Benedict van Woerkom, five goals for Dalefield. PHOTO/FILE
By Gary Caffell
Farriers Dalefield coach Willie Schaefer gave his team a “bit of a spray” when they came out of the first quarter of their Wellington premier division men’s hockey match with Naenae at the National Hockey Stadium on Saturday, and it obviously worked the oracle.
Up 2-0 at the time Dalefield were struggling to get any continuity into their play and Schaefer was frustrated that they were not adhering to the game plan of quick movement of the ball through a high pass rate.
“We were doing too much dribbling rather than passing so they got a bit of a spray and things certainly improved after that,” Schaefer said.
Improve is hardly the word of it.
Over the next three quarters Dalefield added a remarkable 15 goals to their scoreline to win by 17-0, possibly a record margin for them at premier division level.
And this was a team missing five of their regular squad members, including influential centre half and skipper Dane Lett.
“There were some really nice goals scored, the passing was excellent and we basically ran them off their feet,” Schaefer said.
Taking Dane Lett’s place at centre half was Joseph Robertson and he had a fine game, and there was no more potent attacker than Benedict van Woerkom, who finished with five goals.
Also scoring a multiple number of goals were Trent Lett (4) Aaron Oakley and Zan Hardie, both of whom finished with hattricks.
The Dalefield women’s team scored a 5-0 victory over Indians in their Wellington premier division match also played at the National Hockey Stadium.
This was a rather messy affair with Indians adopting tactics aimed at keeping the final score line to reasonable bounds rather than looking to offer much from an attacking angle.
“They went out there to make it as hard as possible for us to score goals, and we weren’t as composed as we needed to be, we wasted a lot of scoring chances by rushing into shots rather than working the ball around,” Dalefield coach Michael O’Connor said.
“Still we picked up the bonus point and that was always the main objective.”
Two of the Dalefield goals were scored by Brigette Mossman and other scorers were Katherine van Woerkom, Karla Emery and Georgia Percy.
