hockey
Lost the game. Had multiple shots on goal, couldn't get any of them in. Mostly it was aim - that, and we somehow couldn't pass it across the goal for someone to tap in often enough to get a goal.
We were missing one of our inners who's a strong runner and an aggressive tackler (she was at the Pink concert), and our centre forward who's strong and good at bullying the ball in through a number of defenders. So I was holding centre forward, instead of running it down the wing and passing it in. The wings we had could run it down, but the left wing has a hard time passing it in because of an old knee injury that means turning/twisting on it can be difficult (and the left inner is usually our hard runner and is able to be there for her), and the woman playing right wing is usually on of our halves - she's good at moving the ball in both directions, but not so good at a good hard shove into the centre of the field.
And after last night's scoreless game, I wonder: if I didn't pass it across the goal as often as I did, would our team win as often as we do? I'm pretty sure at least a third of our goals have come off assists from me: across the goal, back to someone with a better bead on of the line-of-sight into the goal. I mean, you don't get points for assists, and I doubt anyone counts them. But still.
There were also stupid things that we did: people trying to stop on the backstick rather than taking a step left and stopping on the forestick - first time players trying to stop on the backstick! WORST. I guess I spent so long playing for B-grade, where the coach for several years was Very Emphatic about Not Stopping On The Backstick as much as possible, and it's proved to be so very valuable to me in a game in taking the ball and being able to move with it.
But we played well, we (mostly) kept calm, and generally were upbeat in the game. Which was good.
And at least one of their players plays in A-grade, although she's registered in our grade (C-grade), and her brother was umpiring. Soooooo...yeah. That happens. But we can block her, hassle her, frustrate her - we set one of our players to just sitting on her and it pretty much hampered her.
It's a pity we can't practise a bit against our A-grade team. Ten minutes of pitting ourselves against them and seeing where we fail, where our holes our, where we can do better.
I think I'm going to need to jog down to the local fields and practise some hitting. I just wish I had a net.
edit: Seems like Coach thinks they deliberately stacked the team and were a little disappointed that the score was only 2-nil (and could have been drawn if we'd gotten any of our shots in).
We were missing one of our inners who's a strong runner and an aggressive tackler (she was at the Pink concert), and our centre forward who's strong and good at bullying the ball in through a number of defenders. So I was holding centre forward, instead of running it down the wing and passing it in. The wings we had could run it down, but the left wing has a hard time passing it in because of an old knee injury that means turning/twisting on it can be difficult (and the left inner is usually our hard runner and is able to be there for her), and the woman playing right wing is usually on of our halves - she's good at moving the ball in both directions, but not so good at a good hard shove into the centre of the field.
And after last night's scoreless game, I wonder: if I didn't pass it across the goal as often as I did, would our team win as often as we do? I'm pretty sure at least a third of our goals have come off assists from me: across the goal, back to someone with a better bead on of the line-of-sight into the goal. I mean, you don't get points for assists, and I doubt anyone counts them. But still.
There were also stupid things that we did: people trying to stop on the backstick rather than taking a step left and stopping on the forestick - first time players trying to stop on the backstick! WORST. I guess I spent so long playing for B-grade, where the coach for several years was Very Emphatic about Not Stopping On The Backstick as much as possible, and it's proved to be so very valuable to me in a game in taking the ball and being able to move with it.
But we played well, we (mostly) kept calm, and generally were upbeat in the game. Which was good.
And at least one of their players plays in A-grade, although she's registered in our grade (C-grade), and her brother was umpiring. Soooooo...yeah. That happens. But we can block her, hassle her, frustrate her - we set one of our players to just sitting on her and it pretty much hampered her.
It's a pity we can't practise a bit against our A-grade team. Ten minutes of pitting ourselves against them and seeing where we fail, where our holes our, where we can do better.
I think I'm going to need to jog down to the local fields and practise some hitting. I just wish I had a net.
edit: Seems like Coach thinks they deliberately stacked the team and were a little disappointed that the score was only 2-nil (and could have been drawn if we'd gotten any of our shots in).