Carnage suffered a disappointing loss at the hands of Elite C for the second time this season.
After the highs of December, we came back down to earth with a bump and the flowing, controlled, keep-ball hockey of last month was replaced by frantic hit and hope passing attempts which were easily intercepted.
Elite went into the match with low expectations and played to their strengths which was to stifle our attacks and then try to steal a goal on a quick counter attack and unfortunately Carnage played into their hands. Too often our passes were either too weak or too inaccurate and we went into half time 1 down with only one short corner attempt and few real chances.
The second half was more of the same and we never really got out of second gear. Thing’s might have been different had the umpire not decided that Poppet’s testicles were close enough to the ground to constitute a foot offence after a wild clearance from the keeper which gave him enough cause to disallow the equalizer that followed. As it was, Elite scored twice more within a minute which left us with a mountain to climb.
The last 10 minutes were much improved but it was too little too late. We managed to win another short corner and after the keeper saved the initial shot, Marc was calm enough to collect the rebound, dodge some flailing sticks and push it into the empty net.
3-1 final score with lots to do at training tonight to get our winning structure back.