Dalefield came close to upsetting powerful Hutt in their opening Wellington premier division men's hockey match of the 2013 season at Clareville on Sunday.
Going into the game as rank underdogs, Dalefield were beaten 6-5 after leading 1-0, 2-1, 3-2 and 4-3 through various stages of a fixture whichcould have gone either way.
Not surprisingly, Dalefield coach and former Black Stick Greg Clark was delighted with the competitiveness of his mainly young side against opposition including New Zealand senior and age group representatives in their line-up.
"We were never behind until the last 10 minutes of the game, to stay goal for goal for so long against a team of that calibre has to be seen as a good start," Clark said. "Obviously we would have liked to have won but to stay so close and lose by just one goal ... who would have thought that would happen."
For Clark the big plus for Dalefield was their ability to consistently stretch, and sometimes break, the Hutt defence
"We scored five goals and had a couple disallowed, you have to be happy with that," he said. "Hockey is a lot about scoring goals these days and it was good to see the ball getting into the back of the net so often."
Dalefield was also strong defensively, although Hutt did manage to create hassles through their clever variations at penalty corners, scoring half their goals from that crucial part of the game.
Outstanding for Dalefield was Liam Workman whose workrate on attack and defence was hugely impressive and Tane Workman and Daniel van Woerkom also starred in what was a thoroughly encouraging first-up performance.
