Honours Even at Stratford

On Monday night, the Sils took to the pitch off the back of their impressive victory the previous week.

Without usual GK-extraordinaire, Jim Goldstraw in goal, the side were very grateful to have Steve Aylin putting the kit on.

With it being a Monday night, some of the regular Veterans players were not available, and certainly there were a number of changes from the victory the previous week.

Perhaps due to these changes, Stratford started the much brighter of the two teams, and the visitors were grateful for some very timely interventions by Man of the Match Mark Hicks, John Scott and Steve Aylin in goal to prevent the team from going behind. As the game progressed though, the Sils came back into the game, and took the lead, following a great passing mover down their left, which then found Sam Stephen in acres of space in the middle of the pitch. Using his infamous pace and acceleration, Sam burst past the home defence and slotted home neatly.

The Sils doubled their lead a little while later, when Nick Oppenheimer confused everybody by turning up on the right hand side of the pitch to win the ball back on the Stratford 23 line, and was able to feed Sam Stephen who again drove at the home defence but this time picked out the perfectly timed run of Warren Gray who placed the ball home from 5m out.

This made Stratford a little cross, and so they started throwing numbers forward, but again, excellent defence play looked like it would repel any home side attacks, but a poor clearance led to Stratford being able to create space down the left for Mark Leary to find some space, and coolly lob the ball over the on-rushing GK.

Stratford then rested on their laurels a little too much, as Tony Jamieson was able to turn the ball over in midfield minutes later and find Max Levenger in acres of space who had plenty of time to turn and casually flick the ball past the GK. Sils 3-1 up at half-time and seemingly in control.

The team-talk from Captain Gary Perkins must have been inspirational, as the Sils came out in the second half clearly still mulling over the words that Gary had used (perhaps trying to understand some of them!) - as within 3 minutes of the restart, Stratford had pulled one goal back, capitalising on a messy piece of defensive work to score easily, and then equalise only a few minutes after that.

With the game now finely balanced at 3-3, the visitors finally woke up and started playing some good hockey again, creating a number of chances, with John Rice and Nick Oppenheimer both knowing that they probably should have done better with the chances they had.

The Sils defence stayed resolute though, and the game ended as a draw. Good work by all who played, particularly Rick Higson who we shall be sad to say goodbye to for a couple of years as he heads to Newfoundland for work - though he did say he will be back for a few days every 4 weeks, so we will hopefully see him again soon!