Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Regular season is over with a last win!

The regular season is now over, and we are proud to finish 2nd of the division. .
Although we had the capabilities to be first!

This Sunday was the game for the battle for the 2nd place, if we won, we keep the 2nd place, if we lost, we go down to 3rd position.

Then, after seeing our 2 left handed player joining, occupying the corridor and enjoying the distribution of our new jersey (so far, nobody found a difference between new and old ones), we started with the ball against BRAVE for the battle of our lifes!

The first 20 minutes were really a tough fight, with a strong defense on our side to prevent them from scoring too much. But our attack, despite some nice combinations, saw too much waste to really lead the game. We kept 1-2 goals difference until the 20th minute, which happened to be-in my opinion- the beginning of the 5 best minutes we played this year. Defense was amazing, strong and fair, and attack was also perfect. Combinations worked, open shots scored and a 5-1 for us to reach the half time on the nice score of 13-8.

We changed the side pitch and compared our muscles during a happy but serious half time, and then started the half time on the same bases! Defense kept doing well and attack, despite a bit more wastes, shown some very nice things. After 10 minutes, we were leading by 8 points, and that was the time for Akita to have its usual lost of focus. Hopefully, our defense still was very good, but we missed over 5 shots in a row, especially 2 in counter-attack (thanks Gerard!). Hopefully, we quickly re-concentrate and the last 10 minutes were an easy and calm end of game. Final score: 25-16.

Some few points to note: it’s so easy when you have a left hand player on the right of the attack! Also, and as it’s never good to complain, we can clearly say that the refereeing was quite unfair, with few looooong attacks for BRAVE (and no time’s foul) but also a whistle really more speedy to stop our attack than BRAVE’s one… Whatever, we can’t change them and we are used to it now!

So, we officially finish the regular season and now comes the time of the play off. No schedule yet for the game, and also no idea on how does it work, but we have to keep concentrate and fully motivated as the teams we will meet now are the best one, including the 2 teams who won us!

We still have the Wan Chai pitch for few sessions (thanks Yannick!), so please try to get there as much as possible, then we can train well!

Next trainings:
- February 22nd, 10.00-11.00pm.
- March 7th, 10.00-11.00pm.
- March 21st, 10.00-11.00pm.

See you all there!

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

6-2

Everything has an end.

After 6 games mastered in a row, with large victory every time, this Sunday 5th we were meeting the team number one of the A2 division. Needless to say that we were all aware of the importance of this game and fully motivated to show our determination!

The 1 minute warm up allowed by the referees over, we were starting in defense. We directly showed that we will be strong and present in the physical challenge. We then tried to play in attack with a winger who would run in quite often, on center’s command. Unfortunately, we have to say that we probably didn’t try enough this combination during the game and can’t judge its efficiency.

The first 15 minutes were absolutely tight, each team replying to the other in defense as well as in attack. We then succeeded to get a 2 goals leading, that we lost 3 minutes later. Wan decided to take a time-out, to let the back line rest and don’t lose our focus. We finally reached the half time on an advantage of 1 goal for Akita 11-12.

We have to notice now that the HKU defense was quite strong, even if not always clean. And despite some strange refereeing decisions, the game was well balanced with a good first half for each team.

We then started the second half in attack, trying to keep this 1 goal lead and increase it. But as every time, we always have a lapse of time with a lack of focus, that this time was fateful. After 13 minutes, HKU scored a 4-1 to lead by 2 goals, 2 goals that we will never reach back.

The last 5 minutes were quite a mess, with a lot of waste in both teams, in shoots and passes mainly. Unfortunately, they were leading and after few bad decisions and too quick attacks from us, we lost the 2nd game this season on a tight score of 19-18.

But, even if the lost is quite difficult to accept, it’s clear that Akita has the capability to win them easily. We just need to work more on our combinations and learn when to calm down in attack to avoid any waste and wrong decisions.

Also, even if we had 3 substitution players, we didn’t have player to let the back line rest, which is an important point.

Finally, highlights of the game for 3 players. Guillermo and Gaspard, who scored half of the goals in the first half, and Fabien, whose defense save us few times and almost brought us the draw, if the referees whistled a foul correctly in the last minute.

Anyway, nothing is over, we have a last game against the 3rd position team on Sunday 19th, that we will definitely nail. Then, play-off will come and that would be the time to show our power.

Until then, we have training every Wednesday night at the Wan Chai Park (10.00 to 11.00pm on 8th and 8.00 to 9.00pm on 15th) and hope to see all of you there!

Friday, February 3, 2012

Scores table

TEAM AKITA HKIED KU CHIU MAN DEMI SHUN LEE CATHOLIC IED SIN FOU PHOENIX HKU BRAVE
AKITA - 18-1710-199-1623-2911-2621-2718-2719-1816-25
HKIED 17-18 -14-1816-2725-1421-2125-1724-1528-1316-18
KU CHIU MAN 19-10 18-14-17-2013-1318-1818-2121-2122-1414-13
DEMI 16-9 27-1620-17-21-1114-1722-2019-2031-1820-15
SHUN LEE CATHOLIC 29-23 14-2513-1311-21-26-1925-2418-3223-1617-14
IED 26-11 21-2118-1817-1419-26-29-1419-1624-1827-18
SIN FOU 27-21 17-2521-1820-2221-2514-29-23-3021-2424-21
PHOENIX 27-18 15-2421-2120-1932-1816-1930-23-25-1215-13
HKU 18-19 13-2814-2218-3116-2318-2424-2112-25-11-20
BRAVE 25-16 18-1613-1415-2014-1718-2721-2413-1520-11-


TEAM MATCH PLAYED WIN DRAW LOST POINTS GOALS DIFFERENCE
HKU 9 80124213:14469
AKITA 9 70221204:14559
SIN FOU 9 50318215:19124
BRAVE 9 60318160:1573
HKIED 9 41413161:186-25
SHUN LI CATHOLIC 9 31510184:1768
KU CHIU MAN 9 2349144:160-16
PHOENIX 9 2167167:201-34
DEMI 9 2076143:190-47
IED 9 1265156:200-44

The HK Giants Team

The HK Giants Team