Match Report

Match : 1st XI v Saintfield
Date : 2003-03-01
Venue : A
Score : 2-2
Scorers : Burgess, Currie

By Alan Burgess

Saturday was one of those rare days when it was a pleasure to play hockey in a green shirt.

Playing Saintfield on the gravel is always a tough one to get something out of for a team who don't play on gravel that often. A few changes to the line-up, with Menaul in centre midfield and Burgess at centre forward worked well. The game started with East putting all the pressure on the Saintfield goal and that pressure paid off when Currie found space in the circle, slotted the ball to Burgess who put the ball into the empty net (just about). Saintfield played mainly on the break with their centre forward causing problems for the East defence. Saintfield scored to make the score 1-1 at half time.

Shortly after the restart Greer played the ball to Irwin on the right side of the circle, he produced a beautiful reverse pass to Currie who made no mistake with the finish. Saintfield started to apply a lot of pressure on the East defence in search of the equaliser and it was East who were now playing on the break. More and more pressure was being applied but Saintfield could not find a way past Hamill who made some outstanding saves, eventually Saintfield did get the equaliser with about 10mins remaining. Nicholl and Young combined well to almost get the win for East near the end, but it wasn't to be.

An excellent performance from the lads, i could not have faulted any of them. Everyone played with desire and the work rate was excellent. Nicholl and Young came on in the second half and showed great skill and enthusiasm. Hopefully this performance can be carried over to the our crucial league game away to Omagh next week.

Oh by the way, the weekend got even better when Liverpool demolished the Mancs in Cardiff :-)

J Hamill
A Murphy
P Fraser
G Reid
M McDonald
J Greer
D Menaul
N Hermon
P Irwin
A Burgess
L Currie
S Nicholl
A Young