JUST a week after their opposition produced the upset of the season, St Pat’s taught the Orange Wanderers a lesson during a 9-1 men’s Premier League Hockey demolition on Saturday.
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Four first half goals and another five in the second showed the ruthlessness of the Saints at its best, with coach Jaden Ekert slotting five.
And it came without the services of their most dangerous attacking player, Matt Naylor.
“I think this is the second or maybe third time in my whole career that I’ve scored five, so it doesn’t come around all that often,” Ekert said.
“We’ve wanted to send a message to the competition to say that we are the best, and the way we played against Orange went a long way to showing that.”
The Wanderers were coming into the game on the back of a big upset over Lithgow Panthers and their confidence would have been sky-high.
Within five minutes of the opening whistle, Ekert had hammered home his first of the day from a short corner, and from there Pat’s were never headed.
They conceded a lone goal early in the second half but quickly stamped out any thoughts of a miracle Orange comeback, with Brendon Burke, Sam McPherson, Brodie Cooke and Riley Hanrahan all scoring.
“There were patches where Orange looked really good and played well but we defended those periods well. There were others where everything we did was absolutely 100 per cent perfect,” Ekert said.
“Our passing and our trapping, our marking, they were all fantastic for large parts of the game.
“It was also very pleasing to really go on with the job after we’d more or less wrapped up the result. There have been a couple of second halves recently where we haven’t quite done that. It was great to really drive this win home.”
Despite the magnitude of the win and the general crispness with which his team played, Ekert says there are still elements of their game which can be improved.
He declined to say that the hockey Pat’s are playing at the moment is the best he has seen from them since he began playing with them, but praised his players’ attitude and approach.
“Our ball movement was a little bit slow at times during the first half. Ball speed is what kills teams and we don’t want to be running too much. The ball is fitter than we are, so quick passing is something we have to do more of,” he said.
“I don’t think this is necessarily better hockey than we have played in the past, but the style is better, everyone is in this and working hard and doing their role exactly.
“We aren’t relying on one or two players to get the result.”
ST PAT’S 9 (Jaden Ekert 5, Brendon Burke, Sam McPherson, Broadie Cooke, Riley Hanrahan) defeated ORANGE WANDERERS 1 (Nick Sharp)
