St Edmund's 2 St Lawrence College 1

Date: Wednesday 28 January 2009

St Lawrence 1 St Edmunds 2 - an interesting game!

The school First XI secured their second win of the season in a close and evenly fought encounter at St Lawrence, Ramsgate. St Edmund's started the brighter and played some good hockey. They opened the scoring on 10 minutes when a foot on the line meant that a penalty stroke was awarded to the the visitors. Julius Nausch promptly despatched the penalty stroke with aplomb. The 1-0 scoreline then proceeded to produce some below par play from St Edmund's, who were unable to capitalise on their lead, and infact led to some poor passing and a couple of costly errors which St Lawrence were unable to convert into goals. Thus after a rather unsatisfactory end to the first half, St Edmund's went into half-time one nil up.

The second half started much as the first half ended and St Edmund's found it difficult to reproduce their best hockey. It was the home side who struck first to make the score one all. In a very tightly contested match, there were a number of competitive moments! The home side went down to 10 men; St Edmund's too went down to 10 and actually had their keeper Rawlins sent off for some inappropriate language. With Ali McMaster kitting up in goal keeping gear St Edmund's started to find their form and started to play some better hockey with only 10 men. A break down the right from J.Clarke saw the attacker enter the D. Riding some poor challenges the ball broke to Nausch who put the ball into the net. Unfortunately just as he did so the umpire had already blown for a short corner for the poor tackles! However, despite this setback, the subsequent short corner resulted in a Nausch strike finding the net. With 10 minutes remaining St Edmund's hung on to their slender lead, and with McMaster keeping the pads on (!) they earnt a decent away victory, the final score being 2-1 to St Edmund's.

The 2nd XI - the Pilgrims - played first on the St Lawrence Astro, and lost, I believe, 2 - 3. They fought back after a poor start, and goals from Declan Connor and James Kelland earned a degree of respectability for themselves and the School.