New-comers, Central Comets have continued their unbeaten run in the Men’s Hardcourt Hockey League after a 2-1 victory over the tough Kingscliff Stingers at Barrie Smith Hockey Field, Murwillumbah on Saturday afternoon.
The loss may have cost Kingscliff Stingers the opportunity to finally wrest the first round trophy away from Waratah Bobcats.
This trophy has never really meant much to most clubs as Waratahs have won it for the past 37 years straight, but with the Kingy boys knocking of Wararaths last week it opened the trophy up.
Playing against the Central Comets they knew they had the firepower to beat them, but a lacklustre performance saw the Comets outplay them.
Playing good hockey and controlling the midfield through young stand-out player Corey McMahon, the Comets got off to a good early start.
McMahon toyed with the Kingscliff midfield making them look like flat. Some real quality passes saw the Comets score to go to half time one-nil up . Kingscliff didn’t help their own cause with lazy back-stick tackles resulting in four green cards, (a two-minute sin bin) and four yellow cards (a five-minute sin bin and a 10-minute sin bin) leaving the team short for a total of 38 minutes. Then with the power play of seven minutes, where you must take off two players for seven minutes, it meant for 45 minutes of the game the Stingers were without a full team.
At one stage their they had seven players on to 11 Comets. To the Stingers’ credit they didn’t let the Comets score thanks to fine defence by Corey Gleeve and keeper Sam Laskowski.
The other match on Saturday in the men’s competition saw two depleted teams and first round losers, Waratah Bobcats and East Coast Sharks, do battle.
However even without star player Tim Wills, the Bobcats they still had enough to come away easy 4-1 winners. Led by the experienced midfielder Clint OKeefe, who turned back the clock to play some vintage hockey, the Burringbar team was too hard to beat.
In the Women’s 2 matches, Waratahs Falcons had a hard-fought game against the Kingscliff Sirens with the game ending locked up at 1-1.
This game seesawed with neither team taking any ground off the other due to tight defence and – at times – bad passing. Towards the end, as the game tightened up, both teams pressed up to try and score – but to avail.
The second Women’s match between Murwillumbah and Casuarina saw yet another real close game which went down to the wire.
Murwillumbah seemingly had the game in the first half. Goals to Erica Wells and Tahlia Boan took them to the break with a handy 2-0 lead. They had control of the game with Karen Iwanusha, Sam Johnston, Amy Stewart and Shari East all playing well.
However the home team seemed to wilt in the second half as Casuarina’s never-say-die attitude clicked in and they patiently nibbled away at this lead to score, score, score and come away with a hard-fought 3-2 victory.
