HOCKEY: Crawley suffer opening game defeat

Kent/Sussex Regional
Crawley Hockey Club's Dan LucasCrawley Hockey Club's Dan Lucas
Crawley Hockey Club's Dan Lucas

League Division 2

Kings & Alleyns 5

Crawley’s recovery from 3-1 down to 3-3 proved not enough against a defiant Kings side.

Crawley took the lead as a short corner was worked between Seb Watson and Steve Innes and resulted in Watson firing the ball past the keeper.

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This did not last long as the visitors caught Crawley on a counter-attack to make it 1-1.

This soon turned into 1-2 at half-time and then 1-3 after the break with a goal off Gareth Dunne’s pads.

Carl Wright dinked the ball over the keeper for Seb Watson to walk the ball into an empty goal.

A well worked short corner found Adrian Bettesworth unmarked and he levelled at 3-3.

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Tempers rose and Kings had three players sin-binned. Crawley pushed men forward in search of a winner. However they were twice caught out with goals at the other end.

Captain Alex Watson said: “We gave away some very sloppy goals which have ultimately cost us. We have played nowhere near the standard that we expect.

“ We did well to recover from 3-1 to 3-3 and should have gone 5-3 in front which could have changed the game for us. We must move on and look forward to the game against Blackheath next week.”

Crawley: Gareth Dunn, Carl Warner, Mark Brightwell, Adrian Bettesworth, Alex Watson (C), Carl Wright, Rob Gate, Brendan Maccaoilte, Dan Evans, Kieran Fuller, Steve Innes.

Subs: Seb Watson, Hasan Yousaf, Dan Lucas

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