Crawley 1’s – 11/11/2023 – All the 1’s today, and there was only one goal in it too, the portents were all there!

A gorgeous morning for hockey, which was very much appreciated despite it feeling like a super long time since these particular group of gorgeous green goddesses had played together; I know I had to remember which way to hold the stick…

We welcomed another new player to the group, Milly Reeves, whose inaugural appearance was beautifully taken in her stride. Despite this being her first game in this squad, at this league level, she dealt with being directed by the sweepers with great aplomb. With more time there is a lot of potential for Milly in this team, some lovely positioning and running being demonstrated. In defence, there was also sterling work done by Mia Childs, dramatically out of position but absolutely getting the job done – well done M, really enjoyed having you at the back.

On the Left Back, Lucy Nuttall demonstrated why she is a fringe 2’s player, as always super solid in defending the Lewes 25, and showing some lovely poise and composure in supporting the attacking moves. If anything, needs to be a little more vocal to receive more ball when she is those perfect supporting spaces. Lucy also did some lovely switching of the ball, and link-work with Lou Williams on the other side of the pitch – this is definitely something to be majoring more on as it worked brilliantly 9 times out of 10. Hope Lou’s knuckle not too painful as she received an absolute belter of hit out on it – take care m’lovely. The opposition were closing down the Lewes options at our hit-outs very quickly and leaving little available channels, which was to their credit, but means that more work is needing to be done by the lovelies in green on making the space/offering opportunities for our offensive manoeuvres.

Freya Colvin was indomitable in goal, again, narrowly missing out on today’s Players’ Player. Again. We might just have to give her the unicorn headband and Trevor the Trophy for keeps if she wins it again. Whilst the scoreline showed Lewes in the deficit – Freya was very much in the black, so many brilliant saves and both the goals that were conceded were very fine takes from penalty corners, that had clearly been practised hard, and were both drilled hard on the day!

The defence were very much the story of the first half, with a lot of penalty corners saved, and some brilliant channelling work being done by the midfield in assistance of the defensive line. There is more work to be done on the clearance of those lines moving forward – some depth and movement required up front to move the opposition players around and utilise the full width of the pitch. Having said that the work across the middle that was the lay up for the Lewes goal was a thing of beauty – Naomi Blackwell proving why she got today’s Players’ Player – with a stunning receipt from Jan ‘Goldie’ Goldsmith and glorious lay-up for Helen ‘Gubbs’ Fuller to nail a fabulous goal.

It was very much a game of two halves however, with some interesting tactical changes, for Lewes, at half-time saw the game open up, allowing Lewes more space to move the ball. These changes to the forward line in the second half saw some lovely moves up the pitch that generated more shooting opportunities, due to the more expansive play, which is absolutely the way forward over the forthcoming season. Unfortunately, yours truly, having not played in that line for some 20 years failed to post up to some lovely passes, but attempted to run into the space where the midfield were playing some great balls - Goldie in particular was finding the spaces gloriously. All the forwards grew into the game and created further goal scoring opportunities. Although this is an area that all the forwards can definitely work on as there will be undoubted success from scavenging in that area.

All the forwards worked super hard, when we had the ball – with Mollie Barrett also receiving a number of votes for Players’ Player, doing some brilliant work through the centre of the pitch and foiled a handful of times at the very last minute by some good defensive work from the opposition. Maddie Hutchison showing some of her silky skills, and Sophia Roberts also plying her forward trade well. The final touch, preferably a goal, of these attacking efforts would be the just rewards for the hard work done across the pitch.

Pre-scanning before receiving the ball, and remembering that there is always someone who has your back good things for us all to practise, but the specific request before the game was for people to not worry about making mistakes – something we all do, no matter how experienced/fit/brilliant – was taken on board, and I thank each and every member of the squad for their commitment to the cause today. Hockey is a team sport and we worked brilliantly as a squad today – seriously good effort, shame about the result but we can all hold our heads high. This was all largely possibly due to some excellent management of the squad by Caroline ‘Thomas’ Petty who navigated the good ship Lewes through some slightly dicey waters – Thank you for all your help today, I know I very much appreciated the insights and direction.

Onwards and upwards to next week – home game against Burgess Hill on the 18th of November.

Players’ Player – Naomi Blackwell

Goal scorer extraordinaire – Gubbins

Bench Controller - Thomas