So it was finally here, the first competition weekend of 2018. Setting off on Friday night we managed to avoid the traffic, in the lorry we have chief driver and top supporter my dad Keith, Ava one of my players and Sienna one of our under 14 players on loan to Derby for the weekend. With a three hour journey ahead of us Sienna kept us entertained with games and music and 30 second dance parties to keep everyone awake! (If you’re ever sat in traffic jams and need to wake up I highly recommend a 30 second dance party!)
Arriving at Onley Polo Grounds in Rugby, we unloaded and settled Casper and Orders into their stables. A quick team catch up before organising the beds ready for an early morning.
Saturday morning and Casper was up first for trot up, Mikey our Horseball vet was the first to see Casper when he had gone lame previously so it was such a relief that Mikey was more than happy with him even commenting that he looked better than ever! Orders trot up was second at a nice reasonable 9.15am giving me plenty of time to plait up and get Orders looking super sparkly with help of my friend Charlotte. Each trot up we are awarded points out of 10 for turnout of both us and our horses, the scores are all put together at the end of year and the person with the highest amount of turnout points in each division wins best turned out of the year. In 2015 I won with Casper for second division and in 2016 I won with Casper again but in pro elite division, this year we are aiming to get our crown back again!
First games on Saturday was a match with new team number 1 World’s End in the second division against Harleys Horseball club, it started off with all of us missing the canter pick up so Harleys gained the ball to begin with. Luckily we were able to quickly gain possession of the ball when it went to ground by picking it up, we got our passes in quickly down the pitch and I scored our first goal going 1-0 in the first few minutes. With our strong attack we managed to get two more goals in quick succession. Harleys were good at winning the line outs so they received possession again a few unlucky shots from them and some great defensive riding from us, we finished 3-0.
As the winners we stayed in and went straight on to play Southampton Horseball team, as one of the coaches for the team it was slightly surreal playing the team I usually coach! Southampton put up a good fight managing to pick up the ball and head to goal but couldn’t get through our defence. They put in play tactics they’ve been taught and kept the ball away from us. A dodgy pass caused the ball to go to the ground, we were able to beat the other team pick up the ball and score a quick goal. With Elizabeth on the front line she was able to beat Southampton to the ball to regain possession again for us, using the attacks we had practised we managed to get down to the goal and score. We continued to win the line outs and put another goal past Southampton. Finishing the match on 3-0 a brilliant first day for World’s End.
A quick change and I was back on the pitch as a referee for the under 14s match, I was shadowed as well by one of our young coaches for the matches. All our youngest players did so well for many of them it was their first match. Being able to guide them through the match and help them to improve is great to see. Being on the pitch I was able to watch Sienna play as well as part of team Derby and get all her pick ups and her first goal.
Last change of the day and it was Orders time to shine, I was privileged to be appointed Captain for the London Yellows Ladies. We put up a good fight against Harley ladies team, they put an early goal in against us but we held up our defence. Unfortunately we gave away a penalty one so Harleys were allowed a free shot on goal putting them 2-0 up. Pulling ourselves together we won the line out and managed to get a goal against them. Finishing the match on 2-1 to Harleys we were still on a high as a new team we had improved a lot.
Day 2 brought the same day plan, everyone in Worlds End trotted up sound ready to play. Unfortunately one of my team mates for London Yellows trotted up lame meaning we only had four players on the pitch.
World’s Ends game was up first against The Grove, the start of the game and we lost our heads a little and by the end of the first half we were 2-0 down. After a team talk to change up our defence line we went back to the game. Casper had changed positions to chase the ball down when the Grove had it. The Grove have a quick and agile pony that had been running past us. Casper being able to start off further back kept pace with the pony so they violated the 10 second rule for us to get possession. We got our passes in and quickly got our first goal, high on our new confidence we won the next line out and scored again. We went on to finish the match 4-2 getting our last two goals in the last two minutes of the game. Leaving us top of the second division league table heading into the next weekend.
London Yellows were up against London Reds a stronger team than Harleys and also a team we have trained at home with. Being a player down meant we had no break, I was having other issues as Orders had been very stressed all weekend with people coming and going all around him in the stables. Starting the game we won first pick up and started our attacks, our shooting as was consist throughout the game was a little wild and off target. London Reds taking advantage managed to get 8 goals past us in the first half. Talking with our stand in coach Mikey we tried a change of order with Orders chasing all the time so he wasn’t stood waiting, during the first half he was too anxious standing and would rush forward early giving the Reds an advantage.
Throughout the second half Orders was much better chasing and we succeeded several times in stopping the attacks. As a whole the team improved dramatically from half time and we only allowed 3 more goals past us. We started to win the line outs and although we still had some wild
shots, through some quick thinking and passing I got the ball to my teammate Annabelle who managed to get the ball in the goal with just over a minute to spare.
Lots of great game play all weekend from both teams, World’s End with some things to work on for attacking and changing our routines. While London Yellows even finishing in fourth place we came out on a high at everything we had achieved and how we were going to improve for the next time.
With only three weeks between league 1 and league 2, we’ve carried on our preparation and more game play.
If anyone wants to check out the games they are located at Onley Polo Grounds, free to come and watch. Dates can be found on the British Horseball Website and facebook page as well as all other news of Horseball in the UK!
