YOUNG, GIFTED and DANGEROUS


Wellington College Under 15A Hockey team are the school 3rd XI but effectively the 1st XI for players under 15. We play in P3 of the Wellington Secondary Schools Competition. Wellington College currently has eight teams and is the only school in Wellington to have qualified three teams in the premier competition. This means that our team play four college 1st XIs and three college 2nd XIs.

We choose to play as an under 15 side in the open grade to challenge and improve our best emerging players. We aim to play a fast, attractive style of hockey where we pass the ball rapidly and accurately.

We aim to improve over the year, give our best every game, have fun and win. We can't guarantee the fourth of those things but if you come to watch us this season we hope you will definitely see us doing the first two and that you too will do the third.

Thursday 13 May 2010

Good team performance


We approached the game against Wellington High School knowing that they had beaten us last season but wanting to record our first win in the league. We knew that we would miss Nick (who has apparently swapped his appendix for an X Box - don't anyone else get that idea please!) but were confident that Shak could step into centre midfield. We started the game with good shape and tempo and began to exert some control. Riley made some great runs forward and Jack tackled and passed very well on the left. We got into their circle many times but struggled to make clear cut chances. We needed to get the ball down our right more. We also gave their forwards too much space and Tom had to save us on a couple of occasions when they hit us on the break.


The forwards started to link better with the midfield and Jamie had some good runs in the centre with Ethan, Jacob and Riley providing better width. This resulted in Ethan scoring a well worked goal following good work from Finn and Jamie. Our first penalty corner was well saved but at the second Bunsi followed up and slammed a great shot into the corner to send us in 2-0 up at half time.


In the second half they played deeper and Raj, Jayson and Rupert were alert to keeping their wings under control. Shak and Ed got some good passing going and we began to make more and more chances. Jacob, Riley, Finn, Jamie, Ed and Ethan all came close and they resorted to increasingly negative tactics. Jamie scored our third after a strong run through the inside right channel and Ethan hit a great shot from the left in second phase from a PC. We lost a bit of width in the last ten minutes and began to look a little tired. This is going to be a tight league and we can do very well in it but a lot is going to come down to those last ten minutes. We also need to anticipate more and ball watch less.

It was a great team performance, I particularly liked the way that Bunsi, Finn and Shak worked together in the middle and Ed, Jack and Jamie were all noticably up a notch from the previous week. Tom and the defence cleared the danger well and we had some fantastic passing movements going forward. I also liked seeing some better "leading" after Monday traning. Players of the day were Jamie and Jack.

Result: Wellington College U15A 4 Wellington High School 1stXI 0
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