On Saturday past East Antrim played a friendly against Ballymena which ended in a 4-1 defeat to the green machine. As per usual with East things never run smooth and a few last minute withdrawls left us with only ten players and two non hockey players, hardly an ideal situation against a skillfull Ballymena side who had been stick training for over four weeks. Indeed for the boys in green it was the first time any had picked up their sticks in over three months!!!!
The match started off at a blistering pace(not something generally associated with east) with both teams playing some skillfull end to end hockey. It was Ballymena who started well for the first ten minutes with some good tackling by our defence led by George who managed to frustrate them.Then East began controlling posession for the next ten or fifteen minutes being driven on by the midfield DYNAMO of Alan Burgess winning frees and long corners round the Ballymena circle, with a little bit more sharpness we might have taken the lead but for Leon deflecting one wide. Ballymena however came back at East and scored a drag flicked short corner to take the lead. Ballymena then pressed on and scored a sublime second just before half time with some intricate passing and moving which carved the East defence open.
at half time we were pleased with our performance and felt confident going into the second half. It was right about now that Dinger turned up for ballymena(alledgedly he was playing in the first half but none of us saw him)
Second half and our lack of fitness and concentration saw us conceeding two quick goals. Then came a period of chances for both sides with Darryl saving some excellent Ballymena shots and Us winning a few short corners. It was indeed with a well worked short corner that Alan Russell scored,East Antrims first goal of the year.
All in all it was a great game played in good spirit between two committed teams and indeed Dinger even touched the ball in the second half(once i think) although he was skinned and left for dead by Alan Burgess which was hilarious.Thanks must go to the Ballymena team and the umpires who done a fantastic job in making it a good enjoyable game.
My Man of the Match was Ben who was playing his first hockey game in two years and played outstanding as did Scott and Wilson who did not look out of place on the hockey pitch despite only finding out how to hold a stick ten minutes before.
