Must-win mission

Canterbury Hockey

Player- coach Craig Boyne says there is no hiding from the fact that Canterbury’s weekend home game with Sevenoaks falls into the must win category.

Saturday evening’s 6-1 defeat at East Grinstead left Canterbury rooted to the foot of the Men’s Premier Division and without a point from their opening five matches.

Sevenoaks are two places and three points above Canterbury after beating Brooklands MU 3-1 last weekend and Boyne admits victory for his side at Polo Farm on Saturday (5.30pm) is vital.

He said: “There’s no shying away from the fact that the Sevenoaks game is massive for us.

“We need a result especially after they beat Brooklands last weekend.

“We know the other teams at the bottom will take points off each other and it’s important we do the same.

“Sevenoaks are quite an experienced side who have stayed together for a couple of years. They have a drag flicker who will be dangerous at penalty corners and like to get everyone behind the ball, but I’m confident that if we play to our potential we’ll win.”

A hat-trick of penalty corners from Simon Faulkner was at the heart of Grinstead’s win on Saturday but Boyne felt the scoreline was harsh on his newlook side.

He said: “Primarily the scoreline was flattering to them, we did not keep the goals out very well but throughout the match we were in the contest, putting pressure on them.

“I don’t like blaming anything other than ourselves for what we do but we were on the rough end of a couple of decisions, one of which was when the umpires upgraded a penalty corner to a stroke when you could see from the video that it was the wrong decision.”

Canterbury started the game positively until East Grinstead won a penalty corner, that Faulkner duly slotted home in the fourth minute.

Canterbury nevertheless fought back, maintaining their share of the ball and creating some promising chances.

However, against the run of play Grinstead won their second penalty corner which Faulkner again converted and, on the stroke of halftime, Kieran Mullholland heavily pressurised Canterbury’s midfield and was rewarded by winning the ball on the top of their circle before slotting home.

Faulkner’s third corner just after the break extended the lead before Canterbury snatched a goal on the counter attack, with Boyne finishing the ball neatly past Great Britain keeper Patrick Smith.

A dubious penalty stroke which Chris Griffiths flicked high to Canterbury keeper Nathan Redmond’s right made it 5-1 before, in the last minute, Rob Cope finished off a flowing move to complete the scoring.