It was a bad day at the office for both the Dalefield men's and women's teams in the Wellington premier division hockey matches played at the weekend.
Their men's team was on the end of a 12-1 thumping from Hutt in Wellington and their women could be facing an away semi-final
after their 4-1 beating by Eastern Hutt at Clareville.
Men's coach Laurie Juno blamed his team's inability to retain possession for their massive loss.
He said they had competed well enough for the first 20 minutes and might well have gone to the halftime break at even stevens rather than 1-4 down but the second half was an "absolute nightmare".
"We were too soft ... we weren't hungry enough when we had the ball and they just kept taking it off us," he said. "It was a poor effort and we basically got what we deserved."
The sole scorer for Dalefield was Geoff Ewington.
For the Dalefield women it was also a case of failing to compete strongly throughout the whole match.
They provided one of the highlights of the game with a brillliant goal by Elizabeth Perry after an inter-change of passes with Ana Playle but for the most part they struggled to cope with a Hutt side who were crisper in their passing and much more focussed on both attack and defence.
"They put pressure on us and we didn't respond. We were just going through the motions and you can't do that at this level and expect to get a result," he said.
Dalefield, the defending champions, have now dropped to third on the points table and must win their preliminary game against Harbour City-Tawa next weekend to have any chance of a home semi-final.
