Hockey: Golborne Men’s Seconds 1 - 3 Rochdale Men’s Seconds

Aaron Hunter - Rochdale Men’s Hockey Seconds

Rochdale beat Golborne in a close and exciting game.

Rochdale, again set up in their new formation and were ready to attack from the off with a high press forcing Golborne back against their own D.

Within the first five minutes Rochdale had several shots, and Aaron Hunter eventually put Rochdale in front with a thunderous goal.

The high press was paying dividends and Golborne had no answer to it, other than resorting to hits straight thorough the middle handing possession over to Rochdale time and time again.

Anytime a Golborne attack did break through, the defensive line of Karl Wynn, Dave Marlow and Sam Wilkinson quickly stopped their progress.

Rochdale were frustrating the Golborne defence and midfield and the frustration came to a head when Peter Ransome went in for a tackle and a wild swing from the Golborne midfielder missed the ball but connected with Ransome's arm, ruling him out of the rest of the game, which was a blow to Rochdale.

Rochdale captain Dean Close lifted the ball over a defender's stick to Scott Hempsall-Jones, he caught it on the half volley and put it in the back of the net.

At the beginning of the second half Rochdale became complacent allowing the Golborne attack to build, but Sam Wilkinson was alert to the dangers.

In a cruel twist of fate, a Golborne shot caught a Rochdale foot on the way to a possible goal earning a penalty flick. All eyes were on Rochdale keeper, Brian Robinson. Robinson dived the correct way, but the ball clipped the post and deflected in for 2-1.

Rochdale started to press hard earning a couple of short corners with runs into the D by Kieran Hunter. With a well worked short corner routine Bjorne Brauns put the game to bed scoring with a brilliant shot.

Captain Dean Close said: "We played very well today against a good team. The new formation and the high press were effective and the young players such as Kieran Hunter, Peter Ransome and Sam Wilkinson are showing their worth as team players. It is always great to see something we have been working hard on in training come alive in a match and our game management for the last 10 minutes was superb."

The Flying Horse man-of-the-match was Aaron Hunter.