RPHC M5 vs Horley 2s Away

A trip to Horley this week and Copthorne Prep School – but for an unfortunate drainage related brown stain at one end (that makes it sound worse than it was), a lovely looking pitch. It played well - fast, consistent and very bouncy – essentially the anti-Bedes. This bounce and bobble was to prove a persistent factor over the course of our 70 minutes of hockey.

The first 20 or so were even handed-ish – with Horley enjoying most of the possession and Priory looking dangerous on the break. Matt S was marauding down the left and regularly finding Tristan. Ben was always in the right position and regularly made superb short ball passes to get his colleagues in but we weren’t able to pull off that final killer pass.

Whilst strong in the break, the Priory boys were absorbing a lot of persistent pressure – especially the back line. Julian was playing very well, repeatedly stepping forward, intercepting and trapping numerous bobbling through balls with apparent ease. He looked every bit the natural Centre Back – even indulging in the traditional withering responses to Horley umpire whingeing.

Recovering from injury we welcomed Luke to left back – “recovering from injury” is in his case, something of understatement. Most of us return from a calf strain or dodgy hammy – Luke was playing his first game back from an ACL rebuild. You wouldn’t have known. Always available from 16s and a great outlet under pressure he cut his way past Horley forwards and distributed out through our midfield superbly. In defence he was ever solid – and the partnership between him and Julian shone throughout the first half.

Clarky over at Right Back made his share of game saving tackles in the first half too – and certainly in that period distributed well (more on his entertaining second half antics and self-flagellation later).

Debutant Flynn joined the fray after the first quarter and made an immediate impression at right mid. Horley had a couple of very fast, very skilful youngsters – in Flynn they had met their match. Encouraged by Clarky and Mike J to keep hassling, Flynn poached the ball and distributed it infield on numerous occasions.

Under the cosh defensively, Nick was having a blinder in goal. Great footwork combining with confident ownership of the D, stepping forward and executing clearing kicks when needed. Through the course of the game he went from good, to excellent to utterly brilliant.
There was nothing though that his heroics could do about the first (and thankfully only) Horley goal. A bobbly ball was shelled in for the D and Mike J, having run back to help cover the counter did get his stick on it… Just enough stick in fact to tee the young Horley striker up at the back post – a lovely assist, sadly at the wrong end.

Just before the stroke of half time, Priory were briefly reduced to 10 men, Tristan scytheing his way through the back of a Horley player – “but he got the ball umps!!!”, yes… via the stick and the player - green card…. Do bear this in mind for a later incident…
1-0 to Horley at half time and the Priory boys were in a scrap. Horley seemed to have the lion’s share of the possession and what little Priory were afforded was too frantic and direct.

The second half started as the first had ended, more sustained pressure, more heroics from Nick, more defensive footwork from the back three with an increasingly knackered but still very much in the game Pankaj darting across the midfield providing supporting cover. Snowy managing to calm the frenetic attacks and began to win short corners and very slightly turn the screw on our opposition.
Mark Y and Ben were causing a good deal of mischief in the Horley D too, but strong defensive work was keeping their keeper largely uninvolved.

Despite consulting multiple witnesses, the facts of the buildup to Priory being awarded a P-Flick are difficult to ascertain… the memory tends to focus on the resultant Horley protests – which, seemingly common for angry hockey playing chaps in Surrey, was at pitch only detectable by certain species of dog and at a volume feasibly audible in orbit.

So I will go with the bits we believe to be certain, sharp diagonal play in the middle of the park involving Mike J and Pankaj built to a point where Pankaj rifled a ball out right to the waiting James H. James made a brief run – well beyond the reaching defensive line and played a lovely through ball into the D to a waiting Tristan. Only he wasn’t alone…

Starting his run a fraction before his defensive opponent he got to the ball first. Then the Horley defender also got to the ball. And Tristan. By which I mean F=MA and the M and indeed A relating to the defender was rather more considerable than that of Tristan’s – who was launched sideways ending up sprawled across the P-Spot.

A heavy whistle. Horley immediately protesting the standard “but he got the ball umps!”. Well, yes, he could also have got there driving a Sherman Tank - ball or no ball, it was still dangerous play. Instinctively I thought it would be a Priory short corner but a brief umpire conference and a flick was awarded. This did little to calm an already somewhat irritable Horley side. The Priory skipper resisted the urge to point out that based on the decision, there should be a yellow card forthcoming… how neighbourly of him…

Cometh the hour, cometh the Snowman. A coldly dispatched flick into the top right – with the keeper going the wrong way to add to the effect 1-1.

Horley were now somewhere between incensed and incandescent. To their credit, for the most part, they applied this energy to their game rather than to heightened protest – though I must add the Horley umpires showed extraordinarily good grace and patience faced with a significant level of constant whingeing and chuntering.

Pressure on the backline went up a notch when Julian, who throughout the game had been putting his body on the line now used his face. As previously trailed, the pitch meant the ball spent a lot of time airborne and in one defensive scramble Jules was forced to attempt a goal mouth clearance at waist height – he couldn’t quite get enough on it and the resultant top edge unzipped his right eyebrow by the nose.
He was quite ready to carry on just as the Claret began to flow in earnest, alas he was to participate no further.

Mike J into centre back, Pankaj back into bottom of the diamond and Snowy to top. Flynn, subbed moments earlier called back into action – now in at Centre Forward. A very understandably cautious Luke rested in the last quarter so Howard was summoned to left back.
There followed what could be described as a fighting retreat. Only there was nowhere to retreat to. The number of Horley short corners turned the Priory D into a firing range. Mike J running one on short corners was thoroughly peppered but manage to get his stick to a fair proportion too. Clarky, Pankaj & Howard also got in on the action and all contributed to goal line saves and clearances, but it was once again Saint Nick to the rescue.

His positioning was inch perfect in the whole game but it was especially apparent in the second half. Close range shots were parried with a quick flick of the ankle and anything airborne dismissed over the bar.

When we were able to get the ball away and find space (usually via a combination of Pankaj and Snowy), James H and Flynn were combining superbly down the right. Encouraged to get stuck in and deny Horley space they both terrorising the Horley left and centre backs.
On the left Matt S was finding Ben and some cracking layoffs to Tristan into the D. Mark Y was doing the tough part – controlling bobbling through balls on his reverse, getting round his man but wasn’t quite able to get the shot away – at least not one that involved contact with the ball.

We reached a point in the game where the point of the game was to get away with a point.

We did try a few spots of self sabotage, ball speed began to slow and some unhelpful hospital passes out left to Howard and Matt S were somehow salvaged. Clarky went a bit Dr Jekyll on us – making superb 1 on 1 saving tackles before Mr Hyde graciously returned the ball to our opponents for another go – his self-effacing fury having the unforeseen consequence of his back line colleagues getting the giggles.

Somehow we held on. I don’t know how many short corners were successfully defended – but it was a large number. Snowy and Pankaj embodied the never surrender spirit in the middle of the park and safe to say no one left the pitch with anything left in the tank.
A great defensive performance all the way up the pitch against tough opposition. Extreme bravery, guts and guile combined with counter-attacking hockey led our very own Ocean’s 13 and Saint Nick, nick a prized point from the Horley vault today. Great work everyone.

Man of the Match this week was fairly clear cut (the skipper realising his administrative error with names and correcting swiftly!). Special mentions to Mike J for 70 minutes of hard graft and to Pankaj for a great game combining stick skills, distribution and all out hard work but to put it simply - our hero Saint Nick saves the Gane.

As he himself said in the Priory club house later in the day – “I really enjoyed it, it was my kind of game” – well thank God for that! Very well-done sir.

The Champagne this week saw strong nominations for Saint Nick, Jules’ eyebrow, Tristan’s flick winning charge but it was the ice cool of the Snowman who scored that equaliser who takes it this week – a cracking all round game Andy!