Arran Ladies lesson in tactical team play
Arran Ladies 6 Stathclyde University 2s 0
What started out as a wet and windy day last Saturday became an outstanding 6-0 win for the Arran Ladies hockey club at home against the young ladies from Strathclyde University, writes Pauline Reid.
With only 10 players available for the match, the team strategy was left to leftwing player Lorraine Hewie to come up with a plan to get the best out of the depleted team. And come up with a plan she did!
Keeping goalkeeper Ali Hollingworth fully padded and in goals was the first decision she made, rather than allowing her to play as a kicking back field player. Lorraine then lined the defence with four players along the 23m line with clear instructions that two players must remain in defence at all time and they should employ zone marking and the ‘steering wheel’ manoeuvre, moving from side to side to cover each other when challenged by the opposition.
With Freya McNicol, aged 12, as left back, Mia Walker, aged 13, as right back and Elyse Aitken, aged 14, as centre left, it was left to Pauline Reid, (who in her own words, was older than the lot of them put together), as centre right to relay the positioning calls and advice from Ali in goals as well as reading the game herself.
As ex-goalkeeper and current umpire for the team she is very familiar with watching what was happening and what needed to be done. The young defence did a spectacular job of repelling almost every attack that came towards them, moving into blocking positions ahead of the running Strathclyde forwards knowing their teammates had moved into support positions behind them.
Up front the team had Judith Ross as right wing, Juliette Walsh as centre right, Abbie Mckelvie as centre left and Lorraine Hewie as left wing, with match captain Anne Watts playing the prominent attacking forward. This formidable line was hard to stop especially when Judith Ross ran the ball up the right wing at such a speed that the Strathclyde defence just could not keep up. As well as scoring her own goal in the second half, this enabled Judith to set up many a shot on goal. Had the Strathclyde goalkeeper not been as good as she was, Anne Watts would have added more than just one goal to her annual tally after the half time whistle. Juliette Walsh, who scored the second goal in the first half, was a constant source of frustration to the Strathclyde forwards, as she had
a fantastic second half, blocking many a pass between their players in midfield and feeding the ball back up the pitch to the Arran forwards.
Lorraine Hewie, who scored the opening goal for Arran in the first half, was also able to out run the Strathclyde defenders with her controlled sweeps down the left wing, constantly turning and twisting to evade the back line defence before putting her second goal in the back of the net.
However the goal of the game came from young Abbie Mckelvie who showed such calm, controlled play in mid-field throughout the match. When the opportunity presented itself to Abbie, she positioned herself at the top of the attack- ing ‘D’ and stuck the ball which such accuracy that it lifted from the end of her stick and shot over the goalkeepers pad and into to the top corner of the net, giving Arran their first goal in the second half.
The Arran Ladies then had pleasure in hosting the Strathclyde team to an excellent after match tea in the Ormidale Hotel, who have sponsored and supported them throughout this year. Such was the enjoyable after match atmosphere that neither team were in a hurry to head off from each other, happy to sit and chat, discussing many of the matches they had played in. It was pointed out that every time Arran and Strathclyde had played together the sun had come out for the game, as it did today much to the delight of the players and the supporters on the sidelines.
Abbie Mckelvie was awarded man of the match by the Strathclyde Uni team for her excellent play on the pitch and the Arran Ladies voted young Mia Walker as the team’s dame of the game.