Men's 1s clinch opening weekend win
Halifax Men's 1s got their season off to the best of starts with a comfortable 4-0 win over Boston Spa.
A restructure over the summer saw Matthew Metcalfe take over as manager, Jake Bamforth replacing Matthew Graham as captain and a couple of new faces join the squad.
The result could have been much different as Graham aggravated a groin injury in the warm up and new signing Andy Kaye limped off with a hamstring injury shortly before half time, but the pre-season work that the side have put in paid dividends and they were already 3-0 by the time the second half began.
Josh Barron grabbed two quick goals within the first 15 minutes; his first being an excellent finish from a tight angle and his second from close range after good build up work from Josh Sutcliffe.
Skipper Bamforth then got off the mark with a neat penalty corner finish from a pass from Graham.
Another debutant Andrew Marsland was showing he looked more than comfortable at this level after being promoted from the 2nd XI following an eye catching season last year. Calm and assured in possession and playing lots of neat passes out of defence – something he continued all game and resulted in him taking the man of the match honours at the end.
The half time talk was about retaining possession and killing off the game within the first ten mins of the half and Halifax stuck to those plans as their pressing game forced Spa onto the backfoot and they rarely troubled debutant keeper Matthew Breton, who along with his backline had a quiet day, although there was one moment of controversy as Connor Sutcliffe managed to turn the ball into his own net with seemingly no danger around but the umpires failed to agree if the ball had been touched in the D by a Spa player first and ruled the goal out.
With the game running into its final 5minutes, it was the other Sutcliffe brother, Josh, who made up for his sibling’s mistake with a calmly taken goal in the final minute after Michael Jones’ penalty corner strike was deflected up off the keeper.
Halifax travel to Sheffield Hallam, who will be pushing for the league title this season.