In their second and final preseason game, Dumfries men’s 1s capped their
preparation for the upcoming season by hosting Carlisle Hockey Club. In recent
games the fixture has been dominated by the men from The Great Border City but
the Doonhammers took to the field with confidence knowing a result was there for
the taking.
The opening quarter began with both teams trading glancing blows without finding a
knock blow. Keeper Oates was called into action for a couple of saves but nothing
that the Maddie Hinch pupil couldn’t deal with. Carlisle eventually broke through with
a well worked team move 0-1. The squad from the south quickly extended their lead
0-2. The scoreline remained unchanged at the end of quarter. After words of
encouragement the men in red returned to the pitch and at the same time also
entered the twilight zone… Dumfries found a foot hold back in the match from the
most unlikely of sources! Starting at the back S Marshall began a mazy run and
ended up winning a short corner; the defender now lost, stayed up for the resulting
short corner and somehow ended up firing a rebound past the goalkeeper. 1-2. This
is the defenders 2nd goal for the first time after the 1st came 13 years ago. We at
DHC HQ are still scratching our heads about how this happened. HT 1-2.
Words of encouragement were passed on at halftime as the game was there for the
taking. However, despite the new season the mens 1s kept the tradition of a slow
start and managed to concede 2 quick fire goals within the opening 5 minutes of the
2nd half. 1-4. Undeterred, the hosts continued to plug away for goals and once again
an unlikely source within the team stepped up to the call. Again we can scarcely
believe we are typing this but Milne Senior got on the scoresheet… Having checked
the annals of time, we seem to think this maybe the first time the Milne Stalwart has
scored in back to back games since records began…. The scoreline remained
unchanged until the end and finished up 2-4.
MOTM was Scott Marshall for a very very rare goal
DOD despite a good performance was Nathan Bean.