Those familiar with Game of Thrones will have a vague understanding of the trepidation that faced Holcombe this past weekend as both Men’s and Women’s squads were subjected to their longest away league journeys of the season.

For the men, making the journey from Rochester to Manchester on a Friday was obviously not ideal preparation for a tough double header but as with any sporting context, it doesn’t matter what’s going on around, as long as you perform when you cross the white line.

The women suffered another week of sporadic attendance as a result of the senior trials currently going on at Bisham Abbey. After such a good victory at home last weekend, it was vitally important to put to bed a side that has been struggling so far this campaign – a tough task when you are a long way from home and your opposition are fighting for every point.

A tough task it proved to be as the girls succumbed to a late sucker punch of a goal to tie 3-3 after finding themselves 2 goals up at half-time.

Having been unable to watch the game myself, I’ve had to rely on feedback from the girls with regards to the reasons why the result happened. If the league went to form then that should have been a reasonably routine 3 points for the girls.

As with anything in sport, there’s rarely a ‘routine’ situation and so that proved to be the case up in Manchester. Everything always seems to be at its’ worst straight after a result like that and the fact the girls have slipped to third and lost ground on leaders Surbiton is hard to take.

One of the best coaches I’ve ever had always used to say that life’s never as good as it seems and it’s never as bad as it seems; it’s always lived in that grey area in the middle.

Somehow that seems perfectly applicable here. The girls are only a point off second place with a winnable game at home to a fluctuating University of Birmingham side next weekend. A big three points sets up a showdown at Surbiton for the final game before the break and things might just be looking a little rosier in a fortnight’s time…

For us, a return to the scene of ‘BullyGate’ carried its’ own implications.

To apply some context; in this fixture last year, we were 2-1 up when an incident happened just outside the Brooklands circle that lead to a restart via a ‘bully’. With Brooklands assuming Sam Ward would allow them to smash the ball away, he assured them he would do no such thing, winning the ‘bully’ and subsequently a corner. We converted the corner to go 3-1 up and closed out the game from there.

Needless to say words were exchanged and emotions were somewhat flared.

Wardy never apologised, and nor should he. But there was a definite extra level to the game from that point onwards.

The crowd at Brooklands are literally pitch-side. They are one of the only National League venues where the crowd is inside the fence, literally separated by a rope and a cone. All of it adds up to a unique atmosphere.

What I love about Brooklands and the North in general is that if someone doesn’t approve of you or your play, they, in no uncertain terms, inform you. It’s what they did a year ago and it’s what they did on Saturday.

The game itself was fiery from the off. There were some ridiculous challenges that set the tone of how the game was going to be played.

If you were to outline the best way to deal with an environment like that away from home, not conceding a penalty corner and dropping 6 on them at the other end would probably be up there with the best of them.

Fortunately, that’s what we did.

We didn’t get involved, we didn’t rise to it. We just handled our business, scored 6 goals, and left.

With the weekend only half done, recovery and travel was next on the agenda. We ate a lot of food and made our way south to Nottingham.

The game was unfortunate as it’s always a lottery on penalty strokes. The changes and rotations for positions allowed us valuable time in areas of the pitch in which we needed it.

As outlined from the start of the season, the most important thing about the cup was to get us some invaluable time together as a squad. We will be split for much of the second half of the season with IPL commitments in particular and so a weekend away together was well worth entering the competition for and proved a good exercise for our experimentation.

The result itself is unfortunate but we’re by no means hung up on it.

Repeating the fixture for points next weekend is a totally different ball game altogether and ultimately what we’re focused on.

The first judgement will come in a fortnight when we close for the Christmas break and it’s up to us to ensure that the points keep coming.

 

@BandurakWriting on Twitter or via www.nickbandurakblog.wordpress.com