HOCKEY
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Souths survived a late scare from Lithgow Zig Zag to claim the four points in a 4-3 men’s Premier League Hockey result on Saturday.
On two occasions Souths found themselves a goal behind in Lithgow before they produced their best hockey in the 15 minutes either side of half-time to take a 4-2 lead.
Zig Zag had virtually all the ball for the final 10 minutes and, after finding a third goal, they were unlucky not to take a share of the points against a visiting side on the back foot.
While happy for the win, Souths coach Dale Campbell said his team needed to learn a lot about remaining on the front foot once they find a lead.
“Because we had so many people behind the ball, every time we’d get the ball out they were just able to bring it back into our circle again,” he said of the close ending to the match.
“At one stage we had almost all 11 players inside the circle and were wondering why we were giving away so many penalty corners.
“It was nail biting, I must admit.”
Campbell said it was a classic case of a team slowly drifting away from their game plan as the score card changed.
“It was a pleasing result in the end, but I’m disappointed with the way that we let them back into the game,” he said.
“It got frustrating because we had too many guys trying to defend.
“Our fitness came through at the end though. We were able to push on.”
It was 15 minutes before the first goal of the match came the way of Zig Zag when a strong run down the right wing was finished off at the far post.
Just minutes later Souths hit back from a penalty corner through Dylan Smith.
The hosts got themselves back into the lead off a penalty corner of their own before Bryce Hitchcock made sure the scores would be level at half-time.
Souths had the momentum after the break and it led to repeat circle penetrations. Smith capitalised from the penalty corner once again before Jono Cole managed the same feat to give his team a two goal advantage.
From there the two blues crawled back into their shell as Zig Zag looked the bigger threat on the ball, refusing to put their heads down despite the score.
After cutting back the margin to just one Souths looked uncomfortable.
The Bathurst outfit was able to survive a run of late penalty corners, including two after the full-time whistle, to take the maximum points.
SOUTHS 4 (Dylan Smith 2, Bryce Hitchcock, Jono Cole) defeated LITHGOW ZIG ZAG 3