Hockey: City of Manchester Men's 3rds 1 - 5 Rochdale Men's 2nds

Mike Leaning was named man of the match

Rochdale Men’s second team travelled to play City of Manchester Men’s third team at the Armitage Centre on Saturday 21 January. There were a few question marks about whether the game would be on, due to the snow and low temperatures, but the pitch was clear and not frozen so the game went ahead.

​Rochdale started the game badly for the first 20 minutes. Their passing and movement were off and the decision making was not quite right either. Some of it was that it was taking a while to get used to the bouncy pitch, but the away team probably needed to have a sharper warm up.

​Consequently, Manchester managed to apply some early pressure, leaving four players high and making it difficult for Rochdale to play out from the back. It wasn’t all one-way traffic and Rochdale did manage to get a few attacks going, but it would be Manchester who scored first. Counter attacking down their left, they managed to fire a cross in from the 23m line to their forward, who had drifted off his man, who deflected it in.

​Some strong words and a kick up the backside got Rochdale moving towards a higher gear. The away team started to play around Manchester and made them pay the price for leaving to many players high, as Rochdale won their first penalty corner. The first one broke down, but they successfully recovered the ball and won another one. This time Bjorn Brauns tweaked it a little and struck a powerful hit into the backboard to level the score.

​Rochdale started to look a much-improved side and applied a lot of pressure on the home side for the last 15 minutes of the half, which resulted in a goal of the season contender from Ste Hirst. A Rochdale attack down their left pushed Manchester’s defence deep into their final third, the ball was then transferred to James Trainor on the right. The defenders dropped off to pick up the passing options, allowing James to drive into the circle and strike the ball powerfully towards goal. The ball was lifted to chest height and Hirst instinctively struck it into the top corner on the volley. Since it was only Rochdale’s player who had to take action, the pass was deemed not dangerous and the goal stood, to give the away team a 2-1 lead at half time.

The second half was a much brighter start from Rochdale, who quickly added a third goal from a penalty corner. This time the passing routine went to plan and Massey slotted home in style to give Rochdale a 3-1 lead. A fourth was not long in coming as Brauns got his second after dribbling into the circle and striking it into the bottom corner.

​With the score at 1-4, it was tough going for Manchester, who had largely burnt themselves out trying to play at Rochdale’s tempo. They still managed to get some chances though, as the away team started to get goal hungry and the shape started to go. It didn’t take too long to get back though and the defence did a good job of keeping Manchester at bay, although Manchester did have some players with good ability.

Rochdale added a fifth goal from another penalty corner. This time the ball was switched left unexpectedly to Dean Close, who hammered the ball in to put the game out of Manchester’s reach.

The final score was City of Manchester 1 - 5 Rochdale.

After the game, captain Adam Massey said, “It was a bad start, but we dug in and played our way back on top. This was a good result away from home that keeps a distant dream of promotion alive but we will be severely tested against Bowden Men’s sixth team at home next week, who drew with us 5-5 at their place.”

This week’s man of the match was Mike Leaning, for a solid and tireless performance in the midfield.