Slazenger’s first development league game of the season was away against a confident Rotherham team. However, Slazenger started the strongest and soon went ahead when Rowan Tejura scored from a short corner after the initial effort from James Bennett was saved by the defending team.
Slazenger’s were playing good passing hockey and continued to pressure the home side. With Chris Hopkinson and John Toon strong defensively it set up a good platform to attack the opposition with Robin Brearton and Isaac Fisher linking well and they created several opportunities to score. The home side were having to do some last ditch defending to keep the score at 1-0.
Mark Kitchen and Tom Pitchforth made several telling drives into the opposition goal mouth and added to their tally when Andrew Fisher scored two goals in quick succession. Slazenger were deservedly 3-0 up at half-time.
The game was a classic example of a game of two halves because in the second half Slazenger stopped playing the passing game that had being so successful in the first half and allowed Rotherham back into the game. The opposition started controlling the midfield against a tiring side who had worked hard but unfortunately didn’t have any substitutes and were further hindered with an injury to Aidan Hopkinson forcing him off the pitch to recover and so were down to 10 men for a while.
Goalkeeper Ralph Toon made several telling saves but the opposition pulled back the 3-0 goal deficit to make the score level at 3-3. Once the scores were level Slazenger raised their game again and created numerous chances to win the game but could just not convert any of these efforts.
Next week’s game is away at York 3.00 pm pushback.
From: Andrew Fisher
Slazenger Mens Development (4ths) (3) vs (3) Rotherham Development Squad
(Sat 25th Sept 2010, 11:30pm, Rotherham Hockey Club)
