Saturday Update – 23rd September 2023

It was Vikings Derby day on Saturday at the NSC for many of our teams, with our A and B team facing off in the Mixed Premier, and the D team facing the E team in Division 2.

The early pushback of the day was the Division 2 face off between our D and E teams who currently occupy top and bottom position in the Division 2 table respectively.
Early D team pressure was well handled by the E team and despite the D team striving for an early goal, a combination of strong E team defence, good saves and some wayward finishing from the D team, the scores remained 0-0 at half time.
A bit more composure was required in the second half from the D team, and the breakthrough came via a short corner routine that was slotted home by Ash Osbourne early in the second half, a further short corner goal was added by Ben Dougal with Ash Osbourne adding two more goals to complete his hatrick, and finally a flicked goal from Adam Braidwood at a short corner on the final whistle.
Special mention for Ian Perry with a contender for ‘Miss Of The Season’ after inexplicably firing wide from 5 yards with the goal at his mercy…
Some great defending from the E team with standout performances from Mick Wrench at the back and Will Hampson making a number of good saves throughout the match.
This result and other results in Division 2 currently leaves Vikings Mixed D two points clear at the top of the table, but unfortunately our E team still occupy bottom spot waiting for their first points of the season.

Next our Mixed C team came up against rivals Valkyrs C.
Our Mixed C team have had a tough start to the season so far, and were aiming to get some points on the board this weekend against a Valkyrs team with one win and one loss.
Half chances throughout the match with some good saves from Tom Babb in the Vikings goal and Chris Thomas of Valkyrs applying plenty of pressure to the Vikings defence.
However the Vikings team made their chances count with two of the u18s (Josh Kaighin and Molly Wheeler) getting on the scoresheet to allow Vikings C to take a valuable 2 pts from this match.

Up next at the NSC our A team faced our B team, and club derbies are always nervy games but a solid performance from the A team saw them to a 7-0 win with three coming in the first half.
Tom Burrows and Darryl Jago both firing home top D strikes and Burrows hitting another into the top right hand corner to set up 3-0 lead at half time, the A team didn’t have it all their own way however as top performances from all the u18s in the B team put the A team under a lot of pressure in the middle part of the pitch.
Some fine saves from Sam Spooner and Kylie Stewart off the line kept the score lower. Into the second half and the A team wanted to try out a few short corner routines with the first slotted home by Kim carney then Will Bridson.
Archie Caley had a goal ruled out for back stick after a fantastic piece of play with the game becoming more open as the half wore on, and the A team added another goal for Darryl and Kim to finish up 7-0.
A good game and great display of skills on both teams was a joy to be a part of.

Final match of the day was the Vikings U15 up against a strong Bacchas U15 team who currently sit top of the league.
The Vikings team battled as well as they could coming up against many island squad players in the Bacchas team who showed their experience and skills to go into a commanding lead at half time at 7-0.
However a much improved second half with standout performances for Morgan Braidwood at the back and Lily Mildwaters in goal restricted the chances for Bacchas with the final score finishing 9-0.
Once again the young Vikings players showed great spirit, with many still adapting to hockey on a full sized pitch, as they continued to fight until the final whistle.