NICK MAHY wants more of the same. The island coach watched his side demolish Plymouth University 7-1 in the HA Trophy in front of a big home crowd at Foote’s Lane on Saturday. The greens have now been pulled out of the hat to face Eastcote in the next round of the national cup competition.
‘I’m very pleased because it was a really good performance,’ said Mahy yesterday.
‘We’re a lot more dynamic up front than we have been for the last couple of seasons. We were rolling guys on and off and they didn’t know what was happening.’
Mahy, however, is expecting more of a challenge when Guernsey travel to Middlesex on Sunday 28 October.
In the first round of the competition they had an even better result than the Sarnians when they defeated PHC Chiswick 8-1.
The club are linked to Brunel University and feature in the South Premier League Division Two. They are currently second-bottom.
And as is the norm for Guernsey in the competition, not too much is known about the opposition.
‘Apparently they are a quite well established club but it’s one those sides again that we don’t know too much about,’ said Mahy.
‘The sides that have tended to beat us have been in the league above Eastcote so it means that we should be of a pretty equal standard. But we’ve got to concentrate on what we can do.
‘We’ve got to work on our fitness and finishing. At the start of the season the guys are never quite as sharp as they should be.’
Guernsey captain Damian Wallen, who scored a hat-trick from midfield against Plymouth, is expecting a stiffer challenge against Eastcote.
‘They’ve seemed to have walked through the last round fairly easily and I would expect them to be stronger than Plymouth,’ he said.
‘It was a fantastic performance against Plymouth although there are still things that we could do better such as keeping the ball in the opponents’ half. Against better opposition we would have got punished and despite the seven goals we also missed a hatful of opportunities.
‘Again if it was a tighter game it could have been crucial.’
Wallen is looking for a positive result when they go to Eastcote.
‘Ultimately if we play two or three-touch hockey plus score goals we can beat anybody in this division, but unfortunately in this competition against tougher opposition we seem to bottle it,’ he said.
‘I’m confident. We’ve got three weeks of training with extra fitness.
‘As a team performance we worked very hard and we played very nice hockey at times. We’d be disappointed if we didn’t win.’
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