What a week. For both first teams, this week saw big strides forward not just in the context of the season but in our continued progression as a club.
For Holcombe Women, they went into Game 4 of the Investec National Premier League on Saturday night sitting in second place by a single goal. With Slough struggling in their opening 3 fixtures, we were expected to win at home. No-one can really say otherwise.
Often that expectation to win can prove more threatening to you than the opponent themselves and it could be argued that contributed somewhat to our slow start in the game.
The discipline and strength of the group to dominate in the way they did after that can’t be overstated.
This isn’t just a strong start to the season or good form now; these results are just how good the girls are. The expectations have changed as the quality has changed; for the better.
Training hasn’t been ideal the past couple of weeks with GB Development sessions and Senior GB Trials decimating the training group. Ultimately, that remains such a positive progression for the players as individuals but naturally impacting negatively on the team spending valuable time together in the week.
For the results to keep on coming therefore is even more remarkable.
The goals are flowing and the discipline is there in defence. Gregg Popovich of San Antonio Spurs and NBA Legend fame was one of the first to coin the phrase;
“Offence wins games. Defence wins Championships.”
Last year the men won a title on this premise. This year, the ladies are well on the way towards positioning themselves in the exact same place.
They sit clear at the top of the Premier League and go into next weekend’s home tie with East Grinstead with real confidence.
With their first outing in the National Indoor Premier League to look forward to over the Christmas break as well, this is already shaping up to be a very exciting year…
For the men, we got to experience something special this past weekend; Holcombe’s first ever outing in Europe’s top tier of competition was one to remember.
There was a tangible excitement around the group this past week. Even the 8am flight from Gatwick the morning of our first game couldn’t take away from the energy of the squad.
We went straight from the airport to Cookstown HC who had volunteered to host us for the weekend. We had the chance to get on the balls and get some of the journey out of our legs before heading back to the hotel for some food and a quick half-hour power nap.
Friday night’s match against Poznan was everything we’d hoped for to start off the campaign.
We played some great hockey at times and scoring 8 against anyone in Europe is a strong effort. The confidence we took from that on Friday evening was remarkable.
Saturday’s game on the other hand, was just a different level.
We knew the excitement and the hype around the clash well in advance of setting off to Belfast on Friday. It had been billed as ‘the game of the weekend’ and from a quality of hockey perspective; it didn’t disappoint.
Kampong proved themselves to be the best side in Europe last year for a reason and to challenge ourselves against them was a learning curve for the whole group.
They were a very physical group and they tried to disrupt us at every opportunity. It was a clear game plan that made life difficult for us to progress the ball up the pitch with any fluidity but it was effective and is undoubtedly a facet of the game that we can improve on having experienced it from the other side.
To be so disappointed at a sucker-punch-late-goal that won them the game is testament to how far we’ve come as a squad in a relatively short space of time. We now have the standard and the benchmark to hold ourselves to but most importantly, we’ve had a taste of that level and what we can really do on the continent and we want that again.
We want that again badly.
The crowd and atmosphere was amazing and credit has to be given to Banbridge HC as the whole event was managed so well on their part.
We can’t take anything away from how hard the group played over the weekend. All 18 guys played their part in what was a tough but rewarding weekend mentally and physically.
We can’t help but feel that if we were in any other group we would have had a great chance at progressing through but ultimately, you have to beat the best to win any competition.
We just happened to be the first to give that a go this season.
The support over the weekend from home and out at Banbridge was humbling. The messages to the group over social media and directly meant a great deal to all the players and we’re still gutted we couldn’t quite close after putting ourselves in such a great position.
As ever though, we can’t sit around feeling sorry for ourselves and it really is ‘on to the next one’.
The rest of this season is about getting us back to that position and that begins this Saturday against league leaders Hampstead. Thankfully we get to come home to Holcombe Park against a side that has made some waves in the early part of the season and sit unbeaten.
We’ve let go of the past weekend but cling to the important lessons.
“Always forward. Forward Always.”
Highlights of all of the games from EHL Round 1 are available from the EHL website;