LA Carnegie 1 – 3 HDHC

LA Carnegie came into the game being one of only two teams to have beaten the dragons this season. With the enforced break caused by the weather and Christmas, Huddersfield had not played a competitive game since 12th December 2009.

The dragons started much the brighter and soon took the lead, a neat through ball from Haigh found Foster alone at the top of the circle who dispatched his shot past a startled LA keeper. At the break the score remained 0-1, the half mostly dominated by unforced errors and the odd poor tackle. The dragons being spurred on by their man of the match and midfield engine Pete Lee.

Carnegie scored shortly after the restart, Cowden made an initial save from a fluffed drag flick at a penalty corner only for another forward to lift the ball over the dragons keeper. Huddersfield hit back almost immediately, Foster found space on the right before squaring the ball for Clark to hit a reverse shot past the LA keepers left foot. Carnegie had a succession of penalty corners but the dragons defence stood tall and frustrated their opposition. Shimell finished the scoring, keeping his head and slotting home through a crowd of players.

The next two weeks are crucial in the Huddersfield Dragons 2XI season, playing top of the league City of York next week followed by third place Sheffield Hallam the week after.

Man of match – Pete Lee

Fool of day – Neil Harris

goal(s) – Foster, Clark, Shimell

Ben Rhydding 5 – 1 HDHC

Calling this a game of two halves is a cliché, but quite apt for the first HDHC 4XI game of the new decade. A delay for one of the cars reaching Ben Rhydding on time meant that the Dragons started the game with only ten men and no goalkeeper and promotion hunting Ben Rhydding were able to capitalise by scoring from an early short corner despite a sterling effort by Simon Waterhouse on the line. The less said about the remainder of the first half the better as the rushed start and lack of recent pitch time was telling as the Dragons went into the break four nil down.

The dragons dominated the game after the break and played their best half of hockey of the season. Ben Rhydding never sat back and came out the break looking to run up a big score but the boys in purple had organised themselves and began playing some really nice hockey, typified by debutant Ash Cooke who claimed Man of the Match in his debut for the team. At the other end of the age scale was Sean Connell who nearly bagged man of the match himself after another fully committed performance and an excellent goal from a short corner early in the second half.

Fool of the day Chris Parkes truly earnt his title. Upon arriving back at Lockwood he realised he’d picked up the wrong bag. Unfortunately for Chris the bag belonged to one of the Ben Rhydding players, as such Chris and his dad had to make an extra 2 hour+ round trip back to Ilkley to make the exchange.

Man of match – Ash Cooke

Fool of day – Chris Parkes

Goal(s) – Connell

HDHC 3 – 2 Leeds

Early concerns about a frozen pitch which had cancelled the 3rd team game at 10.30am came to nothing and the first game of 2010 began. Huddersfield did not start well and Leeds did, the dragons found themselves outpaced as Leeds passed the ball around the home side and scored twice.

Huddersfield did create some chances towards the end of the first half as they woke from their post Christmas stupor but were unable to convert any. After a re-organization at half time the second half saw Huddersfield apply more pressure and Conrad Dales reaped the benefit by scoring, crashing a shot under the keeper with his usual force. Huddersfield continued to play well with Gary Clarke using his pace well and eventually after a couple of good chances he slapped one at pace superbly into the right corner leveling the scores at 2 – 2.

With the game up for the taking Leeds did rally and went close on a couple of occasions but with a minute to go Gary Clarke broke and played an inch perfect pass into the D and Dales placed it past the keeper for a great 3 – 2 win. Paul Dallas had a great game, particularly in the second half with some accurate passes. The others in the midfield were strong with Mike Brennan, Mike Pogson and Carl Bland getting stuck in. John Ridings also made a couple of telling tackles at sweeper to keep the Dragons in the game. Man of the Match went to Conrad Dales for coolness personified to score the winner.

Man of match – Conrad Dales

Fool of day –

Goal(s) – Dales(2), Clarke

Ben Rhydding 6 – 0 HDHC

Following a good run of results in the run up to Christmas Huddersfield 6ths travelled to Ben Rhydding with confidence high however, having not played for over a month due to the poor weather and the Christmas break, the team looked rusty and a more polished Ben Rhydding, who looked better prepared having managed to have a game since the Christmas break, immediately put the Huddersfield defence under pressure.

The defence initially held firm and the team started to create some pressure themselves however Ben Rhydding then countered quickly and managed to get the ball to their left winger who had got away from his marker and made no mistake. Ben Rhydding then doubled their lead about 10 minutes later. The last 15 minutes of the first half saw Huddersfield come back into the game and they even managed to create some half chances and won a couple of short corners so Huddersfield went into the half time break hoping to be able to mount a fightback.

Unfortunately for Huddersfield Ben Rhydding decided to send out a group of exciting young forwards for the second half who dealt a sucker punch within a couple of minutes of the restart and put together a flowing move which pulled the defence out of position and created a chance for one of their youngsters to score a fantastic goal. The stuffing had been knocked out of Huddersfield and from then on it felt like we were at the Alamo as wave after wave of attacks were made using the pace and guile of the crop of young Ben Rhydding forwards Under the relentless pressure Huddersfield were unable to prevent Ben Rhydding from scoring 3 more goals. Intermittently Huddersfield 6ths created the odd half chance but found their goalkeeper to be in good form as he saved a couple of chances that prevented Huddersfield from scoring a consolation goal

The Huddersfield team showed their appreciation of the hockey played by Ben Rydding after the game however, whilst it was lovely to watch (and unfortunately too many of our players appeared to be doing too much of this), it was a disappointing start to 2010 and Huddersfield 6ths know they can play better and so hope that the rustiness has now been removed and will endeavour to put this game behind them and return to pre Christmas form starting with next weeks game!!

Man of match –

Fool of day –

goal(s) –