Wai Tou/HK Giants

The HK GIANTS were playing against Wai Tou this last Saturday 8th. The 8th position team against the 4th one, all the ingredients to make a nice game, if only we could keep our focus and don’t play a second half same as the last game.

Arrived at the pitch, full of volley ball and badminton players, your favorite reporter lost 10L of water and felt his heart beat going through the ceiling, thinking he might have mixed up the pitch! Fortunately and after confirmation, we were at the right place and we could get changed.

For our first time in our froggy green jerseys, we were 14 players on the game sheet and almost had 5 minutes to warm up our keeper, which is probably what disturbed us. After a powerful “Mushi Nass”, the GIANTS were on the pitch, ready to show off and win this game.

And it worked. The first minutes were ours, scoring a 3-0 in 5 minutes. Our opponents couldn’t find a good shooting position, and when they did, can’t score thanks to their poor accuracy or our keeper! But then, their number 13 woke up and scored 2 goals in a row to bring them back in the game. The following 20 minutes were pretty similar, with a strong defense that blocked all their attempts to shoot at the goal when on our side, we were scoring a few goals to keep a 3 goals lead. The accuracy was not good, but enough to keep a margin.

Unfortunately, and as usual with the GIANTS, the last 5 minutes of the period were the time to rest and a 12-9 in our favor became a 12-12 at the half time. Needless to say that wasting a 3 goals lead is not the best thing, especially when the other team is young and fit and will try to exhaust us.

The half time speech and recommendations were to start as the first half and get back a comfy lead then we can slow down and control the game.

Back on the pitch, the complete opposite happened. Defense was lost, attack even more and our opponents didn’t need that much to score a 4-0 in 5 minutes to lead 16-12. Finally, and after a time out, we scored our first goal at 11 minutes in the 2nd half. But that was too late and after 15 minutes, we were leaded by 6 goals.

Emotionally, we sank through the floor and multiplied wrong choices and mistakes. Poor passing, accuracy down to 0 and five 2 minutes penalty in 2nd half, the only objective was to limit the score gap. Giving them two more easy goals in the last minutes, the final score was 26-18.

Once again, the 2nd half was terrible, showing clearly our main problems. Passing, accuracy and focus. There is no need of training combinations if the ball can’t even roll up from left to right without problems. So we need to work the basis to not waste that many balls.

A few highlights, Angus and Tim, who made some very nice stops and saved us from a bigger defeat. Marcel, for his first game with the GIANTS end up best scorer with 4 goals. Florian and Joakim, who were really close to the red card with 2x2 minutes penalty each. A special thanks to the referees, who tried their best to be fair and despite all we could have thought during the game, really tried to helped us through HK rules. Thanks also to all the supporters came that day, take photos or just lie to us saying we played well, it’s always good to hear!

We have one last game in 2012, against Ho Kwok Pui Zhen, 5th position team. Needless to say that end the year on a win is a must do. And to get ready, we have a training session this Friday 14th from 20h00 to 21h00 at the Wan Chai Park.

Also, the HK GIANTS will have its Christmas dinner on Friday 21st at the Dog House TST, starting from 20h00. Try your best to come over and enjoy one more night with your mates. Wags, mistresses or stranger met on the street are all welcome, the more the best!

See you all very soon on the pitch, ready to rumble!!