Captain Stuart Ramskill said that the team was ‘a bit disappointed’ with the result which, he said, wasn’t an accurate reflection of the game.’We knew Telford was a strong club side and they had a relatively young side with a couple of U21 internationals among the players, but the standard was probably similar to ours.
There wasn’t a great difference except their fitness levels were possibly a bit better, and they play at a consistently high standard every week, as they are in the North Midlands premier league.’Jersey took the lead early in the first half with a goal from Ed Daubeney.His first shot rebounded off the ‘keeper but he followed up and scored from that.’We were putting a lot of pressure on in the first 20 minutes and created a lot of chances – one was converted by Ed but we didn’t capitalise on as many as we should have done,’ Ramskill said.Telford looked good on the break, he added, but the Jersey defence coped well.Telford equalised before half-time from a short-corner.’They put the ball past the ‘keeper.
Ed tried to stop it but the ball was deflected off his stick.’JHC then let in a ‘soft’ goal from the edge of the D but were still very much in the game.’We were hitting them on the break and created quite a few more chances and got a few short-corners, but again we didn’t take advantage of the opportunities.’Jersey was still dominant in the second half, but Telford scored goals three and four, the first from a short corner and the second from a penalty flick.’We piled the pressure on in the last 10-15 minutes but the luck wasn’t running our way at all – there were three or four goalmouth scrambles but they managed to clear the ball each time.
Eventually we got a short corner – and hit the cross-bar, then the ‘keeper saved the follow-up!’Although disappointed, Ramskill said he had been very pleased with his team’s performance.’It was quite a physical game, but everyone worked hard.
Simon Watling played well in defence, Matt Banahan produced some very strong runs on the right half of the pitch and there was good work, as usual, from James Wetherall.
And the forwards – Ali Hall and Ed Lewis – controlled their area well.
We always aim to give of our best and it is always good to play against a stronger side.
We can learn from it and go forward.
We have a good side this season and losing this match doesn’t take that fact away.’He added: ‘What’s needed is to play more games against different and high-standard teams.
It is expensive to go over to play one game like we did this weekend, ideally we need a weekend away when we could have three or four matches against different sides.
And I’d like to see something like the Easter Festival running again so we could get some good sides over.
It would be an enormous boost for men’s hockey over here.’Meanwhile, in Jersey, the girls inter-insular at Les Quennevais on Saturday resulted in a win for the visitors.’Basically we underperforme on the day,’ development officer Shelagh Herbert said.She explained that three key players were under par, two recovering from a gastric virus and the third coping with the start of the current ‘flu bug that’s doing the rounds.’They all played but their skills were not of the usual standard.
And to be fair, Guernsey had the better side on the day.
There;s a not a great deal you can do when players are ill.
It was disappointing for the girls, they’ve put in a lot of effort and training, and in the build-up they had been playing very well as a team.
But it was obvious we were lacking stamina.
On a nomal Saturday were would have been more than equal to the Guernsey side, if not better.’
