Mixed vs Dereham

Stives Vs Dereham mixed

11am Pb, saints were ready. Knowing we were in for a gauntlet, hoping that Dereham turn up massively hungover, with their lower teams playing? Unfortunately only half of the optimism was correct. 

From the first pass the opposition was pressing hard. Full scale park the bus from stives held briefly. Some ariels thrown to relive some pressure but the attack was straight back. An eventuality after several short corners. Dereham managed to slot their first goal.

Optimistic, stives went again, holding strong in defence. And some nice movements of the ball keeping possession looking for a break in the Dereham midfield/defence, unfortunately they were too well skilled. Some great counter attacking and another goal…..

Not disheartened stives push again, trying different routes, left right, straight, up and over nothing seemed to work…… Dereham steal the ball in the middle and attack…. Short corner…. Lovely worked routine…. Goal

Second half, stives women, with no subs were gassed, men with a sub also blowing…. Dereham seemingly feeding off this, piling on the pressure, short after short. Mckenna seemingly having magnets on his toes to attract the ball, Goal Tristan ( shame it was in the wrong end) 

Off the restart, Dereham press hard, stealing the ball. Dangerous ball into the D, just wide. 16 hit-out. Mckenna slings it straight at miles, unfortunately it didn’t go to plan. There CF picked it up ran in 1-1 on the keeper, Denman did well to send him wide. Long. 

Dereham run the long round the right baseline, pull it back, shot onto a foot. Short! Another seamless routine, goal.

From here it was clear to see that stives were all shattered, and the quality of Dereham was coming through. Some class passing and shipping the ball around,  ended up in a spree of short corner’s..

On the seconds attempt, after a bit of heckling their lady slotted a peach of a drag flick down the LH side of the goal. 

Stives heads still bot dropping, still pushing managed to find themselves in the opposition D, say having a good strike but just went wide of the near post. 

From the 16,  Dereham attack, win a short, another well drilled routine from their ladies and goal.  

To summarise a blend of ives mens and women’s 3,4,5 really stepped up against a well skilled opposition, the final score was   9 - 0  loss, could have been higher but i think Some hungover players helped us out…. Overall an enjoyable game of mixed hockey.