COWHC Men's 3s vs Goan Men's 1s - 08th April 2017

So here we were, the sonne high in the sky, temperatures higher than carnival in Rio, and there's still one match of the season to go! How did that happen?!?!

Anyway, although it was an away game, Goan at Monk's Hill, at least a trip on the autobahn wasn't required. While we may have been playing under the same sun, I think a precedent was set on how the two teams would cope with the temperature when ex-COW Waqas turned up wearing a woolly hat!

Passion rules the game with Goan, often to self-combustible levels. But on Saturday it looked like a wind of change was blowing through their squad, certainly one or two additions compared to the match earlier in the season enhanced their play. The first ten minutes of the match had our supporters wondering if the roles had been reversed - Goan were the bad boys running wild, while COWS were like showroom dummies.

The numbers were not good. 50/50s were more 60/40s in their favour, marking was too far off.. and it told. Goan had a number of short corners. One they scored. The next was "feuer frei" and the shot hit me in the knee - P-flick given. Fortunately that was missed, but the respite was short. Their dominant central midfielder danced a kriminaltango through our team, lifted a reverse stick cross into the D, which I had covered... until another Goan reacted so quickly as to make me look as though I was in a trance and touched the high ball home.

A similar finish was required for their third, the same player volley home a deflected ball in the D.

3 - 0 down at half time, something we have been far from accustomed too. The heat didn't help (indeed I needed someone to send me an angel with several gallons of water!), but our performance was far from the model hockey we had been playing all season.

The second half started and we did have a bit of an uplift, it was mann gegen mann and it could hardly be said we had kein lust to get back into the match... unfortunately perhaps we wanted it too much and started to force things a bit.

A truly stunning finish from their key player made it 4, and goal 5 followed on the counter attack when Chalkie's crossfield ball was intercepted leaving links 2-3-4 of the Goan team against just two COWS, one of which was Phil who, once isolated, had no chance.

We did salvage a modicum of pride when Hutch played in Mulley, who despite being mere inches from the empty goal almost contrived to miss.

5 - 1 loss, not the way we wanted to see out an otherwise superb season.

Still, at least we were able to celebrate with the 1s after watching their match - squeaky bum time leading to them eventually also winning their league. So we were all happy to head back to the clubhouse and enjoy 10 kleine Jägermeister!

Well done to everyone who has taken part in another championship-winning side! Particular congratulations to skipper dP for having to watch from the sidelines for most of the season while injured.

Thanks to everyone who umpired and came to watch. Those of you who were there on Saturday, sorry it wasn't a performance worthy of 99 red balloons being released into the sky.