Third time unlucky for Edinburgh Hockey

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Edinburgh’s final hopes for progressing in the BUSA hockey championship lay with their ladies’ second team on Wednesday 20th February as they faced Newcastle at Peffermill in their knockout trophy match. After the fighting talk leading up to their first match against Coventry, a walk-over to Edinburgh in the end, Sue Johnson and her team were looking to put an end to the club’s losing streak. Newcastle sent Edinburgh to their third straight loss, however, as their 5th goal was fired home by Dawn Logan in the 62nd minute after a long corner.

The match started off with brilliant play from both teams, meaning that defences were kept on their toes amid the battle for the opening goal in the first five minutes. Edinburgh’s nerves began to show after the opening few minutes as mis-hits and sloppy passing ensued, giving Newcastle the upper hand. Newcastle exploited Edinburgh’s clumsy play, gaining an early 1-0 lead in the 11th minute with a cracking shot to the top right hand corner by Logan from a well played penalty corner.

Going behind seemed to galvanize Edinburgh, and they elevated their play, thus forcing Newcastle to mis-hit and lose possession. The home side displayed some excellent goal shots in an attempt to equalise but unfortunately could not find the back of the net. A couple of penalty corners and some sloppy defending gave Newcastle the opportunity to extend their lead and they seized it with both hands, a 22nd minute goal from Jo-Jo Gwynne-Jones bringing the score to 2-0.

The last ten minutes of the first half saw Newcastle hold on to their 2-0 lead as they dominated by doing precisely what Edinburgh were falling down on; linking fluid passes with good use of the width of the pitch. Edinburgh clearly realised this had been their weakness in the opening half of the game as they came out more determined in the second half, playing with form worthy of a final 8 BUSA knockout match.

With attempts in the 37th and 41st minute Edinburgh finally drove the ball past Newcastle’s goalie in the 46th minute on Rachel Morrison’s second shot. Motivated by their first goal, the second for Edinburgh wasn’t long in coming, as five minutes later Kate Moffet broke through the Newcastle defence to bring the scores level in the 51st minute.

Edinburgh’s jubilation soon turned to disbelief as Newcastle were awarded a penalty flick in the 52nd minute after the referee deemed Sarah Love’s foul purposeful. Rosie Innes put Newcastle back in the lead with a precision flick giving them 3 goals to Edinburgh’s 2. The tables had clearly turned by this point as Newcastle returned to their dominant form seen in the first half of the match and took advantage of the disheartened home side.

Newcastle’s lead increased further in the 57th minute when Jenny Sims, faced with an open goal as Edinburgh’s over-eager goalkeeper dived too soon, took advantage to make it 4-2. Despite their 2-goal lead Newcastle pressed on and added another goal to their score-sheet in the 62nd minute with Logan’s second of the clash sealing their victory over Edinburgh.

TO their credit, Edinburgh finished the match doggedly, with a goal in the final minute of the match courtesy of Anna Livingston bringing the closing score to 5-3 but it was too little, too late and once again an Edinburgh side failed to progress in the BUSA knockouts.

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