Hockey: Moss Park Ladies 8 - 0 Rochdale Ladies

Photo: Rachel Jackson

Dionne Collinson was able to fire multiple long hits up the right wing toClaire Hockaday, who was always in the right place

This weekend Rochdale were away to play Moss Park 2nds after a spate of freezing weather postponed the original fixture.

Thankfully this time it was relatively mild for January and dry. Rochdale had several of their regulars absent this week, but that meant there was room to experiment with their formation and team, and included a couple of significant debuts. Unfortunately, it turned out that the determination Rochdale brought to the match didn't match the scoreline.

Moss Park fielded a strong and experienced team that was able to capitalise on their opportunities. Black made an excellent defence debut by closing down the opposition as right back and speeding out from the baseline on a short corner. Bringing Moon onto the pitch allowed Black to move back up front to rotate along with the rest of the strikers, along with a fresh set of legs so that even as Moss Park were able to repeatedly find the back of the net, Rochdale's defence displayed excellent movement across the back of the pitch even as their opponents relentlessly switched sides to throw them off.

Despite all that, Rochdale still made their own chances. Collinson and Hockaday showed great teamwork as Collinson was able to fire multiple long hits up the right wing to Hockaday, who was always in the right place. Similarly Hockaday nailed a free hit up to Collinson as she ran up into space on the wing, who was then able to fire it across the D.

Unfortunately it was too well defended to convert into a goal. By half time Rochdale were five nil down, but were able to analyse what had just happened objectively to make a few key changes to make the most of their observations. Moon and Palmer were swapped between the back wings, and Parton and Yates paired to switch between up-front and the wing as their play required.

Despite the scoreline Rochdale kept throwing everything they could at the match. Every time they worked the ball into their attacking zone their strikers fought for it to try and win themselves something. Peters made many helpful interventions in her debut match by keeping the ball in Rochdale's possession to pass it off to someone in space and also digging in to steal the ball back from Moss Park's defenders.

The final score was 0-8, with no Rochdale goal scorers.

Player of the match was Claire Hockaday.

Team captain Collinson said: “Well done ladies, a hard game after mince pie season. Looking forward to getting back to training and working on some improvements for the rest of the season. Congrats to Julie Peters on her debut.”

Rochdale's team:
Keeper; Sam Partington.
Defence; Lily Black, Dionne Collinson, Claire Hoyle & Hannah Palmer.
Midfield; Claire Hockaday, Paula McDonald, Jennie Ransome & Arabella Yates.
Forwards; Daisy Parton & Julie Peters.
Substitutes: Becki Moon.