COWHC Men's 3s vs Teddington Men's 6s - 17th Feb 2018

In contrast to last week, the weather at Teddington was bright blue sky with the sun shining down on us – we were sweating before warm up!

Our past record against Teddington hasn’t been the best, and as a club our away record is atrocious with no team winning there for 6+ years. Teddington’s recent form has seen them not win for 6 games and had a very different looking midfield from the one we played at the start of the season when we were thrashed 5-2. Surely we are in a good position to reverse the head to head trend and finally get our win? Even the sun has joined us to watch.

Coin toss and Andy Rooney’s 50:50:90 rule proves correct again. “The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.” Taking my tally of won coin tosses to 1 in 9.

With the whistle about to blow, we have some last minute changes having heard from our RB that he was delayed while volunteering for a local charity supporting the handicapped, and won’t make it till half time. This didn’t make me feel bad for chasing him to find out where he was and why he was late… nope, no sir, not me. Oops.

Some rushed changes and a player playing out of position to fill the hole, meant we are a little unsettled. After 5 minutes we find our rhythm and put together some good attacking play, narrowly missing a few chances and forcing Teddington’s keeper (his last game for them it turns out) to pull off some ridiculous saves. Flashbacks to last week’s game vs Guildford leak into my thoughts and a quiet prayer to the Hockey Gods pass my lips, “please don’t do this to us”.

**SPOILER ALERT** Thankfully we wouldn’t be subjected to a repeat of last week, unfortunately, it also wasn’t the result we wanted or needed to keep us comfortably in the run for promotion. **END OF SPOILER**

For the first 20 minutes we have Teddington closed up and have stopped them getting into our 23. Queue Disaster! Hugo (the oppo midfielder) who plays with Orange Trimmed astros breaks from his 23 going past 2 players, does a smooth 1-2 to get around the RB and runs the backline to within a few feet of the goal. Instead of laying the ball off underarm to the P-spot he takes a cheeky shot from a ridiculous angle that somehow goes between the keeper and the inside post. Where did this goal come from? Well done to Teddington’s Hugo.

This shock goal unsettled the team and we started to pile on the pressure but lost focus of our simple hockey playstyle, opting for the Japanese Suicide Bombers chant of TORA! TORA! TORA! Teddington quickly realised they had the advantage and changed their game plan slightly to stop the direct ball and started to easily win the ball back after we blindly push forward.

With Mulley and Joe upfront were using their pace and special awareness to intercept so much ball. One of these resulted in Mulley coming in from the right side of the D, made what looked like a cross goal waist height pass to Adam Cady who calmly turns the ball into the back of the goal. Again this boy's cool “bad guys don’t look back at explosions” celebration meant he just slowly walked back to the centre to start again. So casual.

Half time whistle blows and we see Lappie run over to join us. Our talk was to calm down, keep our heads, short passing, recycle the ball, and be patient.

Whistle blows and it seems the halftime talk was forgotten. Colley and Lappie being the only ones who had listened held the team together and played some great link up hockey as they helped us push forward while also being key when we had to defend, which was a lot.

What ensued I cannot describe or remember, what I remember is the following:

1. Sun was directly behind the oppo’s goal
2. I couldn’t tell who was oppo or team mate – everyone looked like a walking shadow
3. We didn’t listen to the talk and kept going direct/route 1
4. Frustrations boiled
5. Hutch talked an umpire out of carding a Teddington player after a deliberate foul
6. Hutch almost talked himself into a card
7. The oppo scored a second goal

Final whistle blows and we have lost 2-1.

We are painfully disappointed, not because we lost, well not entirely, but because we know we let ourselves down. We didn’t play our hockey having lost our heads.

Well done Adam Cady for scoring a hard and well taken goal.

Thank you to those who voted me (dP) PoM. Honourable mentions to; Colley, Jack, Cady, Lappie, Woj, and Terry.

Thank you Lena for umpiring!

I shall leave you with one of my favourite quotes:

“I never look back, Darling. It distracts from the now!” – Edna Mole