Maids wrestle back momentum from Richmond
Maidenhead Men’s 1sts managed to wrestle back momentum in the second half of Saturday’s 2-1 win over Richmond 2nds, and it’s given skipper Chris Brown some genuine hope they can finally put their faltering league form behind them.
Maids have been struggling down at the bottom of the MBBO Premier Division 2 West for much of the season, and signed off for the fourweek Christmas break with a disappointing 5-2 home defeat to Southgate at Altwood School.
They’ve shown they’re more than capable of competing at this level, but on too many occasions before Christmas they lost out in the tight encounters.
Saturday’s game was another one which went down to the wire but, fortunately on this occasion, they came out on top thanks to welltaken strikes in the second half from Matt Keylock.
Sam Sly thumped the visitors ahead in the first half from a short corner before Maids turned the game around after the break.
Brown said: “We started the game really well and forced a penalty corner, which was the start we were after. But we let them in the game a bit after that. We tired and stopped playing our simple hockey.
“They had one corner in the first half, and managed to take their opportunity. It was a great finish. But that’s just the nature of the league to be honest, if you give someone a chance they might take it.
“We tried to counter with a bit more pace in the second half and we had the right person, with the right composure (in Keylock) to finish off those chances.
“There have been times this season when we’ve had the momentum but not taken our chances. Against Richmond in the first game of the season we had loads of chances and should have taken them, and they then came back in the second half. We kept at it today though and that might be the difference for us in the second half of the season.”