| Match Report |
Probably our most pleasing win of the season for the Men's 2's today against Penzance '3's'. Penzance had a team crammed full of 'returning' players obviously hoping that this coupled with the home advantage would secure them a win. However, Caradon had other ideas. Playing with a bare 11 we took it to the opposition from the first whistlle looking dangerous immediately. It was clear in the first minute that the majority of decisions were going to go against us regardless of who committed the infringement. We were repeatedly warned for our back chat and ill discipline, which felt pretty harsh. It was a very physical game which we expected and we soaked up the constant pressure of this and for the vast majority of the time managed to keep our cool. Martyn Bevins opened the scoring after dribbling it round several players and calmly slotting it past a vocal keeper. Bevins added another after a short corner where he slammed the ball into the backboard with trademark accuracy. Penzance clawed one back when a break against the run of play was well finished by a 'returning' player. Ben P-R who had just been sent off with green card for a stick tackle pointed out in the bar afterwards that Penzance only scored when he was off the pitch - earning himself DotD which was shared with Toby Riddle who managed to get himself sent off for loud comments about certain decisions and Liam Champion who suggested that it would be good to have 3 DotD's. It became quite heated at points throughout this half with Pz becoming increasingly vocal towards the umpires which eventually was picked up on. The half time talk encouraged everyone to keep up the effort, play simple hockey, not to leave people isolated and above all to remain calm and not answer back. As it turned out this worked like a charm and as we kept our cool PZ became more and more vocal earning themselves 2 or 3 yellow cards and 3 green cards in total. Our third goal came from a quickly taken hit from Sam P-R who injected the ball to a surprised Jon P-R who controlled the ball and swept it into the goal on his reverse. This felt like the final nail in the coffin for PZ who allowed their heads to drop to the point that dominant running from Ben P-R who ran past flagging players who soon gave up the chase to receive a monster arial ball from Sam P-R allowing Ben to be one on one with the PZ keeper easily beating him and slamming the ball home for a great 4th goal. Final score a well deserved hard fought4-1 victory to Caradon. Special mentions to Mike Parkinson who ran like a legend throughout and also to Martyn Bevins who managed to keep his call when called over by the umpire ending the conversation with "fair enough"!!!!! oh and for scoring 2 great goals earning himself joint MotM with Sam P-R who ran like a madman and tackled brilliantly and also Elliot Grange who must have run about 10k making extraordinary tackles along the way and just generally giving his all despite earning a green card for feisty play. A game of 3's today 3 MotM's, 3 DotD's, 3 green cards and a goal difference of ...3. So pleased with today's result boys and I just wanted to say thank you to each and every one of you for your effort and composure!
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