Flags: Milton Keynes 7 – 12 Welwyn 2’s

MK’s cup run came to a disappointing end with a 7-12 defeat to Welwyn Warriors 2’s at Stantonbury.  Not only was it a defeat, it was the first time a team has scored more than 9 goals against MK this season. So what went wrong?

First up Welwyn played much better than last week when we faced them in the league. Fact.

The MK team was a fair bit different this week to last, and this was a big factor as at times we looked like a collection of players who had never played before (even though that’s not the case). We were pretty awful in defence and gave the ball away far too easily across the field.

It could of been much different as we played good lacrosse in the the first quarter but only had one goal to show for it. Our pre-game tactics for midfield and attack team play seemed to be working. We had plenty of shots and looked the better team.

Things fell apart in the second quarter as we gifted Welwyn 4 easy goals through basic errors. For example, a great piece of defensive hustle would win us the ball, then someone would drop it around the halfway line and Welwyn would score on the fast break.  Time and time again we’d do something stupid. It was very frustrating.

Player/coach Gooch called a timeout to sort things out. The key was to just breath and calm down. We seemed to be playing in a mild panic. The third quarter was better, we moved Frederick into attack and he rewarded us with 4 goals in the second half. George also scored a great long stick goal, bouncing the ball into the top-left corner.

Welwyn just kept scoring goals though. As MK tried to apply more pressure on the ball, any tiny mistake was leading to more Welwyn goals. Last week we intercepted numerous final passes aimed at Welwyn attackers. This week, three easy Welwyn goals came from missed interceptions which left the MK defender out of position and the Welwyn attacker loads of time to fire past Jacob in the MK goal. And a word on Jacob, he made plenty of saves as usual but was getting little help from those around him.

MK have another home game next Saturday vs Brighton Panthers to re-find the form from early in January we saw us win three on the bounce. Key words will be patience, composure and teamwork. Training on Tuesday night will focus on all three and we’ll be fully fired up for our next game.

MoM – Frederick, for the obvious reason.

D0D – Could of been almost anyone but the vote went to George for two reasons. First he tried to flatten an opponent, but missed and instead flattened a teammate (ouch!). Second, he got binned for slashing and pushing in the back penalties, and Welwyn scored on almost all their man-up plays today.

Game Stats
7:12 (1:1, 2:6, 5:8, 7:12)

MK Goals
Frederick Larsson (4)
Charlie Kruczko
George Bascom
Jack Gambrill