Sunday, August 16, 2009

Valiant display but defeat nonetheless

8 August 09, SINGAPORE: The SVHA produced a valiant display in their SHL Division 2 match against hot favourites SRC. Goalless at half time the game was poised to finish under tensed circumstances and it did true to form.

Pegged back for most of the game, SVHA were determined not to hand SRC the advanatge, but last season's league champions were not to be denied and they scorded 10 minutes into the second half when Farlegh Clarke was the fastest to react to the rebound off SRC's penalty corner.

But SVHA could have restored parity when George Edward set up Ganesha Periasamy two minutes after going down. The latter only had the task of pushing the ball into an empty net but he missed when his fierce shot flew past the post.

Dejected the SVHAn s coulc not hold any longer and Nordin Manaf self-passed a free hit inside the SVHA defensive quarter past an inalert Mike Barton and finished intelligently with a squeeze shot.

The SRC barrage continued but no more goals at either end menat SVHA have got lots of work to do if they are to make the semi-finals.

--ends--

Thursday, August 6, 2009

SVHA v SRC preview

vs

Attire: Red shirts, Black shorts, Red socks

SRC have agreed to play in Blue Black and Black (spoken to jude and he agreed)

Arrival time: 3.45pm at Sengkang 2

Manager: Can one of you bring along your lovely wife to be manager. Naren your dad has a 100% winning record with us, perhaos he can come again?

Squad (14 players) (mobile numbers listed so that you can call each other remind yourselves about the game):

Goalkeeper: Aidil (94577929)

Defenders: Mike (90238987), Aneel (90667644), Naren (91196434), Seng (97660070), Richard (91289125) and David (naren please call him)

Midfielders: Luno (91290205), Ganesha (97987712), Olaf (97815644), Tjalling (91730161) and Balbir (82387971)

Forwards: Gordon (98506347), George (81452231)

Unavailable:

Kanan (work committments)
Eric (overseas for work)
Silvester (overseas for long weekend)
Tony (overseas for pleasure, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TONY & SARAH)
Hans (injured back)
Selva (prior engagement, that's what he put down on the availability schedule, but he told george he is coming) (90030035)

I need a volunteer to call all of these players up, Naren or Ganesha? I know George will call them all the same, we need one more back up person to do the honours.

Please volunteer.

also we need a volunteer for water this week (24 small mineral water bottles).

Game 1: Kanan
Game 2: Eric
Game 3: Kanan
Game 4: Naren (I owe you S$7.50)
Game 5: Luno (i owe you S$7.50)
Game 6: Olaf/Balbir/Richard/Aneel/Gordon/Mike/Seng can one of you volunteer please

Statistics about the game:

SRC 1st on the league table
SVHA 3rd, 3 points adrift

Form Guide
SRC lies top with 2.6 points/game
SVHA are 5th on 2 points.game

Attack
SRC scores 5.4 goals/game and that's the best in the league
SVHA scores 3.4 goals/game and lie second in the league

Defence
SRC concede 2 goals/game and are 6th in the league
SVHA concedes 1.8 goals/game and are 4th best in the league

The computerised predictor has predicted SRC to win this game by a 1-goal margin. 3-2 the final score. It further affirms that SRC has a 57% chance of winning this game whilst SVHA 36%, the game being drawn is 7%.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Anti-climax but a win all the same

1 Aug 09, SINGAPORE: SVHA moved to third in the SHF Division 2 league following their 3-0 walkover over minnows Khlasa.

Looking forward to a big win and putting paid to the computer prediction of 4-1, the masters went about their warm nonchalantly only to be interrupted by umpire How's prolonged whistle.

With only one umpire on the pitch and neither captain being called over, the umpire had called off the game as Khalsa only had 7 players at that time.

It was later revealed that 2 of the players were at pitch 2 by mistake and were wondering where the rest of their team was? Ironically they arrived at pitch one a minute after How had blown his whilste and awarded the game to SVHA.

Disappointment was all around but a the two sides played a friendly game all the same and SVHA won that encounter 5-3. It's noteworthy that they had lent two of their senior players to Khalsa to even things out.

SVHA take on league leaders SRC this saturday at 4.30pm at Sengkang Stadium pitch 2.
---ends--

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Face Protection

Gentlemen, Tony had suggested that since we will soon be playing sides that focusses alot on penalty corners it will serve us well to invest in some face protections for first or first 2 runners at penalty corners. I think Tony makes a good point.

The cost will be something like S$200 per mask.

I would like to garner your thoughts on this subject. Kindly comment.

Match Preview: SVHA v Khalsa

SVHA v Khalsa 1 August 09 Sengkang Hockey Stadium 1 6pm

SVHA in red shirts, black shorts and red scoks
Khalsa in greyish blue outfit

SVHA have mustered 18 players for this game (Gentlemen, do not expect too much game time, let's share the responsibility of getting the 3-points from this game)

Goalkeeper
Tony Halliwell

Defenders
Seng Richard Luno David Naren Mike

Halves
Ganesha Silvester Eric Hans Balbir Olaf

Forwards
Gordon George Selva Kanan

Team Arrival time 5pm

Team talk by manager (in the absence of a non-playing member of the team, Eric will handle the team talk)

Captain: George Edward (however I am mulling over the idea of giving the captaincy to a player who talks the most and gets himself into trouble that way only he will be carded everytime the team gets out of line, what say you?)

Vice Captain: Selvakumar

Form Guide
SVHA have played 4 won 2 drew 1 and lost 1 with Khalsa losing all 4 of their games to date.
SVHA is number 6 on the form guide on 1.75 points/game whilst Khalsa are 12th (last) on the form guide with 0points/game

Attack
SVHA are third best in the attack category with 3.5 goals/game while Khalsa are 10th with 0.75 goals/game

Defence
SVHA are 6th in the defence category with 2.25 goals conceded/game while Khalsa are last with 5.5 goals conceded/game.

Computer generated predicted score for this game based on the above statistics
SVHA 4
Khalsa 1

It is predicted that SVHA has a 72% chance of winning this game with a 2.58 goal margin difference in the least.

SVHA let's get our act together and win this game handsomely.

Tornados blown away by SVHA

26 July 09, SINGAPORE: The Singapore Veterans' Hockey Association brushed aside their defeat to C&C United last time out and blew Tornados away in an excellent second half showing.

Leading 2-1 at the break, a fine half time pep talk from acting manager Richard Ng galvanised the team and produced 4-unanswered second half goals to destroy Tornados.

Selvakumar R bagged 4 goals to bring his tally up to 5 for the season and George Edward added one to get him on 4 for the season. Gordon de Souza scored the second goal of the game and thus opened his account for the campaign. Kanan Packrisamy who did not score and had arrived only for the second half is on four goals to complete SVHA's 14 goals thus far, information for those stats freaks out there. It's ntoeworthy and encouraging that the SVHA's forwards have contributed all the goals the team has scored.

However, there are some old bad habits that needs to be eradicated from the masters game and the team has acknowledged that they need to work on these things before this week's encounter with table propping Khalsa.

Another win for the Lion masters would see them join SRC and C&C on 10 points at the top of the table.

Next SVHA game is against Khalsa on 1 August 09 at 6pm Sengkang 1.

SVHA crashes to C&C

18 July 09, SINGAPORE: At the newly built Sengkang Hockey Stadium 1, the Singapore Veterans' Hockey Association tasted defeat for the first time this season following a 4-2 reverse at the hands of high flying C&C United.

The ill-tempered match did not produce any goals in the first half until a contentious opener 10 minutes into the second period got things going. The C&C United forward, Vai had appeared to strike the ball with the head of his stick over his head past Tony Halliwell in the SVHA goal. Having not seen the incident originally, Chen Tien How gave the goal following vehement protest from the Masters.

It was a telling point in the game and also a turning point as C&C rode their good fortune and scored 3 more goals in quick succession. The 10-minute spell where SVHA were 4-0 down sapped their spirits, but two break aways from George Edward with Kanan Packrisamy finishing them exquisitely were nothing but consolation to the masters.

However, poor sportsmanship from a C&C United player led to a skirmish between Aneel Kumaarr of the SVHA and the unnamed C&C player. However despite tempers flaring good sense prevailed and things settled down to see C&C United enjoy their victory and SVHA smarting from the agony of their defeat.

SVHA take on Tornados on 26 July 09.