7th Mar 2020 Mens 4th v Bingley Bees 1(Away) 3 - 4 loss

With the team elders on a Saga weekend trip to Stourport we had an opportunity to pick an all-stars selection from the usual suspects, and as Ronan was busy, Sean helped out too.
With Bingley snapping at Rhydding's heels in the table the game reflected this as Bingley used their physical advantage to snap at Rhydding sticks and legs and dominated the first twenty minutes scoring a couple of well-taken but simple goals to no reply.
At this point Kaiser Soze bothered to turn up and with his impact Rhydding tipped the balance back and the temperature of the game rose as both sets of players clattered into and claimed tackles all over the pitch. With Sam and Simon making their debut in the Mighty Fourths this could have been intimidating, to their credit they used their hockey skills and resilience and continued to take the game to Bingley even when their defenders were exhorting each other to "...just *** take him out..." - good skills win lads and we're proud of yours! Jack Worthington stepped into top of the diamond and spent most of the game getting clattered, thanks Jack and I'll tell your dad you need a new stick after the oppo targetted it all game today . . .
With the Bingley D seeming a long way away we relied of short corners to claw our way back into the game using all of our variations (Will creaming it, Will creaming a deflection off a defender and WIll taking it on his reverse and creaming it) to keep the pressure on all through the game.
The Mawson/Massey combination showed the way forward for the fourths as both stepped in and intercepted throughout the game; Sean's divided loyalty in playing against his old club manifested itself in the second half when he couldn't take any more and threw himself to the floor claiming an ankle injury which seemed to heal before he'd been walked off the pitch. Bingley were very polite and didn't mention this after the game (* not true).
Ewan's Driver marshalled the defence with Petur providing the legs to cover the areas that the experienced defenders behind knew they could leave open. Petur covered so much ground that a tired tackle later on almost brought a card, but Rhydding stayed on the right side of the umpires as they carded two Bingley players for breaking down play - the pressure was building.
Pratty had plenty of shots to save, kicking them away with the nonchalance of his pre-game warm-up but a tricky forward dribbled one round to score and almost a second until Sam got all the way back to intercept the shot.
Bingley just had too much physicality and took a 4-3 win, leaving both teams on 41 points.
The key to next week is Will working on his shooting . . . .
MOTM is simple - in a high-temperature game a cool head was invaluable and whilst Westy was being lectured by the umpires at half-time Greg gave the team talk needed and that led to a cracking second half of hockey by Rhydding. Greg Roberts MOTM
DOTD is usually simple but this week was heavily fought over. Massey for a bizarre self-inflicted injury, not to mention his attempt to blame Westy for encouraging him to take up yoga which has made his ankle too mobile - which was stretching a (j)point just too far, edging out Kaiser Soze for turning up late and not scoring despite being on an incentive plan, Pratty for being saved by a child, Will for hat-trick avoidance by deflecting a shot off a defenders stick for the second week in a row and Ewan's Driver who inexplicably failed to bring Ewan again - at least David Cameron only left his kid behind once . . .