On a bitterly cold and windy Sunday 8th December the RHC U14Gs made the short journey from Repton to Rykneld Sports Centre in Mackworth to face Belper in their second group game of the EH U14G T1 Cup Competition. With Belper's pitch having been recently flooded several times after heavy rainfall in November, this venue had been booked by them to guarantee that the game could go ahead.

On arrival it became evident that Google Earth was indeed accurate and up to date as this pitch was marked out for football, with hockey clearly playing second fiddle, the lines being virtually invisible which made things very difficult for both teams.

After a couple of occasions when RHC players were caught out by taking the ball to the football pitch sidelines that lay outside of the hockey lines Repton soon adapted to the situation and after only 3 minutes of play Tilly worked the ball from midfield into the D, passed to Jess who made a smart short pass to team captain Poppy who then scored her first of what was to be a magnificent 8 goal total!

Two minutes later Daisy, Tilly and Poppy combined effectively to score our second, and it was starting to look like this might turn out to be an easy victory for the girls. However, Belper started to find their game and put pressure on our defence for a sustained period - this ultimately resulted in them winning a penalty corner which they converted, with the game clock at 13 minutes.

In the main, Belper made better use of the width of the pitch than Repton, with intelligent passing that allowed them to progress up the pitch on several occasions. Nevertheless, the quality of our defence was such that Belper were never allowed to increase their total, and the strength and individual skill of our players overwhelmed Belper and led to the game ending at 12-1.

In a game with such a scoreline it's not possible to mention all of the goals in detail (particularly as my hands were too cold to make many notes!), but it was great to have Mollie D, Jess, Poppy and Tilly all contributing to our total, and great work in defence and midfield of course contributing to this comfortable victory.

Despite the scoreline (recorded as 9-1 due to tournament rules, which puts us top of our group after 2 games), Repton must be wary of complacency and be mindful of the fact that we will face stiffer competition as the tournament progresses. In particular, our lack of distribution across the width of the pitch and a tendency to focus our attack up the centre, and occasionally for individuals to retain possession longer than would be ideal, will start to cost us as stronger teams with experienced coaches read the game early on and punish us later.

My congratulations to the team on this win; and my thanks to Ayelén for coaching and Dom for umpiring. Finally RHC thanks Belper for hosting us and providing a great match tea.

Jamie