Havant 0 v 2 Sevenoaks

On Sunday afternoon Sevenoaks Men’s 1st team travelled down to the south-east corner of Hampshire to play Havant Hockey Club. Sevenoaks were keen to start the second half of the season strongly but were mindful that Havant were fighting for their lives at the bottom of the league and would put up a fight. Coupled with the cold, wet and windy conditions, Sevenoaks knew they had their work cut out.

Despite the conditions Sevenoaks started the game looking the more threatening out of the two. Andrew Ross and Max Denniff initially linked up well but they weren’t able to break down Havant’s defence to create any clear cut chances. Havant were looking to catch Sevenoaks on the counter but the playing conditions were hindering Havant just as much as Sevenoaks. The only real chance came from a Sevenoaks short corner after Andrew Ross was fouled while entering the D. Andrew himself was unable to convert. A poorly timed stick tackle by David Smith led to Max Denniff being wrongly given the green card and Max had to spend the next few minutes off the pitch. Havant looked to capitalise but Sevenoaks defended well and the quarter ended 0-0.

In the second quarter the quality of hockey started to improve. Havant looked more threatening and were able to develop a nice passage of play down the right but weren’t able to get past Sevenoaks’ defence or to test Richard Potton in goal. The deadlock broke when Craig Morton dispossessed a Havant midfielder in Havant’s own 25 causing the ball to float toward David Smith in the D who ambitiously hit the ball first time towards goal. Initially the poor connection did not look like it would be good enough to cause the keeper any issues however what can only be described as a goalkeeping blunder meant somehow the ball rolled over the line. 1-0 to Sevenoaks.

The goal gave Sevenoaks some confidence and a chance down the right created by Nick Barker quickly followed, Barker putting a teasing ball across goal but the two hungry goal scorers Tim Warrington and Andrew Ross both went for it, collided and the chance was wasted. Andrew Ross ran back to position. Tim Warrington hobbled off for an ice pack. Sevenoaks went into halftime with a 1-0 lead.

The second half started with Havant knocking on the door several times but Richard Potton pulled off a string of excellent saves to keep Sevenoaks in the lead. Havant kept the pressure on and won themselves a penalty corner. Sevenoaks have an exceptional short corner defence record and were keen to keep that intact but on a slippery pitch that would no doubt be a challenge. The short corner was miss-trapped by the trapper and Sevenoaks were let off the hook. A lovely counter was started by Cody van Wyk, Oak's new South African recruit, who slipped the ball to Ben Allbery who made a great cutting pass through to Andrew Ross at the top of the D with just the keeper to beat. The Havant keeper made a terrific double save before fouling Andrew and a penalty stroke was awarded. Ross had better luck with this attempt sending the keeper the wrong way with a cool finish bottom right. The third quarter ended with Sevenoaks 2-0 up.

The fourth quarter started with Havant once again causing Potton to spring into action with a lovely save with his feet. Potton was on a mission to keep that clean sheet as it would be three clean sheets in his last three games for Oaks. Havant continued to bombard the Sevenoaks goal to try and salvage something from the game however, Kieran Walton, on his return league appearance after three years at the University of Exeter, made a goal line leg glance to keep the ball out. After a nervy ten minutes of back and forths the job was done and Sevenoaks won 2-0 and were travelling back to Kent with 3 points.

Sevenoaks are at home this Saturday at 5pm against Kent rivals Canterbury.