COWHC Men's 3s vs Addiscombe Men's 3s - 09th September 2017

2 promotions in two seasons as champions has the 3s looking forward to a good, challenging season ahead. As a result skipper dP arranged for the first friendly of the year to be against the Addiscombe team from a league above... and them promptly disappeared for a long weekend with his better half! Leading from the front, setting a good example, not this guy! (Angling for the 5s by insulting the skipper, yep, that's your correspondent!)

A strong looking squad turned up, a couple of new faces in amongst the familiar old ones. With a few ex-Addiscombe players in our ranks the banter started before the match did, but it was all in good taste and the match was a very friendly occasion, albiet hard fought on both sides. COWs started well, with some good, solid passing moves and ball recycling showing that few of us had lost our touch over the off-season. Young Ben Burke in particular was looking very solid in central midfield, always offering himself and doing the simple things very effectively. Keith and Javier provided the width very effectively and Indy and Jay dovetailed nicely up-front.

At the back, a solid backline of Neil, Scott, Steve and Chris kept the door shut pretty tightly, and on the odd occasion the opposition broke through they were confronted by Phil The Bowl Hoare.

COWs therefore were good value for their 1 - 0 lead at half time.

Hutch took the half time team talk, with the main instruction to keep doing what we were doing. Keep the passing simple and 100%, look to come backwards if there's no forward option and don't do anything silly.

The instructions were effective, the hockey even more so. Our slick passing stretching Addiscombe and bringing 4 second half goals. Two I remember clearly as the showcased exactly what had been talked about. One a neat interchange saw Javier break down the right wing, with nothing much in front he laid the ball back to me. I played a simple ball forward to Ben on the edge of the D who was then able to feed Indy lurking inside and the ball was in the back of the net. Something similar happened on the left, with Neil then drilling a ball into the D where Keith was able to tuck it away. Jay claims that he got a touch on the pass from Neil, but if he did it was about as effective as his short corner injections!

Addiscombe did manage to get on the scoresheet themselves. A shot from a short corner was partially cleared by Phil, unfortunately it fell to one of their players who took another shot that just evaded both Phil and me.

So an eventful first match of the 17/18 season - 6 goals, 2 green cards (one apiece, Jay for petulance and the Addiscombe player for apparently taking a flying leap at me. I didn't notice until he bounced off me and ended up on the floor!), and a very promising display.

Thanks to Jack for umpiring.

Here's the the new season!