Macquarie University Hockey Club

Hi All,

As we seek to announce all Mens and Womens teams in the next week. This Saturday there will be a number of mens and womens trial matches played against Bankstown at Bankstown – for drections visit the website http://macunihockey.org/ground-locations/

Men interested in 1st or 2nd Grade please advise availability to Liam Lhdixon@internode.on.net or 0410 986 012 by tomorrow to be placed in a trial team. All other interested players please email iainwatt_02@hotmail.com

Women interested in playing 3rd or 4th Grade advise availability to Max on 0414 546 697 by tomorrow to be placed in a trial team.

*Uniforms: Can all players wear black*

*Game Times:* *3rd Grade Women* (NSWHA Dvision C) be there at 3 for 3.30pm game

*4th Grade Women* (NSWHA D Division) be there at 1.30 for 2pm game.

*1st Grade Mens* (SL3 team) be there at 4.30 for 5pm game

*2nd Grade Mens* (SL4 team) be there at 6 for 6.30pm game

***A Reminder to all Men that skills sessions will continue this Thursday at Penno. Anyone pushing for 1s or 2s should attend at 8.45pm.

***Those picked in 1st Grade Womens squad will be required to attend Thursday night training sessions for the next 4 weeks – 9-10.30pm at Penno.

MUHC Committee

To all hockey enthusiasts, 

Unfortunately both of our remaining women’s teams got knocked out on the weekend so the season is now officially over for Mac Uni Hockey Club. That makes this the final ‘Weekend Wrap’ of the year. Thanks to all of the coaches for sending in their match reports each week, and also to Steff for helping to collate them all together. With 5 out of 7 teams making the finals this year, it has been a pretty good season for the MAGUTS, so come along to the end-of-season spit-roast at Joey’s place this Saturday to celebrate.

Women’s 1st Grade
Result: 5-1 loss to GNS (Gordon North Shore)
Goal to Tania

We just weren’t as good at executing in front of goal today as they were, and a couple of defensive brain explosions cost us some easy goals. Overall though a positive season, and if you’re going to lose it may as well be against a team as good at GNS.

Women’s 2nd Grade
Result: 4-1 to Bankstown
Goal to Tarryn Walter

Macquarie was the favoured team in this final but in the heat of the midday sun with a lack of subs we were tested. Everyone played a stellar game and the score certainly didn’t reflect the possession of the game. Bankstown were lucky with a few of their goals and managed to get the lead early. In the end it was an unfortunate loss. But we will take joy in the fact that Bankstown don’t stand a chance against Macarthur in the grand final (Macquarie are one of only two teams to have beaten them all season).

A great win to the 1st grade girls sees them through to the preliminary final next weekend against Gordon North Sydney. 2nd grade unfortunately had a loss, but still have another chance next weekend.  Should be a great weekend of hockey!

Women’s 1st Grade – Minor Semi Final against Moorebank 3
Result: 2-1 win
Goals to Psycho and Ange

War-painted-up, the girls had the right balance of nervous energy and relaxation to start the game. We weathered a few early short corners from Moorebank, but then put our own waves of pressure on, culminating in a stroke which was calmly executed by Ange. It was a hot day meaning a high rotation of subs, but there was still plenty of puffing when we went into the change rooms at halftime indicating the high work-rate being shown across the whole team. The game continued to be an arm-wrestle in the second half, but again some continued pressure up front resulted in Psycho putting us up 2-0 with around 15 to go. Moorebank kept at it, and put one away with 5 to go meaning there were plenty of nerves as time wound down; particularly as the clock at Homebush wasn’t working. We kept them out, got the win 2-1, and next week face off against a speedy but young, inexperienced and freshly beaten, Gordon North Sydney side.

Maguettes of the Match: Ange and Psycho

Women’s 2nd Grade – Major Semi Final against Macarthur
Result: 3-1 loss
Goal to Ventor

Our aim for this game was to control the first ten minutes and take 60-70% possession, getting an early goal and keeping the lead. Unfortunately Macarthur came on with strength that Macquarie just couldn’t match, maybe feeling too confident after beating Macarthur last time we played. They had the majority of possession and scored two goals on a couple of runaways. We also suffered a loss to our defensive team when Jules went off with after twisting her ankle. it was 2-0 at half time. At the beginning of the second half, after a motivational speech from Jack and Jimmy in the change rooms, we played some of the best hockey we have all season. We were first to the ball, breaking down their attack and held 70% of possesion. Ventor snuck a goal past the keeper and it seemed the game might turn around. While we had many shots on goal, none were converted and when Macarthur secured their third goal we lost our mojo and accepted defeat. Macquarie will play Bankstown in next week’s semi final and will hopefully have another chance to verse Macarthur in the Grandfinal.

Maguette of the Match: Amanda

The men’s season is over after we went down to UTS in both 1st and 2nd grade semi-finals on Saturday. The women’s 1st and 2nd grade teams are playing in their semi-finals this Sunday at Homebush, so head on down and show your support. 2nd grade is playing at 9am on Pitch 2, followed by 1st grade at 11am on the Olympic pitch.

Men’s 2nd grade
Result: lost 2-1 to UTS
Goal: Kemba

2s had some late dramas, with Nugget succumbing to a stupid foot injury suffered on Thursday: (1) playing soccer; (2) barefoot, (3) with rugby players; and captain Ian out with a chest bug. In stepped Ralph and Fridge and we gave UTS an almighty fight, and an almighty fright. They scored just before halftime when Kyle was wrongly penalised for a great tackle in the circle, and from the corner their hit at goal was above backboard height when it crossed the goal line. Alas the bonehead of an umpire allowed it. We really stuck it to them in the second half but were dreadful with our own corners. Kemba, hard to believe he’s just 15, was carving up the UTS defence and Klimmy was running himself into the ground. There was desperation and toughness everywhere. Sadly, they scored from another corner and the job looked beyond us. But Kemba popped up with a cracking tomahawk to bring it back to 2-1. We threw everything at UTS but just couldn’t find the equaliser.

Men’s 1st grade
Result: lost 4-1 to UTS
Goal: Iain

1s had won only one of their last 10 games coming into the finals – but had beaten UTS earlier in the year in a brilliant display. So we were surprised to see UTS play a highly defensive structure, which allowed us to hold possession and camp high in their territory for large chunks of the game. Unfortunately we far too often took poor options, something that crippled our second half of the season, and we were vulnerable to the breakaway. But our cover defending was superb, however we could not stop a deflected goal late in the first half. A minute before the break Jimmy got a yellow for a shocking dive tackle from behind, making life even tougher for us. UTS scored twice more from corner deflections until Iain got one back for us with a sliding backstick shot off a corner rebound. And with six minutes to go we were awarded a stroke. Tom stepped up… and missed… by some margin. We had UTS rattled at that stage but that let them off the hook and they scored the sealer soon after.

Women’s 1st grade
Result: 2-2 draw with Moorebank 3 (2-0 down at halftime. 2-1 win 1st round.)
Goalscorers: Psycho and Mairead

We were 4th on the ladder no matter what the result was, so we didn’t want to show them anything strategy-wise. We had just the two subs which made things hard on a hot day, but the effort stayed solid throughout the game. The two late goals was a nice confidence booster.

B&F: Tania, Abbey and Cheryl
Coach’s players of the game: Tania & Abbey

There was a very vocal crowd of Maguts supporters at the Men’s 3rd grade semi-final last weekend against UNSW, and even though they made a gallant effort their season is now at an end after they went down 4-0. Men’s 1st grade had a bye, and 2nd grade were lucky to come away with a 2-2 draw against Bankstown with the equaliser coming from a short corner after the final whistle. Both 1st and 2nd grade will be playing their semi-final matches at Penno on Saturday, with 2nd’s at 1pm and 1sts at 2.45pm – come along and cheer them on!

Women’s 1st grade have slipped to 4th place on the ladder after a 2-1 loss to Sydney Uni, but with one more week to go in the regular season they should still make the finals. 2nd grade had a 2-2 draw against Bankstown, but are still in 2nd place on the ladder with one game to go. But unfortunately the season is now over for the 3rd and 4th grade women. 3rd grade showed a lot of heart throughout the season, and didn’t do too badly considering they were often short of players and without a goalie. After a very strong finish to the season, 4th grade just missed out on a place in the finals by 3 points.

Women’s 1st Grade
Result: 2-1 loss against Sydney Uni 3
Goal to Target

That makes 1 win and 2 draws from our last 6 games, i.e. we’ve taken 5 points from a possible 18 and yet prior to this weekend we were still only 1 point off second place. This team though is capable of anything in the semi-finals.

Maguettes of the Match: Radar, Abby and Suz

Women’s 2nd Grade
Result: 2-2 draw against Bankstown
Goals to Dubs and Ventor

An annoying draw as we had been ahead for the majority of the game. We just need to build on skills and teamwork for the finals in a couple of weeks.

Maguette of the Match: Lou

Women’s 3rd Grade

No match report

Women’s 4th Grade
Result: 1-0 loss against Sydney Uni 8

Sadly this is my last report, as we narrowly missed out on making the finals today. Our fate was sealed by the early morning win by 4th placed UTS 7. Our final game of the season was not our best, but I could not fault the effort. We virtually camped in Sydney Uni’s half during the 2nd half but could not convert any of our chances. Their goalie saved a penalty stroke we had and several short corners. We can take many positives out of this year, most notably that we can compete with the top teams. We need to learn to play against the bottom placed teams with the same vigour as the top placed teams…..we did not beat a single last placed team this year, instead having a draw and 2 losses, and this ultimately cost us a place in the finals. That said, we can achieve big things next year with the same level of improvement.

Maguette of the Match: Larissa