Youngsters making debuts the silver lining in a weekend of defeats for Louth Hockey Club

It ws a weekend of defeats for Louth Hockey Club's senior teams, but the silver lining was some first team debuts by younger club members.

The ladies first lost 3-2 to Alford firsts, whilst the men's first lost 4-1 to Sheffield University Bankers - both teams were at home.

Meanwhile, the ladies' seconds narrowly lost 1-0 to top-of-the-league Goole.

Goole haven't lost all season, but the Louth ladies matched them all the way.

After initially conceding a few short corners, the team settled down and started moving the ball around nicely.

With some change of positions from last week, Veronica Chamberlin back in her usual position and Annie Ordish with a new stick, the game flowed from end to end.

With a strong defence and some great first half saves from Joski McGarell, the ball stayed out of the goal.

The first half saw the right side of the pitch having most of the play with Julie Martin, Sarah Mallabar, Tabitha Haynes, and Izzy Middleton trying to thread the ball through to Grace Withworth and Olivia Middleton, who were playing up front.

With the wind behind them in the second half and some discussion at half time, Louth switched the ball more to left, with some neat passing from Catherine Fussey, Daisy Jones and Daisy Price, there were more opportunities to score.

However, Goole were always dangerous when attacking and with some slick moves scored their only goal.

The game was played in a friendly spirit and with a final score of 1-0 Louth came away with their heads held high after what was an excellent team performance.

Player of the match was Daisy Jones.

Louth men's firsts were playing Sheffield University Bankers, who started strongly, pressing hard and closing down options.

The pressure showed and Louth conceded an early goal from open play.

A second goal from Bankers followed shortly after, again from open play.

Louth then started to get some ball time and string some passes together.

Hard running work from Ross Armstrong in the midfield helped link play together and good wing work from Max Greenfield kept Louth in the game but they couldn’t convert good play into goals.

Amongst the good play from Louth there was also some scrappy play which allowed Bankers to win a penalty corner, which they duly converted, taking the score to 3-0 at half time.

Some changes to positions and the newly-inspired Louth started strongly.

Fine defensive work from Ryan Ward, Sam Jones, Billy Walker and Stu Trotter kept Bankers at bay and allowed Louth to start to build their own pressure.

It was at this point that men’s first team debuts were made by youngsters Connor Buckley and Douglas Boston.

Given the task of showing youthful energy to run the Bankers defence ragged they embraced the opportunity and dutifully created spaces, putting pressure on Bankers.

The space created by Buckley allowed Ward to set sail an aerial over the top of the midfield to the running Greenfield.

A one on one with the keeper was easily negotiated and the ball slipped into the goal.

The game continued with Louth having more ball time and pressure, but they couldn’t convert that into more goals.

Bankers managed to snatch a 4th from a well worked penalty corner and as the final whistle blew the score stood at 4-1.

It was a tough game in very windy conditions but played in good spirit.

A special mention should go to Connor and Doug for making their first team debuts.

On Saturday the team travel the table-topping Chapeltown.