Hockey: Buxton Men's 2nds 4 - 3 Rochdale Men's 2nds

Saturday 23 September saw Rochdale men’s second team having a long trip away to Buxton for a 10am push back against Buxton’s second team.

It was a nice sunny morning in the beautiful Peak District and Rochdale were fired up from the off.

​Buxton had the first push back and looked to build a controlled attack, as Rochdale sat deep. Rochdale made a good start in the opening ten minutes and mostly managed to maintain some sustained pressure on the Buxton defence. 

A successful breakthrough down the left wing and into the circle resulted in Rochdale forcing a penalty corner, after the ball hit a Buxton foot. The well-worked routine broke down slightly, but following some improvisation, it was converted into a goal with a precise slap hit into the backboard from Adam Boodeea.

​The home side started to find a way into the game and managed a few attacks of their own. However, it would be Rochdale who got the next goal. After some good counter attacks, a quick 16 was played straight down the right wing, James Trainor got in behind and crossed the ball from near the baseline to Boodeea, who converted with a first-time strike, thanks to a great advantage from the umpire, who allowed play to continue despite a foul in the build-up.

​Rochdale weren’t going to get it all their own way though and some ill discipline started to creep in, as Buxton put some good attacks together, coming close to scoring a few times, with Dave Marlow having to make a sliding interception at one point.

A green card was given to a Rochdale player for descent which saw him off for the rest of the half. Buxton managed to get a goal back near the end of the first half. A ball to their right winger, saw him display a great solo effort, rounding three defenders before slotting it past the keeper. A good goal, but the defence felt they should have done better.

​Halftime score was 2-1 in Rochdale’s favour. It was good first half performance. A few tweaks were made for the second half and the decision to load the right-hand side was made.

Rochdale had a lot of possession in the second half, but Buxton were deadly on the counter. The away side would get the next goal though. A quick move down the right, transferred to left allowed Trainor to cut into the space created by Adam Massey. Trainor rounded two defenders before smashing it into the net to give Rochdale a two goal advantage.

​With the score at 3-1, with the benefit of hindsight, Rochdale should have kept possession and took the sting out of the game, but the away team kept attacking. They got caught out on a counter, which led to a centre back being shown a yellow card after breaking down play on the halfway line. Buxton made the man over count and scored two goals on the counter to bring the score back to 3-3. 

​Rochdale dug in, but didn’t quite have enough energy to hold on. They were again reduced to ten men, after a yellow card was shown for dissent. Buxton got an attack going and got a D top shot to trickle in off the post after the keeper got a stick to it. 

​The score was now 4-3 and Buxton were reduced to ten men, after a yellow card was shown for a bad tackle in midfield. Rochdale had some good attempts, but couldn’t quite make it count. Final score Buxton 4 Rochdale 3.

It wasn’t the result we wanted, but it was definitely a good performance. We were in the driving seat for large spells against a Buxton side who finished mid table last season. We just need to work on our discipline and a few other things, but if we can play like that every week, we should be fine. Buxton are a good team, but we definitely looked like a team that belongs in that division today.

Man of the match was Graham Broadley.