PWHC Under 16 Green Vs Botanic

Sunday 13th December 2015

Pembroke U16 Girls Green V Botanic

The U16s Girls Green team had to travel away again last Sunday but this time it was for our first league game so the pressure was on. The game was delayed slightly as some of the Botanic girls had gone to the wrong venue. The miserable weather, the delay or pressure didn’t get to us though and we started strong.

Our coaches knew from previous games, against other Botanic teams, that they would look to hit the ball through the middle so we tried to close the gaps and push them out to the lines.
Botanic tried to hammer through us with big hits from their backline but our midfield was able to stop the ball and go charging right back at them. We created a number of opportunities early on with the midfield collecting turnover ball and feeding it through to the forwards where we left one person high to receive and hold the ball to create 2v1s or 3v2s against their defence.

Our first goal was a team effort after Botanic had a rare break through to our defence in the first half, where we turned the ball over and gave it to the midfield to quickly pass it up the field to the forwards before Botanic had time to react. We won a short corner and it was nicely converted with a straight strike from Rachel Meehan. Our second goal came in a similar fashion with a break down in the short corner and Helen Byrne finishing well.

The third goal was the only goal of the game that came from play after a great team contribution ended with four Pembroke players in the D all fighting to finish but the final touch went to Helen for her second of the match.

In the second half we didn’t let up and kept the pressure on Botanic with a couple of balls unfortunately being put wide of the goals. But some good team work and passing kept the pressure on them and not us. The Botanic keeper was forced to make a quite a few saves and down the other end Kristen Swan duCote was required to save some good straight strikes on the Pembroke goal but handled them with ease.

We held our nerve to the end though and got our first league win and a clean sheet as well. There was great communication throughout the game and a great team spirit.

I’d like to thank Tara for umpiring and Oisín for running our bench and keeping us focused. I’d also like to thank those players from the Blue team that helped us out as well (Although the Greens did all the work J).

I’d also like to thank Botanic Hockey Club for hosting the game on Sunday.

We are sitting top of the table before Christmas so onwards and upwards