Abergavenny Under 11 Tournament at Tylorstown

A confident Abergavenny Under 11 squad began their indoor hockey in Tylorstown last weekend. The game is very different to playing hockey outside as it is very like five a side football, with quick fire matches, and a fast moving ball.

Abergavenny faced Llanishen/Caerphilly in their first match, with the team showing early on that they understood how to play indoors, goals from Fergus Allen and Alex McGlynn together with strong defensive play from Ricky McGlynn, Hope Pritchard and Matthew Charles, meant goalkeeper William Allen had little to do and Abergavenny won 2-0.

Abergavenny faced an understrength Cardiff in their second match, however they seemed to have lost all of the fluency of their earlier game, and despite attacking the Cardiff goal constantly they failed to score. Almost inevitably Cardiff had a few breakaway attacks and scored from one of these, giving Cardiff a 1-0 win.

Abergavenny had their greatest test in their third game against an in-form Newport, it was here that Tom McGlynn and Mitch Heffernan played their best hockey. Both had been making tackle after tackle in midfield, but it was against Newport where the teams were very evenly matched that it showed how well they were playing. Newport scored a deserved goal following a poor clearance and despite some chances Abergavenny failed to beat the Newport goalkeeper, another 1-0 loss.

Finally a replay against Llanishen/ Caerphilly, Abergavenny scored through Piers, unfortunately Abergavenny's defence allowed Llan/Caer a few shots on goal, and they scored from one of these to give a 1-1 final score.

Not a bad outing for the Under 11 squad, they did show that they have again made progress and are a threat in all of their matches, however they need to develop better marking in their defence.