Ben Rhydding Ladies 3

Brooklands Poynton 2

BEN Rhydding Ladies began their league campaign in the England Hockey Conference North with a thrilling win over a confident Brooklands Poynton side.

The teams were evenly matched but Rhydding got the first goal in the 22nd minute from a deflection by Kate Wood from a pass.

The lead did not last long, as six minutes later Brooklands equalised to put the scores level at half-time.

Twelve minutes into the second half the visitors took the lead, but Rhydding were not disheartened and shortly after they pulled the score level with another deflection by Wood at a short corner.

With just 11 minutes to go, with the score at 2-2 some great attacking play from Rhydding led to the ball being fired into the defence and all the Rhydding forwards tried to get a touch on the ball.

It fell to Beth Cordukes to tap the ball over the line to make the final score 3-2 to Rhydding.

This weekend sees the Ladies travel to Timperley.

Doncaster 1

Ben Rhydding Men 4

FOLLOWING a narrow defeat away at highly fancied Bowdon, the Ben Rhydding Men were on the road against Doncaster.

Ben Rhydding dominated much of the play with some stunning hockey – great leading patterns and connections in the flow from new boy, Dave McColloum, at left half.

Intelligent and selfless leading from another new boy, Wil Jones, opened up the opportunity to be very direct at times.

Clinical defending from the experienced Neil Sugden and solid Matthew Birch help Ben Rhydding to look like a unit with great teamwork and solid patterns of play.

Ben Rhydding looked like scoring throughout but actually took us 16 minutes - winning the ball from the press again and connecting with several passes before Josh Till slipped the ball past the keeper.

Charlie Smith was a handful for Donny and caused chaos in their defence to leave Will Musgrave open on goal.

He showed icy composure for his finish to put Rhydding 2-0 up.

In the second half Ben Rhydding were awarded a penalty flick, which was converted by Man of the Match Musgrave.

Two minutes later an excellent through ball from Birch was picked up by George Gamble who slotted home.

At 4-0 up with ten minutes to go the win was in the bag, though a flurry of cards given against Ben Rhydding helped Doncaster pull one goal back in the final minutes.

This Saturday Ben Rhydding are at home to Stockton at 3pm.