Sydney’s wild, wet, windy and wet weather blasted almost everything off the city’s hockey pitches last weekend.
As Rory Staples’ picture shows, Sutho U13A Gecko’s goalie, Zara, at least got to compare water sliding techniques with her Uni counterpart after their super-wet game at Daceyville on Saturday.
Rory and Gethin Perry got some terrific pictures of one of the few bits of hockey action in conditions that ranged between torrentially wet and just very wet at the Geckos’ game, which they won 4-1.
And as their pictures, as usual, kids don’t mind the wet as long they’re having a good time. More pictures and Gethin’s match report follow Brookie’s Over 60s State champs story.
Sutho/Sydney South NSW 060 champs
Sutho’s playing elder statesmen had a fine (and wet) last weekend, being most of the Sydney South team that took out the Men’s NSW Over 60s title at Wyong over the weekend.
The shine included the very small amount of sunshine and the fact that every member of the team who had nominated for State was picked.
With all the details, over to our Championships reporter, Brookie:
“From the Championships there were 3 teams named for the Australian Titles on the Gold Coast in October. The NSW number 1 team includes Sutho’s Dave Allen, Trevor Nicol and Mark Brookfield, Team 2 has Ashley Wainwright, and Team 3 has Ron Lane and Michael Briggs.
“It was a seven-team competition in one pool. As always the first game in these championships is critical to get off to a good start. We were up against the old enemy Sydney and managed a solid 2-0 win to get us started, even at the ungodly hour of 8 am.
“Our 2nd game was against Newcastle who are also very strong but we managed to get a 3-0 win over them to set us up well at the end of Day 1.
“Day 2 started with Illawarra – led by Peter Huk – who most considered favourites for the title, but we came away with a hard-fought 0-0 draw. This ended up being crucial.
“Our last round game was against Macarthur who we completely dominated. We did rest those carrying niggling injuries and we won 3-0. This left us on top of the ladder with 8 points and a goal difference of plus 8.
“Illawarra played Sydney in the last pool game and managed to beat them 4-1, which, fortunately for us, was not enough to get past our goal difference – putting us on top of the pool table by goal difference.
“We were all set to play Sydney in the first semi – but that was until the heavens opened up and had the final day cancelled so we were duly crowned title holders.
“There were many highlights from the weekend with Gus scoring a lovely far post deflection to crown his “600” week. We also had team coach and serial texter Greg Kay ruled out at the 11th hour with Covid and it was also great to see Penney Russel back in town and looking after her boys after 10 years away in the Wild West.”
Sutho U13A Geckos 4 UNSW 1
It was a close match during the first and second quarters where there was some awesome attack and defence. With everyone being supportive of each other as well as talking, we remained nil-all at halftime.
As we moved on to the third quarter we scored our first goal about three minutes in. This gave the whole team motivation and this was quickly followed by a second.
UNSW came back with a goal of their own at the end of the third but we shut them down with two more goals in the fourth quarter. This took the final score to 4-1.
Through the whole four quarters, it was clear that our training is working. The passing to each other, with always two players to help, was great to see.
Almost all of this whole game was played in torrential rain and the field flooded halfway through the third quarter but the team played really well despite the conditions.
We are currently sitting equal first on the leader board but I have no doubt that if we keep playing and training as we are we will be outright first. Well done team.
Best and fairest points – 3 Rowan, 2 Zara, 1 Jack W. Goals – 2 Jack G, 2 Rowan.