A new Premiership campaign – and new challenges

The new Premiership campaign gets underway on Saturday with a slightly new format. As per last season all the twelve sides play each other once, then split into a top and bottom six for the next stage. But this year the new pools of six play each other only once before final play-offs.

The old adage remarked that it is one thing winning the title, it is quite another retaining it.

To test the water here, we caught up with Premiership winning coaches Keith Smith (Watsonians women) and Vishal Marwaha (Western Wildcats men) to see how they felt about that prospect for the coming season.

Keith took the following view on the matter, “Obviously defending a title comes with an element of expectation – from inside and outside the team – but that’s not much different to what we faced for much of the second half of last season. Once we’d put ourselves in a position to potentially win the league, the challenge was to see it out to its conclusion. The only thing that’s arguably different in that respect is that we now start the season with that mentality, rather than moving into it over time.”

So we asked Keith if there would be any changes of direction for the coming season. He responded, “We’ve spent the summer trying to learn the lessons from last season – what we did well and what we can be better at – and the general feeling from the team was that despite winning the league, there were still a lot of areas we could be better in.“Winning the title means there were obviously some things we did well, but there’s a real appetite in the team to keep improving so the challenge is to find ways to help us do that.”

On retaining the men’s Premiership title Western head coach Vishal Marwaha gave his thoughts, saying, “Retaining the league can be more difficult. You have to maintain the same standards and work ethic which can be difficult. Also, other teams will raise their game against us, so we have to be prepared for that. Ultimately, we are champions, so we have to go into every game with confidence and belief.”

Not surprisingly Vishal is not content to let the grass grow under his squad`s feet, but instead strive for even better performances. He said, “As a group we want to continue to improve and evolve our play, collectively and individually. It’s important to keep moving and not get complacent.”

Last weekend`s 5-2 win over English second tier side Teddington would suggest that improvement is already evident.

Both Watsonians and Western start their Premiership retention campaign with games against Uddingston. Perhaps not surprisingly, Keith took a measured approach to the occasion, “Uddy are a club on the up; they’ve created a fabulous facility, are ambitious and innovative on and off the pitch, and finished last season strongly, so we’re expecting a tough game. And because of the way the fixtures worked last season, a lot of the team haven’t played there before, which makes it a really exciting opening fixture for us.”

However, Watsonians did win last season`s equivalent fixture 4-0.

Photo by David McCarthy

On the men`s side Vishal was also cautious in his approach. He said, “Uddingston will be well organised and physical, so we expect a tough game. Our target is certainly to win and gain three points.”

To get the view from the other angle we caught up with Harry Dunlop, Uddingston`s Direct of Sport to see how challenging the season opening will be. Harry was far from troubled. He said, “I must admit that I see the opening games as something of an advantage. I’ve already taken the Uddingston gents 1s to Ireland to play Cookstown; Banbridge and Lisnagarvey, all recent EHL teams, and with the first match against Western it means by game four we will have played four really top teams in our build up. Plus the fact that anything can happen in the first game of a new season, so I don’t see this as a disadvantage at all and I’m happy to be playing both Watsonians on our ladies side, and Western Wildcats on our gent’s side as opening games.”

All the preparations have been made and the squads ready for the off – Western and Watsonians defence of their titles starts in earnest on Saturday.

So who will put the pressure on Watsonians in the race for the women`s Premiership title?

On paper, it could be last season`s runners-up Clydesdale Western under the coaching aegis of Derek Forsyth, although now without international striker Fiona Semple. They open with an away fixture at Hillhead.

Hillhead are still under the same regime, Andrew Hilton as coach and Carla MacNiven as captain, and are looking to consolidate the progress they made last season. Jenny Sinclair explained, “We’re hoping to build on last season’s fifth place finish and become an established top six team. Ultimately our goal this year is to really push for top four whilst also strengthening and developing the rest of our teams. We’re really excited for the season ahead!”

And there is Edinburgh University who ended up third – but their campaign does not open until the following week.

Last season Western Wildcats finished fourth, but a long way behind the title contenders, but coach Kaz Cuthbert, assisted by Adam McInnes, seemed in confident mood. “The team is looking good, and we’re excited for the season,” said Kaz.

Although the Cats have lost a few players, new recruits have included Mhairi McGregor; keeper Heather Elder; Lucy Findlay and the return of Emma McDairmid and Molly Godfrey.

The new line-up of Cats are at home to a Dundee Wanderers side that picked up during the second half of last season.

Finally, GHK make the trip to Gordonians with a new coach, Fiona Semple has replaced Susan McGilveray. There are also changes to the GHK line-up, in total seven players have left and seven arrived from various clubs according to captain Carly Bisset. GHK made the top six last season and doubtless will be aiming for the same status, in the only fixture against Gordonians last season it was GHK who emerged 1-0 victors in Glasgow.

Photo by David McCarthy

So what about the newcomers to the Premiership? Women`s newcomers Grange and Inverleith have postponed their opening encounter. For the men`s sides, Monarchs travel to Glasgow Green to meet a young Kelburne side that finished tenth last season. It would appear that the Dundee side will have the same squad that won promotion by seeing off Wanderers in the play-off. Meanwhile, ESM who topped the second tier by 14 points visit a Dunfermline Carnegie outfit that did exceptionally well to make the top six in their first season in the top flight but then fell away in the second half of the campaign.

In the men`s competition Grange travel the short distance to Watsonians with a partially new-look outfit. No longer with the Raeburn Place side are Jamie Croll; Pete Caughey; Charlie Jack; and Andy Graham, the latter having retired. In compensation Grange have attracted defender and penalty corner expert Aidan McQuade from Dunfermline Carnegie; Joe Waterston from Nottingham University; David Nairn from Clydesdale, although he will be out for around six weeks with a broken finger; and Aussie Dylan Bean has returned after an absence of a few seasons.

Last season Grange, by and large, held the upper hand with 4-2 and 6-0 wins, but the middle fixture ended in a 3-3 draw.

Despite the above, Watsonians had a successful time last season, they made the top six – a solid base to work on this season.

Hillhead travel to Titwood to face a Clydesdale side that finished fourth last time out. Yan Adams returned from Oz on January and has been installed as Hillhead`s new coach for the season. In addition, Tom Kersley has returned from New Zealand; Jude Boslem has recovered from a bad ankle injury sustained in 2021; keeper Rory Kerr comes up from England; and there is also Adams on pitch duty.

After a sticky first half to last season Hillhead blossomed after the winter break, they won seven of their ten fixtures and lost only one, and finished second to Inverleith in the lower six competition. They made the Scottish Cup final for the first time in their history. The feeling is that Hillhead could be more of a force in the land.

In the close season merry-go-round Clydesdale will be without David Nairn and also Jack Mackenzie who has moved to Auchenhowie.

Finally, Edinburgh University have forgone their option to postpone their opening fixture and instead will entertain Inverleith in another Capital derby. Little is known of the composition of students’ squad but Hamish Imrie is still in charge as coach. And under his guidance Edinburgh finished a very creditable third in last season`s table.

Inverleith finished strongly last season in seventh spot and have attracted some new faces including Charlie Jack (Grange); Daniel Leitch (Cala); Joel Reid (Banbridge); and Ross Telfer (Perthshire), so a top six places must be their target this time round.

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