We knew before that they were a good side and in the first 20 minutes we found it difficult to hold them,’ said Ed Daubeney, manager of the Jersey side.
‘They also had a South African international, Ryan Vandervliet, who scored two goals in the first four minutes.
They were playing at a much faster pace than we are used to.’ The third goal came from open play with a shot from Patrick Kelly, after ten minutes, and in the 23rd minute another short corner by the South African made it 4-0.
In the 25th minute Tom Doran scored, this time from open play, before they scored two more well-worked goals from Kelly and Simon Roche after 32 and 33 minutes.
‘We were 7-0 down at half-time, but to our credit we were defensively much tighter in the second half,’ said Daubeney.
Even though we let in Ben Edwards to score from open play after 54 minutes and then Doran to score again after 63, both goals came because we were trying so much harder to get forward.
‘This was a steep learning curve, but we played so much better in the second half.
Alistair Hall and Nathan Maguire both created chances and Garret O’Brien in goal was outstanding.
Encouraging ‘It seems an odd thing to say after losing so heavily, but in the second half there were some encouraging performances.
We were also able to blood two of our younger players, Tom and Peter Millar.
‘We knew we were playing one of the top national teams, but this should stand us in good stead for our next away game, to London Wayfarers in the Hockey Association Trophy on 5 November.’ Jersey Investec: Garret O’Brien, Bill Ashton, Mark Dicker, Bobby Minty, Stuart Ramskill, Matthew Harris, Tom Minty, Joe Crill, Robin Le Quesne, Nathan Maguire, Ali Hall, Tom Millar, Peter Millar, Mike James.
