COWHC Men's 1s vs Fareham Men's 2s - 25th Nov 2017

What an eventful start to the day. On a crisp and chilly morning, the men’s 1s were awoken by the bleeping of their mobile phones; Rochie informing everyone that the Croydon High pitch resembled an ice rink rather than a hockey astro and play that day was extremely unlikely. With everyone keen to play a decision made to move down to the Rustlers home facility of Monks Hill and enjoy a chilly day at the beach.
15 seconds in to the game, Henners decided he felt bad that Fareham had had to change travel plans and were no longer going to have the privilege of playing on the hallowed Croydon High turf, slipped over and promptly gave the ball to the centre forward. Thankfully, the composure of the Fareham forward was about as good as the grip on Henners shoes and he push the ball wide of the goal… 0-0 it remained, but the day’s DOD was all but sewn up…

The first half was a lacklustre affair as Crows struggled to put in to practice the team press they had vigorously worked on at training. A Dom drag flick to the bottom corner gave Crows a 1-0 lead before a counter attack by Fareham resulted in their first goal to equalize. With superb defending and a couple of crucial saves, the 1st half ended 1-1.

The half time team talk was a very passionate affair with many players expressing their disappointment about the first half display, with some wise words from Hutch telling the team to show some more passion, the team came flying out the blocks only to be caught on the counter and go 2-1 down in a matter of minutes.

This sparked the Crows in to action and with some slick passing and some intense pressure; the score become 4-2. Dom tucking away a p-flick after letting the postman feel the full force of his drag flick, Bastien smashing one in to the roof of the goal from close distance, and Harro in his last game before returning home, slotted one in. Despite the 4-2 score line, Crows smelt blood and continued to press and cause havoc and destruction amongst the Fareham defence, however, were once again caught on the counter attack which not only brought the match to a tense finish but left Rochie in some pain from wearing the follow through of the stick in an eye watering place.

Fareham threw everything forward in search of the late equaliser but with some composed defending and a brilliant team effort, Crows saw out the last few minutes without conceding to record their 5th win of the season to move back to 4th place, ahead of a crucial game against Haslemere…

Many Thanks to everyone who came along to support despite the change in pitch locations and to Hutch for managing from the sidelines which caused him to miss the start of his own match…