Men’s Hockey – Scotland v England ‘A’. 9-10 June 2012
Scotland’s men played a two-match friendly series at Forthbank in Stirling over the weekend. Unfortunately, they lost both matches 3-1 to a better organised, more skilful team. The first match was on the Saturday and right from the start, England ‘A’ dominated proceedings with the Scotland team barely able to get out of their own half during the first period of play. 3-0 up at half-time, England looked as if they could put another half dozen past a fairly lacklustre home side. But, whatever was said at the interval put a bit of fire into the Scots team and within a few minutes of the start, they had pulled a goal back. The rest of the half was a much more evenly balanced affair with both sides creating, but missing, chances – Scotland hit the crossbar from a penalty corner – from both open play and penalty corners. However, with no further scoring, England ‘A’ took the win a 3-1 final score.
Sunday’s match was looked on with a bit of apprehension by the home fans and, although Scotland played much better than they had on the Saturday, England were 2-0 ahead by the break. A goal apiece in the second half gave the visitors another 3-1 win and a clean sweep of the mini-series.
Overall, the Scotland players never really looked to be able to match the English team and a catalogue of fundamental errors – loose passes, lack of control, stopping the ball, etc – did nothing to help the cause, and in the end, they were simply outplayed by a very much second-string England.
Photo and Report – John Preece
Web – http://www.photoboxgallery.com/jlp-photography
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
