Congratulations to the Geelong Hockey Association team which showed its determination right to the end to claim the Premiership in the BCN 35+ women’s competition.
It all began with a great assist from the sideline, with a throw-in of the much-appreciated orange ball, required for ladies with ageing eyesight. With a plan in place from coach Tam and assistant coach Ali K, marking was tight, and irritation from the opposition was high as a result, surprisingly only one card was awarded. A rather physical game, with the opposition not understanding, we had no issue getting the dinner plates out and pushing back.
A great goal in the first from Cass and George S connecting for a deflection put us in front. A conversion off a short saw them even it up. The opposition decided that they needed to concuss Ricki in order to get behind her, as she wobbled off the pitch, very confused at why she had to reduce her visibility further during her concussion test.
There were a couple of slight moments of confusion, where pass to George, became … not that George. Bash and Shan had a quick take off and deflection, from a ball just over the 25, to confuse the opposition and send them all to argue with the umpire over the leveler.
It came down to one on ones, luckily, we had gone in with two wonderful goalies, so a well-rested Ruth took to the field. Like an agile meerkat, deflecting, diving and using the luck of a backstick denial kept them to 0. George S, Smarty, Court, Shan and Bash lined up against an in-form keeper. With nine misses on the board, Bash decided she had had enough for the night and locked away her one on one with only seconds to spare.
We would like to thank our sponsors Palm Life, who assisted in taking ten years off our team with some snazzy getup. Geelong Connected Communities, who reduced the cost to our ladies, so that these mums (and other assorted legends) could put themselves first, for once, maybe twice. We would also like to thank our minor sponsor for fueling us with sugar filled awesome, 3 Tiers for Cake.
Well done ladies, both minor and major premiers, but more importantly, we all had a blast and will definitely be back next season.
