No kidding (get it?): we may have lost, but we had the best shirts.

Sunday, April 1, 10:45am, Shawland Academy, Glasgow

Definitely better, but no cigar…

Match reports from Sunday, March 25, 3:30pm, St. Leonards Land, Edinburgh

Game 1: Edinburgh City 2 3 – 3 Dundee KC

Another low scoring but decent little game… and another point on the board for both teams. A brace of classic long shots from Rosie got us off to a good start, but City soon pulled one back before the goals seemed to dry up. Mary eventually got things flowing again with a nice running in shot, but then things got a bit stuck again. We tried a good bit of outside feeding towards the end of the first half, but never really looked to have either the speed or the composure needed to finish our chances. So City took the initiative and popped in 2 goals to draw level just before half time. City’s standard of play went up a gear at the start of the second half, but we hung in there quite comfortably, with Nigel & Tanjeel and Rosie & Shane really starting to gel in defence (this was Shane’s debut, and only the second proper game for Tanjeel). The game even looked like it was starting to turn our way at the end, with Caroline and Rachael looking particularly sharp and strong in attack and Steven and Alan providing some really good support. But that was it as far as the goals were concerned, and both teams seemed fairly content with the final result.

Game 2: Edinburgh Uni 4 8 – 4 Dundee KC

I’m not sure that I remember much of this game, other than the real highlights: Alan scoring the second goal of his korfball career by doing exactly what he did the first time – rebounding from his own penalty; Mary scoring from under the post straight from a change-of-ends (well spotted, Steven); Rachael slotting home a nice long shot in the second half; and both Tanjeel and Kim coming really close to scoring their first goals in competitive korfball. Ed Uni’s team was quite strong, with several players “playing down” by at least one squad. But they all played really kindly throughout the match – the boys in particular refusing to take lots of clear shooting opportunities in order to support the more closely matched girls. If anyone else can remember any more than that, please feel free to add some comments! And well done to everyone who played for us – I think that these were two very good TEAM performances, which is really great to see.

Match stats:

Ed City 2 3 – 3 Dundee KC: Caroline, Mary (1, sub’d by Rachael at H/T), Alan, Steven; Rosie (2), Kim (sub’d by Shane at H/T), Nigel, Tanjeel. MVP: ??? (my vote would be Caroline)

Ed Uni 4 8 – 4 Dundee KC: Kim, Mary (2), Alan (1), Steven; Rosie (sub’d by Caroline at H/T), Shane (sub’d by Rachael (1) at H/T), Nigel (sub’d by Graham R with 5 minutes left), Tanjeel.
MVP: ??? (my vote would be Steven, who played really well all afternoon)

Just to keep everyone happy, here’s the SKA development league table following our latest result; a six-all draw away at St. Andrews 2. The match was a very strange affair. Most notable from our point of view were two (stunning!) first-time goals by Alan & Fiona. A full(ish) match report follows the table.

Continue reading →

Edinburgh Mavericks 6 – 8 Dundee KC
Saturday, Feb 25, 11am, Sighthill Campus, Edinburgh

Despite yet another dodgy start (could it be that Dundee really don’t like Saturday mornings?), I suspect that this was Dundee’s best team performance to date.  Mavs were brilliant hosts as usual, but they also seemed fairly determined to make up for their one-goal loss to us in the opening game of the season. Their shots came fast and furious from the outset this time around, and they quickly built up a three goal lead at the start of the game. Once we’d gained a bit of composure in defence though, we started to claw our way back, and by half time we were only trailing by one (HT score 4-3 to Mavs). Mary & Gav sank a couple of nice long-shots, and Nigel converted a fortuitous penalty.

The second half was closely contested throughout, with all of our players really getting into the spirit of the game and playing some pretty decent korfball, both in attack and defence. Gav sank a couple more long shots, and Nigel converted a good collect from underneath the post, plus a decent long shot to put us 7-5 up with about 5 minutes to go. Mavs were not beaten yet though, and holed a great long shot to pull back to 7-6 with about 3 minutes left. Tension grew as our defence begged our attack to play safe (keeping the ball and hanging on to our one goal advantage), but the attack were on a roll and kept on hammering away for a final killer goal. And my how they got it! Caroline finished off a well deserved, and beautifully executed running in shot to seal the game with about 1 minute left to play. The whole team celebrated that goal in style: everyone had really put everything into this game, and we had pulled yet another great result out of the bag.

Special mentions go to Amy, who played a stormer in her first full game (making very few mistakes and really getting into the swing of things), and Lucie Maupetit, standing in admirably for us once again when we were one girl short.

Match stats:

Mavs 6 – 8 Dundee KC: Caroline (1), Lucie, Gavin (3), Steven; Mary (1), Amy, Nigel (3), Alan.
MVP: Nigel

Two more excellent results in from the weekend…

Ed. City 1 13 – 9 Dundee KC
Ed Uni 4 4 – 12 Dundee KC
Sunday, Feb 19, 2.30pm, St. Leonard’s Games Hall, Edinburgh

The details are a little sketchy at the mo, but it sounds like another great performance against last year’s league champions (City 1), including Steve M’s first ever goal in the SKL. Caroline and Ross both got on the score-sheet in the second fixture (against Uni 4) too, bringing our “first time scorers” list up to 3 for the day. And what’s this? Rachael scored 5! Surely she must get the MVP for that? Well done Rach!

The win against Ed Uni 4 could well prove crucial in deciding the final placings in the SKA’s development league. Keep up the good work, Dundee!

Match stats:

Ed. City 1 13 – 9 Dundee KC : Caroline, Eleanor (?), Gavin (?), Ross; Steven M (1), Alan, Rosie (?), Rachael (?).
MVP: ???

Ed Uni 4 4 – 12 Dundee KC: Caroline (1), Eleanor (1), Gavin (2), Ross (1); Steven M, Alan, Rosie (2), Rachael (5).
MVP: Rachael

Dundee KC 1 – 15 St. Andrews University 1
Sunday, Feb 12, 6pm, Menzieshill CC, Dundee

I’m trying to think of a way to make this sound good… so perhaps it’s best to start by ignoring the scoreline? We did get thumped (not literally, of course), but I do believe that we won in the “making lots of noise every time we scored” competition. 🙂

Dundee’s only goal came midway through the second half, courtesy of a fine long-shot from our trump card Eleanor Legg. However, just like St. Andrews, we had a good number of scoring chances spread right across the game. The only difference was that they sank a good number of theirs, while we managed to miss just about every time. 🙁 With a little more practice of course, we should start putting a few more of those away in future. (Every cloud has a silver lining, after all).

Highlights of the game from our perspective? Well, the most excellent league debuts for Kim, Alan, Ross, and Amy. Also, the fact that all of St. Andrews’ goals came from their boys means that all of our girls must have done a really good job in defence (a clean sheet for the girls is defintely “most excellent”).

Many thanks to Gavin Legg for refereeing, and to St. Andrews for being really good sports throughout, and for delivering us yet another lesson in good korfball.

Match stats:

Mary, Rosie, Steven M, Dayne; Eleanor (1), Kim, Nigel, Alan;
subs: Ross on for Alan at H/T; Rachael on for Kim at H/T; Amy on for Mary after ~40 mins;

MVP: Mary