Beleaguered 2’s take on West Bridgeford

With Dave away, Grant assumed the role of captain, in what was his last game for the 2’s before deploying to Cyprus.

It didn’t take long for the umpire to reach for his cards, showing Jamie a green card within the first minute for having the audacity to question a decision.

The 2’s were playing some of their best hockey of the season with every player giving 110% and looked the stronger of the two teams even with a one man disadvantage.

West Bridgeford managed to win a couple of penalty corners at 11 and 18 minutes with the first going wide and an exceptional leg extension from X stopping the second.

The 2’s managed to win a penalty corner at 19 minutes which saw Danny Bond fire the ball straight under their keepers legs to give Barton the lead.

West Bridgeford won a couple more penalty corners at 26 and 27 minutes; but another leg save and a glove save from X kept the score at 1-0 to the 2’s.

Both umpires managed to miss a litany of fouls against Barton but somehow managed to see Jasper commit a ‘blatant’ stick tackle at 30 minutes which resulted in our second green card.

The first half ending 1-0 to Barton after an impressive performance from every single player, but special mention to big Lou for an exceptional first half performance.

West Bridgeford came out strong in the second half, but the 2’s held on; another pair of short corners at 43 and 46 minutes for West Bridgeford saw a stick clearance off the line stop the first, but managed to convert their second as the defence we’re unable to clear the ball after X had to go in to a smother to make the first save - game tied 1-1.

The 2’s managed to win a penalty corner at 51 minutes, a lovely set piece saw the 2’s retake the lead with a drag flick from Rad, whilst one umpire signalled for a goal, the other was waving it off as the ball had not fully left the D, instead of stopping time and providing some clarity, the umpire signalled play-on and West Bridgeford took advantage of the poor officiating and powered in to our 23 whilst the 2s were walking back to the halfway line to reset. A last ditch attempt from Jamie saw him pick up the first yellow card of the game. West Bridgeford quickly restarted and managed to score their second before the 2’s had regained their composure.

Throughout the game, the umpires had stopped play when a player went down, at 57 minutes Jasper was tripped and instead of stopping play as they had done for every other incident, the umpires handed West Bridgeford another advantage which they were able to capitalise on making it 3-1.

The 2’s picked up their second yellow card at 59 minute, with Danny Bond being sent to the bench - the umpires for the Mids Prem game,which followed ours, couldn’t even explain why we’d picked up a yellow card.

Reverting to the brilliant hockey that saw us win the first half, Danny Bond scored his second of the game at 70 minutes. The 2’s doubled their efforts but were unable to find the equaliser with the game ending 3-2 to West Bridgeford.

Honourable mentions:
The entire team - the 2’s played their best hockey of the season.
Grant - showed great leadership standing in as captain.
X - tried everything to keep the 2’s in it.

Man of the Match
A unanimous choice - Big Lou, an exceptional performance for the entire game.

Dick of the Day
An almost unanimous choice - Jamie for spending more time off the pitch than on it in the first 4 minutes of play.