Men's 1s pay for slow start

Halifax 1 – 4 Ben Rhydding

A young skilful Ben Rhydding side blew away Halifax with 3 quick goals in the first 10minutes as yet again they were punished for a slow start.

The opening 5minutes were evenly contested but Ben Rhydding started to get a grip on the game with a series of penalty corners. They stuck the opening goal from one such corner, the striker firing hard and low into the opposite corner. Keeper Mathew Breton and Henry Shelton on the post will have been frustrated they didn’t do better to keep the shot out.

Rocked by this blistering start from Rhydding Halifax suddenly found themselves 2 and then 3-0 down after only 10mins as the midfield and defence were at sixes and sevens. A lack of organisation and positional discipline costing the home side.

Defenders Connor Sutcliffe and David Wheatley were brought off the bench to add some stability to the back line and get the structure and shape of the team back. This took immediate effect as Halifax started to settle and finished the half strongly with chances for Henry Shelton after a cross by Josh Barron and Tom Love after a good work through the middle from Michael Jones, all going close

Fired up at half time Halifax were the stronger team and were starting to be first to the ball and winning the 50/50 challenges. They received further set backs though as Jones received a sin bin for a yellow card and Wheatley was forced off with a broken nose following a stick tackle.

The reset of the half played out fairly evenly and Halifax were able to get a glimmer of hope following a short corner routine. Andrew Marsland slipping the ball to his left for Jones to smash home. This hope was soon extinguished as a few minutes later Rhydding scored again with a spectacular volleyed goal from about 10yards out.

Final score 1-4 and another set of points dropped for Halifax. Results in the rest of the league went in Halifax’s favour but with games running out they need to pick up a couple of wins to ensure safety. Boston Spa away and bottom of the table York Uni at home are next up.