynton player) scored our second goal.

Q2 Both sides came out playing strong.

Eddie scored his second goal assisted by an excellent pass from Kuba. Impressive passing by all our players kept the ball in Poyntons half. Khalid got a great pass from our loaned player and converted this into another goal. Eddie had another attempt stopped by the Poynton goalie and Kuba had a goal disallowed. 3 more goals by Eddie followed assisted by great team work from Kuba and Khalid and our midfield. Poynton player wearing blue scored again for Timperley. Play moved down to Timperley goal with some consistent defending by Jack and Zach. Poynton lead an attack but were denied by a great save from Lucca.

Q3 Saw a change of position, with Kuba and Eddie defending and Jack and Zach in attack. A lot of passes back and forth with some impressive plays from both sides. Zach really got stuck in attacking the ground balls.

Q4 All change again with Kuba and Eddie back in attack.

Eddie scored again with another pass from Kuba and Timperley kept the pressure on. Khalid had another shot denied by the Poynton keeper. Play was back again in the Timperley half and another excellent save by Lucca.Jack and Zach again strong in defence, passing the ball back up the field.

All in all a fantastic match with both teams demonstrating excellent attitude, teamwork and skills.

A big thanks to all the Poynton boys who donned a blue shirt and for giving their all. Also many thanks to Alan for coming out to referee.

Chips and cupcakes followed and enjoyed by everyone.

Goals
Eddie Warriner 6
Khalid Jussab 1
Joe (on loan) 2

Assists
Kuba Jenkins 6
Khalid Jussab 1

Updated 07:10 - 1 Sep 2019 by TLC Admin