HOCKEY: Draw for Coleraine Firsts

Knowing this was an important game Coleraine intended to come out all guns blazing as they had recently. But from the start Coleraine struggled with the slow pitch which resulted in a very equal sided game.

Saintfield created the first openings forcing Rebecca Crowe into a good save. They weren’t to be denied though and broke through the Coleraine rearguard again to take the lead.

This seemed to spur on Coleraine and the girls started to link well with impressive passes up the pitch. Eventually this paid off and after several rebounds off the Saintfield keeper, Grace Bradley slotted the ball into the net to bring the score to 1-1 at half time.

The girls were determined to make better use of the second half and so set up onto the pitch with high hopes. From the whistle Coleraine pressed hard and were rewarded with several penalty corners which went narrowly wide of the net.

Saintfield reacted with their own opportunities and were also unlucky not to convert. Coleraine continued to work hard in midfield and were eventually awarded with another penalty corner. This one impressively deflected into the net by Honour Nethery.

However due to some questionable umpiring from the Saintfield umpire the goal was disallowed. The remainder of the match continued to be a battle with the finishing result 1-1.

Player of the match was awarded to keeper Rebecca Crowe. Coleraine look forward to a better game on Tuesday night at home against Cookstown. Thanks must go to coaches Stephen and Philip and umpire Ivan.

The Thirds played host to North Down for the second week in a row, last week they had their league game and this week it was the quarter finals of the Minor Cup.

Coleraine wanted to prove that they had the beating of this team and started the game determined to dominate the play.

With great midfield play coming from Alex Black, Emma Wallace and Juliet Gaston Coleraine played with great passion.

The home side played great balls out to the right wing of Claire Hodges who in turn passed the ball into the circle for Tori Culbertson who was unfortunate not to convert to the first goal. North Down’s keeper kept the away side in the game and seemed to be able to save all attempts on her goal.

Coleraine started the second half determined that this match was not going to have to go to penalty runs, they continued the relentless pressure on the away defence and with great balls feeding out from Fee Cully Coleraine piled on the attacking moves with Bekah Kennedy playing the ball down the left hand side, unfortunately to no avail.

Coleraine were rewarded with a short corner, where Emma fed the ball out to Juliet Gaston who slipped passed to Tori Culbertson again they were denied by the fantastic North Down keeper.

Coleraine did not give up and did not allow the ball to get out of their defensive 25 Emily Caskey had a shot only to be denied by the post this time, they did not think that a goal was going to come.

However Tori Culbertson took the next ball that she was given from the half way line, passed two defenders to reach the top of the circle where she made no mistake in finding the back of the net.

This settled the home side who did not sit back on their lead and gained a further short corner shortly after this. Emma hit the ball out to Juliet Gaston who had a first time shot deflected up by the defender into the top of the net to seal a 2-0 win for Coleraine.

They would like to thank all the great support they received and also a big thanks to Shaun Hartin and Michelle Budina who gave their time up to umpire.