Thank you once again to Rory Staples for his Metro U15 v Ryde and U11B Sutho v Sutho Lizard clash pictures
Rugby League might be bragging about its Magic Round in Brisbane last weekend, but our junior players did their own version at Tradies Hockey Park.
It was Reptiles v. Reptiles everywhere at Sutho as our fantastic lizards faced off in Sutho Bearded Dragons or Sutho Thorny Devils or Sutho Blue Tongues matches in multiple age divisions.
Even more epic battles next time?
Anyway, on to the match reports, and thank you for the teams that provided them.
Juniors
U11A
Sutho Geckos 2 v Glebe Backs 3
Today was a day when most of the Geckos experienced something they’d never before experienced in their previous Sutho hockey season – defeat!
It was a cold, windy and miserable day and we would all have preferred to still be in bed. Glebe took advantage of our lethargy and ran through our defences in the first couple of minutes to score their first goal.
This sudden attack didn’t seem to be enough to kick the Geckos into gear and Glebe scored another goal soon after. The Geckos stepped it up after this second goal and started to defend with more urgency and they began to attack as a team.
With our attack kicking in, Jude put us on the board after a great pass into the D from Jack. Jack then went on to score his own goal from an impossible angle out wide. This brought it to 2-2.
As the sun made an appearance, the Geckos thawed out and started to put more pressure on Glebe, but somehow Glebe scored another goal to put them ahead by 1 close to full time.
The Geckos had one last chance at goal and scored but the goal was disallowed due to being too high. We were unable to convert on a couple of short corners and the game finished at 3-2 to Glebe.
The Geckos now know what defeat feels like and aren’t keen to feel it again. No doubt training will be full on this week!
Best and Fairest: 2 each Luke, Luca, Jude. Goals: Jude, Jack.
U11B
Sutho Bearded Dragons 5 Blue Tongues 1
This week the Bearded Dragons returned home to play in a Mate vs Mate event against fellow Sutho team the Blue Tongues.
After the brisk weather from the early morning start cleared, both teams settled in for a strong game with some great passing and teamwork which enabled Nic,Jack and Harrison to sneak through the Blue Tongues defences.
As well as Ellie who scored a great goal, her first with many to come.
B&F Points: Ellie 3, Nic 2, Mandy 1.
U13A
Sutho 3 beat Glebe 1
A strong game despite having only 10 regular players. Big thanks to Jack and Eli from the U11s who played really well.
Sutho dominated all aspects but couldn’t convert. We held a 2-0 advantage at half time. Glebe scored first in the 2nd half and had the momentum before we finished the game off.
Some good passing and even a transfer or two. Well done.
Holly’s first goal, from Chris’s bullet pass from outside the 23 yards for a deflection high into the net was the goal of the season so far.
Points: Lachie 3, Chris 2, Camille 1. Goals. Holly 2, Chris 1
U13B
Sutho Thorny Devils 2 vs St George 3
The Tradies Hockey Park was looking a treat, our amazing TD parents were working hard on canteen duty, and Coach Hoy’s 13B TDs were set and ready to go.
St George came out of the blocks strongly, pressuring our defence and goal keeper Jacob, but our TDs held up and scrambled well.
Our midfield reacted using the width of the field to get the ball to our forwards, eventually paying off with a goal to Riley. The game well poised with the score board reading 1 – 1 at half time; the second half was anybody’s game.
The second half was tough with only one reserve from our normal three. Plus, two of our team members playing with injuries – so Hoy’s TD’s showed a lot of character.
Like the first half, the game went from end to end with our forward Liam finding the back of the goal to give us the lead.
St George showed themselves to be the bit fitter and more determined team, scoring an equaliser, making the scoreboard 2-2.
There was plenty of time on the clock, but with our TDs giving it their all, fatigue was getting the better of us. Like last week, with 1 min and 20 seconds on the clock, St George were rewarded for their determination, scoring the match winning goal.
B&F points: Riley 3, Darcy 2, Amy 1.
13B
Sutherland Blue Tongues 1 v UNSW 2
Uni won the toss to start the match. Sutherland took early control of the ball and maintained possession throughout the first half.
Most of the play was battled out through the centre: Kalahni weaved her skills around players, offloading balls to our forward line of Mylo, Tully, Olive and Kai. Our forwards pumped the Uni goalie but we just couldn’t get past him.
Uni’s centre player fought hard all half and gained the first short corner. Milan, Bailey, Jack and Charlotte covered the shot on goal well and cleared by Tully. Bailey takes a quick penalty to clear it from our defence.
At 13 minutes left, and our centre combination fires again. Kalahni takes the ball into our half and passes off to Kai who works well with Tully and Olive within the circle.
Tully takes a shot, it deflects and Indeanna is on goal to take another shot.
The Uni goalie covers every inch of the goals and kicks it to Tully at the top of the circle. Tully takes a cracker shot on goal with Kai ready with his stick down, deflects it in to find the back of the goal. 1-0.
The team lifts and looks pumped. Uni responded with a quick attacking short corner only to level the score with 44 seconds remaining in the first half.
The second half remained the same battle down the centre. We even had a ‘bully’ 5 minutes into the second half.
Owen, Declan, Milan and Charlotte had a bit more work in defence this half and held on to cover every shot taken at them.
Uni stepped it up a notch and with two minutes remaining of . the game found the back of the goals again to take the game 2-1.
A well fought out game ,team. Thank you for Charlotte for a great game in goals and calling to her team mates throughout when defending. Well done, Mylo, for taking the field this week and having a run.
Best and Fairest points: 3 Olive, 1 each Indeanna, Jack and Tully.
U15 Metro
Sutho 1 Ryde 6
In what was a much tighter game than the score line suggests, the U15 Metro team went down 6-1 to the Ryde metro team on Friday night.
The first half ended 4-1 to Ryde, with their sustained pressure capitalising on minor lapses in our defence to score at any opportunity.
The second half seemed much more even, with both teams managing sustained attacks up the field.
Unfortunately, unlike Ryde, Sutho could not convert their opportunities, missing several shots at goal – including two one-on-ones with the keeper.
Irrespective of the result – we’re extremely proud of all of the players, who never put their head down on the field and continued to fight right until the end of the game.
B&F points: Blake Shaw 3, Matt Rose 1, Grace Matthews 1, Oli Bollard 1.
U15B
Sutho Thorny Devils 1 Sutho Blue Tongues 2
It was ‘Under the pump’ today with the first Sutho v Sutho game of the season. No subs available, meant that everyone had to work hard for the duration today, and all dug deep to tough it out against a very ‘match ready’ Blue Tongues side.
We held our own though, by matching our opponents goal for goal, but ran out of time to even up the scoreboard in the second half, playing most of that period a man down with Nick Cullen getting more than a ‘nic’ to his forehead (see what I did there – Nick..Nic!) which had him raced away from the field to get six stitches.
The remaining players rose to the challenge and stayed competitive to deliver a final score that matched the balance of play. Some fine tuning on the fundamentals, and a move towards wide, fast transfers should build our game performance.
Go Sutho!
Best and Fairest (players player by vote this week): 3 Kai Struve, 2 Kai Morris, 1 Flynn Whittaker. Goal: Flynn Whittaker.
U17 Geckos 3 v U17 Blue Tongues 4
Friday evening had been pleasant enough – left work early, train, home, jump in the car, dash through traffic – but all that changed upon arriving at Greenhills for the U17 Sutho v Sutho grudge match.
The problem wasn’t that U17 bragging rights were on the line – it’s just that Greenhills should have changed its name to the Greenhills Icy Pole – not Marang!
Freezing winds greeted all and sundry: at least it wasn’t also raining. I think the only people who enjoyed the game were the players – once the game got underway they were warm and all playing very well – the rest of us on the sidelines just froze.
The good news is that the game was played in the right spirit and it was an incredibly close. The score was 1-1 at half time, 2-2 at three-quarter time, and 3-3 with 3 minutes to play.
It couldn’t have been scripted better (except for the lack of heaters in the dugout!).
Most of the game was end-to-end with the midfields of both teams moving the ball up the field very quickly.
Both defences had to make a large number of quality saves – it was another tremendous effort by Sean in goals for the Geckos.
And one parent on the sideline counted 14 short corners defended by the Geckos – with only three of those resulting in goals to the Blue Tongues – so amazing concentration by Sean and the Geckos’ defensive unit to deal with that constant pressure.
The Gecko strikers made the Blue Tongues defence work very hard, particularly Adrian who scored one goal and assisted in the other two Gecko goals to Macca and Max.
And with the end-to-end play, there were some very tired midfielders bouncing back-and-forth from circle to circle ensuring plenty of opportunities for the Gecko strikers.
However, in the final minutes of the game, the Blue Tongues secured another short corner and managed to make it count to win the game 4-3. Well done Sutho.
B&F: Sean (2), Dominic (2) and Adrian (2).
Women
SEHA Women’s Premier Grade
Sutherland 1 defeated UNSW 0
This week’s game was at Sutherland, first home soil game of the season. Sarah was back and the team was pumped because it was the top of the leader board clash against UNSW.
It started off intensely, with a lot of running and leading.
We were strong on the ball and were transferring the ball around the back well right throughout the game. In the second quarter the first goal came from a short corner, Iris hit the ball from the top of the circle but the goalie saved it, then Ruth came in on the goalie’s left side and slapped the ball into the goal.
In the second half, our talking on the field was loud and encouraging, strong direct calls. Our intensity was switched on the whole game and no-one seemed to miss a beat.
Anna our goalie was our lifesaver and won some magnificent one-on-ones with the opposition going for the ball not the player.
We had really good team work, the best so far in the season.
Goal scorer: Ruth Sannes.
Player points: Anna Barton 3, Jess Gilbertson 2, Jo Momsen 1.
Men
1st grade
Sutho 4 v Glebe 0
Once again, played at a desolate Cintra Park at 6.30 pm at night and NO score board or time clock once again, and when all 1st grade games should be played, I THINK NOT but that’s SHA for you again. To boot played on our own again which really boosts club moral and spirit keeping us separated from our other PL grades in preference to the clubs which cannot provide 4 teams for PL! Any way hopefully we are getting to the end of this shemozel and we will start at least playing some home matches soon.
The glebe team tried their hardest as usual and tried to play a hard fast game which had us scrambling a lot and we had to pull out all stops to quell the storm and start playing our own game which we did in the 2nd quarter.
We stared playing some good hockey and moving the ball around at our own pace and it all stared to happen and eventually we won 4 nil.. The pleasing factor being no goals against again. Not much more to report other than we are sailing along quite nicely at present and sitting in 3 rd position on the table.
There are no matches next week but a big home day the following Sat 25th against Briars in all 4 grades.
B & F : Jono Scott 1, Scott Govers 2, Brady Anderson 3. Goals: Matt Johnson 2, Matt Bennett 2.
Peter Krepp manager
3rd grade
Sutho 1 Sydney Uni 2
At the start of the week we had 17 players, but by the time the game started, we 10 fresh players – what a week.
This quickly got worse when Lachie broke his hand in the first minute and played on for the rest of the game, and Jay smashed his nose and painted the Sydney Uni dugout red.
While the umpiring also did not favour us, and we got the worst of the sun in our eyes with the stupid field alignment for the 3.30 game, we stayed in the contest until late in the game when we conceded a second goal.
Losing all of our corner shooting options didn’t help, as did some excellent keeping by Uni custodian.
A brave effort, with sprinkling of very good hockey.
Proud of the guys, and huge efforts to Gus and Scotty backing down into 3s after playing 2s and due the injuries playing the entire game, and to Jason and Brendo doing the same into 4s.
Hopefully we are at something close to full strength for the next game against top placed Ryde.
Points: 3 Kian, 1 each Zak, Scott and Ralph. Goal: Zak Keelan.
4th grade
Sutherland 0 Sydney Uni 1
4th Grade had a rematch of last year’s grand final against Sydney Uni. It was a tough game for both sides.
Sutho had possession for the majority of the game, but after Uni scored a breakaway goal they defended with all 11 players in the 25 during Sutho’s attack, making it very hard to get chances.
We passed the ball around well in the midfield and in the back – which is very encouraging as it’s just what we’ve been practicing at training – but we struggled to convert our chances in the 25.
Definitely an unfortunate loss but there was still many aspects of the game to be proud of.
B&F: 3 Brendan Hol, 2 Huon Bollard, 1 Oliver Turner.
5th grade
Sutherland 2 Macquarie University 2
Just a few supporters (can’t really describe it as a crowd) were in attendance on Saturday at Sydney Olympic for our 2pm middle of the table SL1 clash with Macquarie University.
Those (very few) spectators were treated to a tense struggle.
Sutho’s midfield control was evident throughout, and our intensity in the contest improved as the game went on. We had superiority of circle penetrations and shots on goal.
Will had a great game at outside defender, giving us good width coming out of defence and keeping his opponent in check. Lachie, Richo, Ty, Tom and Matt all worked hard for every possession in the midfield. All our strikers had shots on goal which is always a great sign, and a couple of our penalty corners went perilously close.
Our first goal was to Isaac after receiving the ball inside the penalty spot and making a quick reverse shot; our 2nd to a Nic Donni penalty corner.
After dominating much of the game, and a number of very near misses on goal, it was disappointing to have to settle for a draw – but the result keeps us in fourth spot after six games: a good position to build from.
B&F: 3 Will Gair, 2 Lachlan O’Leary, 1 Isaac Olsen. Goals: Isaac Olsen 1, Nic Donni 1.
8th grade
Sutho 1 Macquarie University 6
This week saw us on the Olympic pitch on a sunny Saturday midday.
We were all up for the match but as the game progressed in the early stages, things started to go wrong. It is the wrong bounce of a ball, the deflection that went the wrong way and the list continues. This was the story throughout the game.
There are positive notes such as Shaun making a return and a great impact in the middle! Connor scoring early in the second half. Everyone played so well but the score does not reflect that effort at all.
Best and fairest: 3: Jordan Wood, 2 Connor Crowley, 1 Caleb Nieuwendyk.
Goal: Connor Crowley.