HOCKEY
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ST Pat’s have kept their strong men’s Premier League Hockey form rolling along with a 6-2 win over Parkes United on Saturday at the Cooke Hockey Complex.
After soaking up early pressure in both halves, Saints’ defence proved to be the difference as they posted their fifth win of the season.
The result moved Pat’s to within four points of competition leaders Lithgow Panthers after their draw against Souths later in the afternoon.
Pat’s coach Jaden Ekert couldn’t be happier with his side as they kept the pressure on in the race for the minor premiership.
“Like I said in the week, we needed to concentrate on certain aspects of the game. If we held the centre of the park and defended like we should we’d go okay, and that’s exactly what we did in the first half,” he said.
“Second half we did the exact same thing, there was just a five-minute period at the end there where we knew the game was over and kind of fell asleep.”
Ekert believes the match was a showcase of what his defence is capable of when they stick to their structures, Parkes having put away five goals against Panthers a week earlier.
“The defence had to aim up against some really quick guys and get some good structure up the middle. Defensively we were on song today and it was great to see. Against the likes of Panthers and Parkes you’ve got to step up,” he said.
“Everyone did a really great job today, even our young kids like Riley Hanrahan and Aiden Charters, they really stepped up. When everyone plays well we come together as a unit.”
Two penalty corners for Parkes within the first five minutes didn’t give Pat’s the start they were looking for, but the home side held strong then struck the first blow of the encounter.
Ekert worked his way along the Parkes baseline to set up Brendan Burke with an easy finish on the opposite post eight minutes in.
Parkes’ Dylan Wakefield missed a perfect opportunity to equalise when he was unmarked but couldn’t get on the end of a cross and Pat’s punished the mistake when Burke got his second with 10 minutes left in the half.
Pat’s carried all the momentum as the break approached, going 3-0 up when Shane Conroy cleaned up the deflection from a blocked penalty corner strike.
While Parkes continued to create chances after the resumption of play they were unable to get on the board. Wakefield somehow sent a tap in wide from point blank range before Pat’s goalkeeper Daniel Casey blocked a rocket drag flick from a penalty corner.
In contrast Ekert blew the margin out to four and Matt Naylor finished off some good team play from the Saints to add another.
With five minutes to go Burke flicked an overhead pass down field to an open Ekert, giving him just goalkeeper Brendon Roffe to beat. He did it with ease to make it 6-0.
Two consolation goals were found by Parkes’ Jack Elliot, through a penalty stroke and solo effort, but captain Ben Hawken knew the damage had been done by then.
“They’d come out and put a goal on us in the first 15 minutes and we resorted to hitting long balls. You can’t do that against quality teams like Pat’s,” he said.
“We came back and started playing some good hockey and stringing a few passes together, but once they got a few more goals on us we started panicking. We didn’t start working the ball in and playing to our structures.”
ST PAT’S 6 (Brendan Burke 2, Jaden Ekert 2, Shane Conroy, Matt Naylor) defeated PARKES UNITED 2 (Jack Elliot 2)