Guernsey left frustrated as Maidenhead progress

Maidenhead 5, Guernsey 1

DISAPPOINTMENT and frustration at the result were still obvious as Guernsey flew home yesterday evening smarting at the abrupt end to their HA Trophy run. That will have to be transferred into determination to succeed as the Sarnians look to pick themselves up for this weekend's inter-insulars.

But it is unlikely they will play as below-par again.

Coach Andy Graham's vocabulary immediately after the final whistle was mainly a string of adjectives, as he summarised his side's very average performance.

'We were awful, appalling, terrible, rubbish,' he said.

As the disappointment subsided and he was less severe on his players, his summary of the game centred on two points - the surface and the umpires. In both cases, he had some very valid points.

'We were just not used to playing on a water-based pitch.

'I said before the match that there were some things that you have to do differently on a water-based and we did not have the experience or time to adapt our game.

'The training session the evening before was not enough.'

Guernsey were undone by a Maidenhead side that produced some slick hockey, but which on the Foote's Lane sand-based astro would have been an altogether easier opposition.

The spying mission the previous day had seen Maidenhead well beaten by Staines on their sand-based surface.

Two players stood out as potential weak links: the keeper, Spencer Bird, and the centre-half, Anthony Gaze. Bird let in one through his legs and another over his shoulder as he knelt to face a short-corner drag-flick.

The latter looked slow and cumbersome in the tackle, his style of tackling easy to bypass.

Yesterday, however, these two played key roles.

The keeper pulled off three or four fine saves while Gaze's style of tackling was better suited to the spongier artificial turf and he scored the first two goals for his side.

The opener on 14min., however, was the cause of vociferous protest and rightly so.

As Gaze moved to strike a short-corner, a Guernsey challenge made the ball bobble up.

The balding centre-half cracked in an exocet of a volley, but it flicked off keeper Kees Jager at somewhere around thigh height - and therefore, as the first shot at goal, should have been adjudged illegal - cracked the post, and then as Jager turned and attempted to kick clear, he could only help the ball over the line.

Umpire Ed Waller signalled a goal and later justified his decision by saying that the initial movement by Gaze towards the Guernsey net was his first shot and the volley was his second.

Throughout the match, there were decisions which seemed to favour the home side, while the more aggressive tackling of the greens, though still legal, was often blown up. Tempers were often close to fraying in the Guernsey camp.

Skipper Adie Peacegood pulled his side level with a thumping short-corner strike two minutes after Gaze's opener, only for the same Maidenhead player to double his tally with a fine strike of his own on 20min.

Back came the greens and Peacegood fired in another short-corner screamer, which hit a defender on the foot two yards out and was cleared. Guernsey appealed for a stroke, but this time umpire Mark Everard waved away appeals.

Guernsey, unused to the softer surface and the different demands it placed on dribbling, control and passing, were sluggish across the pitch. Too many passes found only a white-shirted player; runs came to halt as the ball bounced away from green sticks.

Later, when they were chasing the game, Guernsey were too predictable, favouring the right while the left was forgotten.

Midfielders Mark Babbe and Damian Wallen saw too little of the ball, striker Andy Bell even less.

Maidenhead defended as a unit, pivoting across the width of the pitch and Guernsey could have prospered from a more-patient approach, probing, retreating and then switching play to spread the home defence.

But even after the third Maidenhead goal - Peter Gibbins given all the space he wanted to drive into the top of the D and hammer the ball home - Guernsey had chances to come back.

Somehow Bird kept out a Rob Newton deflection. Later Barry Wallace's short-corner flicks were parried athletically and one stop by the tall keeper was either inspired or hugely lucky: Peacegood's shot deflected away by Bird's face-mask.

Maidenhead hit a fourth five minutes after the break, Dan Bradley steering in a right-wing cross. Their fifth, on 50min., was the killer, Joel Forrester tapping in after Jager had kept out Richard Cardigan's shot.

Adam Kitching had a couple of sights of goal and Bell was inches away from reaching Jamie Chambers' cross but the closest to another goal was Gaze's late screamer which Tony Veillard stopped superbly on the line.