Wien the target game for Kelburne

EUROLEAGUE

Glynhill Kelburne may be kingpins within Scottish Hockey
– eight consecutive league titles is proof of that – but making
progress in the elite EuroLeague is a different
matter.   

Player/coach Mark Ralph, a veteran of several EuroLeague
campaigns, is well aware of the mountain ahead of his charges in
East Grinstead this weekend.  The initial stages of the
competition comprise of a three team league format, and the Scots
champions are up against crack German side Rot-Weiss Koln on Friday
and Austrian champions AHTC Wien the following day, and only the
top two sides will move on to the knock-out stages.

“As our previous ventures in the EHL have shown, with having
only won one game out of nine, we can`t afford to take any game for
granted,” said Ralph.  

The Paisley side started off their career in the EuroLeague in
2007 in promising fashion, the Scottish champions progressed to the
knock-out stages after beating Swiss champions Luzerner 5-3 in the
pool match.   Kelburne surpassed themselves by holding
German side Uhlenhorster to a 3-3 draw in the last 16, only to
finally bow out to an extra time goal.   But thereafter,
it has been hard going for the Scots, and falling back to third
seed in the pool stages meant being drawn against the top sides in
the competition, consequently Kelburne have since failed to make
the knock-out stages.

Five of their players are just back from the Olympics with gold
medals, Ralph could be forgiven for seeing this opening game
against Rot-Weiss as a damage limitation exercise, particularly if
qualification could depend on goal difference.

The Austrians are clearly the targeted game for Ralph, but even
then a positive result is far from guaranteed.  “They have
many players involved in the national team and also have previous
experience of the EuroLeague, so it will be a very tough game and
we have to be at our best to get anything from it.

“We`ve actually played Wien before in 2005, we beat them 1-0
that day, so a repeat of that score would be good,” said Ralph.

The former Scottish internationalist is confident in the quality
of the present Kelburne side.   “Our strength is the
intensity that we can play at and our speed in attack can catch
teams out.  Our teamwork is probably our key strength as we
don`t rely on any individual to defend or score the goals.”

Ralph did highlight the contribution of Scotland striker Alan
Forsyth, he scored 46 goals last season, but also set up as many
chances for the likes of Jonny and Michael Christie along with
others.  

Recent posts:

Back to all news
Back to top