TCOB survive for semis despite defeat

David Ogilvie | Thursday, August 19, 2010 16:29

Lady Luck turned a little TCOB's way last week - and it had to.

Midway through last week the rival Central league men's hockey contender for the last semifinal spot, MCOB, went down to a lesser rival, leaving it five points behind TCOB although it had one match to come.

That confirmed Wanganui side TCOB's semifinal spot - and the team went out on Saturday and played a bit like it when going down 5-1 to Wanganui High School, a team it had beaten 5-0 the previous week!

Then the news came through that MCOB had beaten top side HSHC on Saturday - leaving it within a win of TCOB and sadly ruing the midweek match it shouldn't have lost.

Meanwhile, Collegians women put things together at the right end of the season again, beating HSHC 6-1 to confirm their semifinal position.

So both Wanganui teams will not pay the consequences of some moderate mid-season form by having to play higher-ranked teams away from homes in their semis, TCOB against HSHC and Collegians also likely to be against HSHC.

TCOB had a chance to finish third and level with College, but lost heavily and then heard College had only drawn.

"So we only needed a 1-0 win, but we were completely outplayed - we just didn't turn up," said coach Brett Puklowski.

WHS coach Langley Atkinson, a very happy man with his young squad, said they had played some very good hockey for much of the 5-0 loss the previous week.

"The five goals all came in a very short period. This time the game plan was to tighten the defence very much for the first 10 minutes, and we did that.

"Then we scored a couple of goals, TCOB got one back before halftime and then had a chance to level after the interval. But one pull-back from the line (Kyle Heibner) and one great save by the goalkeeper (Wilson O'Fee) saved the day.

"And then we went on to score three goals towards the end as TCOB fell away."

Marty Atkinson scored three goals, and Jack Aplin and Hamish Crawshaw netted the others. Atkinson, Matthew Ratcliffe and Heibner stood out. Luke Kirk was TCOB's best.

And as coach Puklowski says, that team has a lot of thinking to do this week before the semi.