Good day out for Watsonians in France

Back to back wins over Lambertsart and Doruk on the opening day of the EuroHockey Indoor Club Trophy have propelled Watsonians to the top of their pool. In the final pool match they take on Irish side Railway Union and are strong favourites to make the promotion pool.

Railway Union looked to have lost both games, but after going down 7-5 to Turkish side Doruk were subsequently awarded the tie 5-0 as apparently the Turks played ineligible players – so the Irish are back in the promotion frame.

 

WATSONIANS  4   IRIS HOCKEY LAMBERTSART (FRANCE)  3

It is so important to win your first game in a four team pool competition and Watsonians did just that 4-3 and share top spot with Turkish champions Doruk who have a slight goal difference advantage after beating Railway Union from Ireland 7-5

Nerves in front of the home crowd in the opening match…not much sign of that as Watsonians stormed into a two goal lead inside three minutes.   Katie Stott was the first on target to be followed by Emily Dark at a penalty corner.    Then three after five minutes with Emily Berndes-Cade scored from open play.   The only blight was that Lambertsart`s Sharon Seaton pulled one back for 3-1 at the end of the first quarter.

Emily Dark made it 4-1 from the spot for Watsonians but the French had clearly come back into the contest with five penalty corners which keeper Iona Colquhoun and her colleagues successfully defended.   But just on the interval Lambertsart did get a second through Eve Verszura, yet the Scots still retained a reasonable lead.

There were no goals in the third quarter but Watsonians were under a bit of pressure in the final ten minutes.  In the 35th minute Ailsa Small had a short visit to the sin bin and the French had a penalty corner opportunity and then a great chance from the spot, but fortunately missed both.  Then two minutes later they brought the score back to 4-3 through Eve Verzura again.   Watsonians were able to hold out in the final few minutes and indeed had a couple of penalty corner chances to add to their tally, but in the end 4-3 was enough for the five points.

 

WATSONIANS  7  GAZIANTEP DORUK SK (TURKEY)  2

Once again Watsonians hit the opposition with an early blow before they had really got into the contest.   Inside two minutes Emily Dark, Katie Stott and Tabitha Peck had rattled in three goals to set the trend for the rest of the game.

Then in the second quarter the Edinburgh side did it again, just before the interval Ailsa Small and Emily Dark again at a penalty corner fired in two more goals for a convincing five goal lead at the interval – and game over you might think.

Even more game over in the third quarter when Katie Stott added a sixth.

Doruk finally got on the score sheet in the final quarter through Emine Celik at a penalty corner, but to no avail, with three minutes left Emily Berndes-Cade visited the sin bin and within seconds Katie Crawford had added a seventh for the Scottish champions.   Celik did get her second of the game in the final minute, but much too little too late.

 

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