Junior News

Playing without their usual intensity and confidence, the Waverley Under 17 A were soundly defeated by Essendon 5 goals to 1 – their first defeat of the 2010 season.

Appearing to be intimidated by the ferocity of the Essendon tackles and defensive pressure, the Waverley boys were made to pay dearly for repeatedly turning the ball over in the midfield and for the lack of defensive intensity that enabled Essendon players to carry the ball to repeatedly enter their circle to shoot on goal or secure penalty corners.

The standout player for Waverley was clearly Ben Wilkinson. Certainly, without Ben’s stoic efforts the result would have been substantially worse. Mention also needs to be made of the efficient stick work of Callum Smillie that lead to Waverley’s only score.

Much can be learnt from this performance and all remain confident that the boys will regroup and emerge a better team as a result of this experience.

A solid 6 – 3 victory over Doncaster Hockey Club once again demonstrated that the Under 17 A team is a close knit group prepared to play for each other with great spirit and tenacity.

From the opening whistle Waverley focused on putting pressure on the ball, forcing a number of vital turnovers. The opening goal was illustrative of this, with the ball being moved quickly down the ground to Waverley speedster James Knee who, with consummate skill, glided through the circle and flicked the ball home for the first of two goals for the night. Soon after, the ‘tomahawk king’ Riley Maddock slotted home a magnificent shot into the roof of the net from just inside the circle. Riley’s second great tomahawk for the night was the culmination of a wonderful transition play that saw the ball moved brilliantly from an opposition short corner to the Waverley circle in the blink of an eye.

While Waverley dominated possession for much of the game, mid-way through the second half momentum appeared to shift. With two of its top running players on the bench with injuries, Doncaster was able to score two goals. The concern held by many, that the Waverley boys would ‘run out of legs’, proved to be unfounded when the group lifted to once again assume control of the match. This was achieved via an accurate and quick penalty corner push out from Jonathan Wentworth that enabled Waverley to score from a drag flick. Then the game was put beyond doubt with a magical goal from David Jensen.

It would be remiss not to mention the great work in defence of the likes of Zac Davis, the hard work of Nick Steffens and the goal keeping brilliance of Ben Wilkinson.

In tryingly wet conditions that made quick ball movement very difficult, the Waverley Under 17 A team scored an impressive 4 – 0 win over Southern United.

The scoring was opened with a brilliant team goal that saw the ball transferred quickly down the ground to David Jensen who held on to it until he had drawn the goalkeeper and a defender to him, then with precision he neatly passed to Riley Maddock who clinically slotted the goal home. The next two goals came from goal scoring machine, James Knee. The second of these will certainly be hard to top for goal of the season: an unstoppable forestick drive from near the edge of the circle that flew into the roof of the net. The final goal was the result an excellent short corner strategy that saw a powerful tomahawk find the back of the net.

Once again, teamwork and discipline were the hallmark of this performance and thus it is probably unfair to highlight individual performances. Having said this, Todd Cope was outstanding in defence. Special mention should also be made of David Howson’s solid contribution in his first game of the season with the Under 17 A team.

For sale is a Grays GX5000 Megabow 37.5″ hockey stick. Stick is all but new, only been used for a couple of training sessions, still in near perfect condition. If you are interested in the stick, please call Cathy Afleck on 0419 595 039 Retails for approx $240 will sell for $130

An article was run in the Waverley Leader recently highlighting the WHC minkey program run on Saturday mornings. Its great to see the club in the news and congratulations to the organisers Nikki and John.

You can view the article here.

Junior uniform orders are now ready to be collected. Uniforms cannot to be taken without payment in full.

There will be 2 Uniform collection nights at clubrooms on:

• Tuesday 13th April 5.30pm to 7pm
• Thursday 15th April 6.30pm to 8pm

Payments can be made by credit card/eftpos or cash.

U15 Boys Practice Match vs Southern United
7:00pm Friday 9th April (6:30pm warmup) at Farm Rd Moorabbin

U17 Boys Practice Match vs Southern United
7:30pm Friday 9th April (6:45pm warmup) at Waverley HC

All players in the U15 and U17 squads are expected to attend.

All U13 and U15 Boys and Girls are invited to trial for Eastern Hotshots. Eastern Hotshots is a zoned development training squad made up of Junior players from Camberwell, Knox and Waverley Hockey Clubs. The training culminates in the State Championships held in July 2010. From these Championships, an U13 & U15 Boys and Girls State side is selected.

Download the flyer for all the trial dates.

The 2010 season now draws closer and all our Junior teams will have now commenced training as of this week. The Junior Committee is now in the process of finalising numbers for teams and age groups. We will again have an increase in players and teams for this year from the previous year. In the interest of ensuring that all junior players at Waverley have the opportunity to get plenty of game time on the pitch, that we need to place restriction on player numbers.

We are now currently fully subscribed to our U15 Boy’s teams so we are unable accept anymore registrations in this age group.

We have only 2 or 3 places left in U11 Mixed, U13 Boy’s & U15 Girl’s teams, so anyone who wishes to play in these age groups should register straight away or will be in jeopardy of missing out.

Also with the high number of boys who have registered for U13 teams, we are currently unable to fulfill any requests for U13 girls to play in mixed teams as well. If we were to do this it would have to be at the expense of keeping an U13 boy from playing this year.