Watt secure big win

A women’s conference match between these two sides would better be shown in binary system, so comprehensive was the victory by the home side. Glasgow Caley’s first match of the conference was a drubbing at the hands of a side which didn’t fear the chilly weather; their bare arms indicated their desire to fight for a win, one which was more or less secured by the twentieth minute of the match.

Wasting short corners and forcing some early saves from the Caley keeper who kept the score at only ten, Heriot-Watt eventually hit the net with two of three shots in sixty frantic seconds, one across the keeper and a sweet finish after great build-up play on the right from Jo Hutton. Caley were slow and uncertain in their clearances, amateurish in their inability to find a pale blue shirt and gifting the ball to Watt time after time. Orla Connelly’s double airhit and Megan Bennett’s miss when she ought to have scored prompted derisory snorts from the sidelines but it was nonetheless a constant blitzkrieg on the Caley goal. Sarah Alexander was the Kelly Smith-like playmaker, the ball never leaving her stick as she made mincemeat out of the hapless Caley centre halves on more than five occasions, and should have made more assists had her final passes not been so wayward and her balance better on the slippery surface.

Two tap-ins for the third and fourth goals within four minutes of each other, after sustained pressure and brilliant wide play, were added. Thirty seconds later the fifth went in, the keeper was drawn out, rounded and watched ball thwack backboard. It looked like every attack they made, Heriot-Watt would score, like a leopard pouncing on a rabbit, so much in the headlights were Caley. Jo Hutton was kept out twice by the opposition keeper but Kelly Corbett added her second at the half-hour mark in the best move of the game, aided by Connelly’s pushed assist showing speed and tenacity. Watt were playing proper, flowing hockey at last, responding to their coach’s exhortations for movement. So stunned were Caley by Watt’s play that they gifted them a seventh at once, with nobody closing Alexander down as she fired it into the net. Fitter, stronger, better, sharper, finer. Watt were on autopilot, falling asleep and having to call their keeper into action who saved from a one-on-one, her first meaningful contribution to the match. It was the thirty-first minute.

Though Caley had some useful forward players who could have bolstered Watt’s team, the ball never reached them. Connelly’s second, after predictably beating four players, was the eighth goal without return. Caley put the ball in the Watt net but foot-contact annulled it; one felt especially sorry for the poor defenders, who will wish Christmas will come early after the performance. Bennett’s goal from the short corner capped off a great afternoon for her; a tenth was added after more great attacking play and not a little luck to keep the ball. A consolation for Caley is that they only lost the second half 0-3.

Watt look like a great side if they can keep possession more against more physical sides.