BEN RHYDDING Men travelled up to Stockton and battled with a brand new pitch on Saturday.
Dry and spongy, it slowed the game down and the ball was skipping and flipping all over the place. Despite this, it only took three minutes for Rhydding to take the lead; Matty Birch leading by example and scoring from a strong corner.
Ross McMillan scored the second with some text book circle work and Will Musgrave claimed the third with a delightful corner.
The fourth goal was an exhibition of class hockey; starting with some impressive defensive discipline to win the ball back from Neil Sugden, Matty Birch and Dave McCollum and then some beautiful connections through midfield from Ross McMillan, Callum Franks and Rob Ramsden to get Charlie Smith on the ball, who was helped by a selfless clearance lead from Rob Elsworth and was able to put Max Helme through to draw the keeper, and slip the ball to the safe hands of Will Musgrave who stroked home the goal at the post.
Stockton scored a nice individual goal before half-time to save face but despite no goals being scored in the second half, Rhydding simply settled into cruise control and dominated.
It was only Stockton’s keeper who pulled off some stunning saves, that kept the score down, 4-1 FT.
Rhydding remain top of the league with three games to go, including Lindum (April 2) who scraped a win to remain snapping at Rhydding’s heels.
There were two club Teams of the Week this week as the Men's second team's 2-1 win against Sheffield Bankers was enough to see them win the Yorkshire Division 2 title and ensure promotion to Division 1 next season.
On Sunday the Under 12 Girls won through to the National Finals after winning on Penalties against City of York.
Elsewhere, BEN Rhydding Women took the lead in the much anticipated match against Universtity of Durham on Saturday.
Earlier in the season Durham won 3-0 so the Rhydding women were keen for revenge. Kate Wood's open play goal just before half-time gave them the advantage going into the break but in a tense last quarter, Durham clawed their way back through a penalty corner goal with 10 minutes to go and struck an open-play winner with just a few minutes left on the clock, 1-2 to Durham at full-time.
This Saturday the Women travel to already relegated, Belper, while the Men entertain Leeds at 2.30pm.
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