Report by Joe Carroll
Supernova 4 ran out on Sunday displaying a lot of the new talent we’ve recruited over the summer. Lining up with 5 brand new players, at the start, bringing on another new player later on. It also featured 3 players who’d never played a competitive game of korfball before, though you’d never know from their performances.
Croydon 4 had been unlucky with some late pull outs and so could only field a team of 7. This meant our opening attack, Hayley, Sarah, Francis and Joe, faced the 3, with Hayley volunteering for the non-shooting role, for the first half. John, Matt Snelgar, Xanthe and Femke lined up in defence, against the Croydon division of 4.
Joe got the chance to open Supernova 4’s account for the season with a penalty, after some quick running by Francis, he stepped up and promptly missed the chance. Making quick amends, though, he nailed a medium range shot and another penalty to take a quick 2-0 lead. John added a third, before Croydon managed to get one in return. We added another 2, Francis opening his Supernova account with a well taken goal and another penalty for Joe, and Croydon scored once more, to allow us to go into half time at a comfortable 5-2 lead.
Coach Bardin came over to give us a couple of pointers, but mainly the message was more of the same. Hannah replaced Femke, meaning Hannah played for three different Supernova teams on the same day, and Hayley took over shooting duty from Sarah.
It didn’t start well, as Croydon scored with the first attack of the second half, but that was pretty much their sole glimmer of light for much of the half, as Supernova scored a further 5 unanswered goals, scores from Hannah, Matt (another debut score), another for John, one more for Francis and another penalty from Joe, before Croydon added a late consolation.
We did face a 7 person opposition, but this was a great result for Supernova 4, with some fantastic performances. Francis showed a great turn of pace and earned a brace on his debut, Hayley was unlucky not to have scored with some excellent shooting, Sarah had some good shots of her own and had some truly inspired defensive work (I lost count of the number of interceptions she made), Matt and John added some strong goals, Femke with some great support play, Hannah gave a really good half, with a smart goal and Xanthe gave a really strong all round performance, only a couple of weeks after picking up a korfball for the first time.
Girls
Xanthe Shacklock, Sarah Halpin, Hayley Mepham, Femke De Jong, Hannah Tapsell (1) (sub)
Boys
Matt Snelgar (1), John Coughlin (2), Francis Hemingway (2), Joe Carroll (4) (c)