Hockey’s fun, man. Sport’s got a way of playing with you in the space of minutes.

Last weekend I was playing against some of the best players in the world, minutes away from potentially knocking out the reigning European Champions and making it to the KO16 of the EHL.

Bang. Goal. Go home.

Sports’ way of telling you “not just yet.” Go home. Be better. Come at me again when you’re ready.

You have to love the way it plays with you or there’s just no point getting involved in the first place.

On Saturday I went from coaching a game with the mighty Holcombe 3’s which, although ending in a 2-1 win, cut a few years off my life in stress, to watching a team I have very close ties with endure a massively frustrating 1-0 loss at home to end an unbeaten run at the start of the season. I then went and scored in a victory over the unbeaten league leaders.

What’s not to love?!

In many ways, this week was one that contained the first real challenges for Holcombe.

The women, after another week of training disrupted by International commitments, finished training on Wednesday night to the news that Emma Trunks was out for the foreseeable future after a comprehensively displaced fracture to a finger on her left hand.

Obvious bias aside, Emma’s a pivotal player in that side and that extends beyond her playing ability. Losing a leader in any context is bad for a team and with Emma captaining in pre-season as well as in the season-opener where she grabbed the overtime equalizer; that constitutes pretty bad.

Naturally there was some reshuffling in the ranks and the girls had to be even tighter as a group to withstand the pressure that accompanies playing a player down.

The challenge that came with taking on an East Grinstead side high on confidence and with some demons of their own to put to bed after the final game of last season, ultimately proved too much on the day – but it all came down to fine margins.

The girls have been fairly prolific in front of goal this season; their defence has been very strong but hasn’t been massively threatened by a lack of goals at the other end. There would always be a game where things didn’t quite ‘click’ – it just unfortunately came in a game where we failed to convert any chances at all.

Even playing off 15, the girls were in with a chance of points until the final whistle and the overwhelming consensus coming out of the camp that this can actually serve as a good thing for the group.

East Grinstead’s start and form so far this season has put them in a great position to be in the mix when all is said and done in March. As such, a loss to them at this time of the season isn’t going to decide whether we do or don’t make the post-season.

After such a good start, Steph’s quote in the match report really hits the nail on the head; it’s important to learn how to lose together as a team.

Adversity always brings a group closer together and the ability to bounce back at the home of local rivals and perennial title challengers Canterbury next weekend is both the perfect timing and the perfect venue in which to show that.

Going there and making a statement is all that’s on the agenda for this week.

For the men, I was far too lenient in last week’s blog; getting to experience “something special” and the weekend being “one to remember” is all well and good but we’re a group of serious competitive athletes. We went toe-to-toe with the best club side in the world and lost to a freak goal 5 minutes from time. We came so close.

In truth, no matter how great the experience was, it doesn’t count for anything more than ‘experience’ now because we didn’t close.

1 week on and we’re back at it – a different competition, a different opposition and a different focus.

Having missed out on the opportunity to advance towards the ultimate prize, we had to dust ourselves off as quickly as possible before re-focusing on getting ourselves back into Europe next year to and complete the job that we now understand how to do.

This week saw us take the Tuesday night off after such an emotional and physically draining weekend in Europe. Tuesday also saw the arrival of new signing James Day. Due to his commitments in the AHL (Australian Hockey League), James couldn’t make it over in time for the EHL Round 1 but got his first session under the belt on Thursday.

Having survived a tough session, an unwelcome introduction to our fitness coach Andy Bray and a customary beat-down on NBA 2K from yours truly, it looks as though he’s going to settle straight in; just so long as he gets to grips with Foxy’s sarcasm and Cheema’s dialect.

Unfortunate visa issues (that resulted in Jonty Robinson heading off on a week-long return to South Africa yesterday to rectify the situation) meant we played off 15 again on Saturday but it made little difference to our performance.

To come back from the disappointment of a week ago and re-focus in the manner that we did was pleasing.

Hampstead were a great outfit and a great group of guys as well. As a result, the game was hockey of the highest quality and a genuinely enjoyable game to be a part of.

We still have areas to improve on; we’re working hard on our corners and we turned the ball over far too many times. Thankfully, our deep defence was as strong as ever and we pulled through a tough encounter but we need to tighten up if we want to continually hold ourselves accountable to the higher standards we experienced at Banbridge.

We’re going into a tough physical period now. We had a hard session last Thursday and are preparing ourselves for two very tough sessions this week ahead of what should be a great clash on Saturday night.

It’s always great to play double headers with the women’s 1’s and no better place to do that away from Holcombe Park than at rivals Canterbury….

 

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

Pictures supplied by www.groutphotography.co.uk