Sunday September 13 -
South Africa 3 - 0 Canada
Our game started at 8 tonight. South Africa recently finished 7th at the World
Cup, and have a very strong, fit, physical side. They are also very technically
proficient. The first 15 minutes of the game were fairly good, but then for
some reason our athletes gave the S.A. players far too much respect. They had
too much space in the midfield, which cannot happen against a strong international
side. They scored at 17:31 on a straight shot off a penalty corner, that managed
to squeeze through our keeper's pads as she laid down. A hard shot, but definitely
savable... At 20:35, we had a large defensive breakdown at the top of the D that
resulted in a free play goal. At 31:04, another free play goal was scored on
a reverse stick chip into the top corner of the net.
Score at half time: 3-0; feelings: unhappy, to say the least. I don't mind
when a team is better than us and beats us, but not when we do not play well.
At half time, I made some adjustments to our pressure system and to the midfield
play. I also instructed the athletes to PLAY, not to watch. That meant
play as a team. Too often players had potential for 2 vs. 1 opportunities,
and didn't take them because they were worried about defending. We had to make
S.A. play us.
In the second half, we played much better. We created 5 corners in the game,
they had 4. We had them running for a time period, and you could see the
confidence of some of our athletes grow. Unfortunately, we shouldn't have waited
35 minutes to start the game. Final score: 3-0 (0-0 in the second half).
I was happy with the second half.
Saturday September 12 -
Canada 2-2 Wales
Canadian goals by
Kristen Taunton and
Carla Somerville
Finally, the game was under way. We were very uptight and nervous at the start,
and much too undisciplined defensively, a trend that was to continue throughout
the game. At 9:34 Wales scored on a free play goal on a defensive breakdown
on our left side. I wasn't worried, thinking that we might have just had a
good wake up call. We started to attack more and at 19 minutes
Amy McFarlane created a penalty
corner. Kristen Taunton
converted the rebound of a
Karen MacNeill hit; score at
half time: 1-1.
A sidenote: "Jumbo" must
have done a good job at lunch with Prince Edward, as he came to our game
tonight. Not only did he come to our game, BUT he walked right onto our bench
with his entire entourage. I was ready to tell them to get lost until I realized
who it was! Needless to say this did not really help the focus of the people
on the bench. I knew we were in a bit of trouble when about 6 of them got their
picture taken with him what can I say? I guess it is all part of the Games
experience!
We regrouped at the half, and played some of the best hockey that we have
played for a long time in the second half. It was smart hockey at high speed,
and was fun to watch. It was the first time that I have relaxed watching a
game since we have been here. We had a run of 5 corners from the 14 to 19
minute mark, and at 15:46 "Beaner"
Grimes converted a penalty corner rebound on a shot from
Fausty. We had the lead for the
first time in the game, and created some great scoring opportunities afterwards.
However, at 25:11 we again had a defensive breakdown, and our goalkeeper
Sarah Forbes slid out to take
on the on rushing forward. It was a well timed slide, but Sarah got the ball
AND the player. The umpire called a stroke, which Wales converted. This was
unfortunate, as the call was questionable... However, that happens in sport.
We came back again and created some good opportunities, but were unable to
convert. Wales had a flurry in the last 2 minutes of the game, but we managed
to keep them out of the net. Final score: 2-2.
Feelings: mixed. We played some great hockey, but had some moments of
absolute chaos with undisciplined defense. One key thing I can say is there
has been some growth in the group, as last year at this time we probably
would have lost the game in the last 5 minutes. However, it is still clear to
me that we have some work to do. We can play with some of the best teams in
the world, but we are not good enough right now to dictate a game to a team
that might be considered of lower standard than we are. I know that this will
be a key for us next summer, and is something that we are going to have to
learn in the next 12 months.
Thursday September 10 -
Canada - Wales : postponed
The Canada vs. Wales match has being postponed ; as far as we know Wales
had a few sick athletes and the TD ruled that the match should thus be
postponed due to "very exceptional circumstances".
Canada is pursuing a decision on the rescheduling but members of the Wales
delegation would not meet with the Canadian coach to discuss rescheduling...
Wednesday September 9 -
Canada 3 - 0 Namibia
After a lengthy rain delay, the match ahead of ours finished and we
were underway (about an hour behind).
A good victory, but a slow paced game. Namibia never crossed the Canadian
25 yd. line! We put together a lot of good runs.
Carla Somerville scored a
beautiful free play goal(8').
Karen MacNeill blasted a
straight hit through the net off a short corner play (26'). And, the final
goal was scored by
Aoibhinn Grimes (30').
Warm up went well, the national anthem sent chills down our spines, and
then the game was on! We started well, with
Sue Armstrong creating a
penalty corner in the first 30 seconds. In the 8th minute,
Carla Somerville scored a
free play goal on a chip shot from the top of the circle, with the ball just
whistling by the goalies head. In the 26th minute,
"Beaner" Grimes created a penalty
corner, which Karen MacNeill
converted (this was after their post player had made about 4 miraculous saves
in a row on the line). In the 30th minute,
Aoibhinn Grimes scored a
beautiful tip goal on a cross from
Army MacFarlane.
So
the score at half time was 3-0. Not bad we had started the way we
wanted to. At half time, we made some minor adjustments: I switched our pressure
system to one that requires less running, but it was not done correctly in the
second half the athletes were too excited to get the ball back from Namibia.
We had MANY chances to score, with
BJ Steadward rocketing one
off the post on a penalty corner, and
Michelle Bowyer putting a
beautiful tip in that was called back as a raised ball into the D.
Score at the end of the game: 3-0. Namibia did not have a single shot on
goal; we had 14 penalty corners that resulted in 11 shots, and 18 free play
shots, in addition to 8 wide shots. We controlled the game, and got the 3
points for a win that we wanted. There was some absolutely brilliant play by
the Canadian team, but also some unfortunate periods of lack of discipline...
We did fairly well with our substitutions, making sure that we rested people
whenever possible. We will have to make some subtle changes to our game tomorrow.
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