‘There wasn’t a lot between the sides’
Maidenhead Hockey Club: Brown still upbeat despite 2-0 loss to Chiswick
Chris Brown didn’t think there was a huge amount between the teams in Saturday’s 2-0 loss to PHC Chiswick, but an early goal allowed the home side to dictate the game and meant Maids were always chasing.
Maidenhead travelled to Chiswick confident they could get a result against one of the sides that came up with them to Premier Division 2 West last season.
But things started to unravel pretty quickly, with Chiswick grabbing an early goal and then sitting back, happy to hit Maids at pace on the counter attack.
It was a game plan that worked to perfection and Brown admitted Maids ran out of ideas as they looked to break the hosts down in the second half.
“It was a close game, especially in the first half,” he said.
“We had a lot of good pressure and circle penetration but we weren’t able to convert.
“Second half they sat a bit deeper and they nullified our threat. We didn’t create that many chances in the second half and you just sensed it wasn’t going to be our day in front of goal.
“We looked at the game and felt there was potential to pick up points, but we also knew they were a good side and couldn’t underestimate them. There wasn’t a huge amount between the two teams but they got an early goal which put them in the ascendancy and gave them the potential to dictate.
“They were then able to capitalise and get their second goal when we were pushing for an equaliser which is frustrating.”
The game might have played out very differently had Maidenhead taken a good early chance, but despite seeing plenty of the ball in attacking areas they weren’t able to carve out decent chances and fell to a first defeat of 2020.
Maidenhead remain ninth in the table and all of the sides below them lost at the weekend, but Brown isn’t concerned with what’s happening below and is still hopeful his side can bridge the gap to the mid-table teams like Chiswick.
“We try not to look at what the sides below us are doing,” he said.
“We feel that’s quite a negative outlook.
“We want to focus on what we’re doing and try to close the gap to those above us. We had an excellent opportunity to do that this weekend but unfortunately we weren’t able to do it.
“I don’t think you really want the table to split into those sub groups and smaller little mini leagues, because it’s hard to get out of those when that happens. But a couple of good results and things can close pretty quickly.”
On Saturday they’ll host third placed Staines, a side who beat them 3-2 back in October. He said: “Yeah we’ve got Staines at home next. Staines are a good side.
“We maybe paid them a little too much respect in the first match and had to work our way back into the game and we couldn’t quite get that result. If we’d had five more minutes we might have got a point from it. They’ve got some excellent goal scorers and have some quality going forward. But we feel we’ve got better as the season’s gone on and we’ll be looking to continue that growth.
“We relish trying to play any side we’ve already played because it’s a good measure to see how far we’ve come.”