Hockey: Collegians break Palmy dry spell

Lizzy Brooks-Man avoids the clutches of Di Walker.

It has taken until the sixth round, but a Wanganui team finally has a Palmerston North scalp in the 2014 Manawatu League as Collegians defeated HSHC Rebels 3-1 at Gonville Domain on Saturday.

In their second win in two games, after beating the Tech College Old Boys womens team the previous week, Collegians overcame a slow start when they cost themselves valuable territory against their young opposition, who are the B team of the High School Hockey Club.

Too many clearing passes went ahead of the intended receivers or out of play, slowing down Collegians, who showed they had the wood on the visitors when they could get momentum.

The Rebels had few circle penetrations whereas the home side hit the outside of the goal on one breakaway, while Jessica Watkin had a couple of chances at shots following penalty corners.

Tied 0-0 at the break, Collegians went 1-0 down against the run of play, before finally asserting themselves with two field goals from Haley Mallinder and another goal by Maggie Symes .

Aleisha Rainey also had a good match, switching from midfield to left defender.

We stopped just whacking the ball away to nobody and ended up with some nice passing, said coach Jan Dixon.

Hopefully that will give the girls a bit of confidence.

After beating two teams around their level in the past fortnight, this Saturday will represent a sterner test for Collegians, facing a College team with a number of former internationals.

The TCOB women had to face the top HSHC team in Palmerston North and, despite what co-coach Ian Glenny described as an improved effort, still found themselves on the end of a lopsided scoreline, 7-0.

Glenny said unlike their loss to Collegians, Techno managed to get circle penetrations and earned three penalty corners early in the game. Determined not to die wondering, the Wanganui team tried to play a more attacking game rather than being reactive, but being more expansive meant more handling errors.

Techno will travel back to Palmerston North to meet the Rebels this Saturday.

While the clubs womens team tried to play some running hockey, the TCOB men were in a running debate with the officials in their 6-2 away loss to Marist.

Down only 2-1 at halftime, TCOB were looking promising with goals to Bradley Kendall and Craig Hilbourne, but the green cards started to change colour to red late in the contest.

After a Marist player was sent off for a tussle with TCOB player-coach Trent Williamson, he along with Hilbourne were also asked to leave the turf for abuse of an official and a dangerous tackle respectively. An annoyed Williamson said another Marist player had a go at him while he was on the ground, so he got up protesting to the umpire.

He said there was nothing in it, and I gave him an earful.

Its a totally different game down there in Palmy.

But its OK, I was in the box with the [Marist] guy who got red carded. I shook the guys hand.

Williamson has gone through his roller-deck and is hoping to convince a couple of veteran forwards to rejoin the team, who would be useful when they take on College at Gonville this Saturday.