All matches went to expectation in the Hong Kong Hockey Association Premier Division fixtures on Sunday Nov 24 with wins for all teams in the top half of the standings.
The Khalsa-A match against Elite-A and HKFC-A against KNS were particularly one-sided with 13-1 and 8-0 wins respectively, while Valley-A beat HKFC-B 4-1.
KCC-A’s match against Pak-A; and Punjab-A to Shaheen, were the closest encounters of the day.
Shaheen-A have been given some of the top clubs serious trouble this season and their match against the star-studded Punjab-A outfit was awaited with some anticipation. Shaheen now have the confidence to take on these top clubs and are not overawed by the occasion. With their two top-flight experienced players Asghar and Arif Ali leading the way, they took the fight to Punjab—also, all of their youngsters played a part in making the match entertaining and enjoyable.
Sohail Abbas was on target with his penalty corners and opened the scoring for Punjab, but Arif Ali also showed his competence in this skill to even the score for Shaheen to 1-1.
Abbas converted another penalty corner and Waseem Ahmad picked up a long up-field ball to make the score 3-1. Another score for Punjab close to half time took the score to 4-1 in their favour.
Shaheen started the second half well and a hard hit towards goal, from a free hit from just outside the circle, was neatly deflected goal-wards by Yu Chi Wai to make the score 4-2. Punjab extended the score with two field goals to take Punjab’s score to 6-2. A final penalty corner by Shaheen reduced the deficit to 6-3.
Arif Ali in particular played excellent hockey for Shaheen marshalling his forces well and making several impressive runs into opposing territory. But everyone watching must have been impressed with Abbas who controlled the Punjab defence with calm assuredness and his distribution decisions, control and accuracy were impeccable—a real privilege to see superior talent such as this on the pitch and great for the youngsters to see top class hockey in action.
The KCC-A to Pak-A match was expected to be fairly close. Although KCC-A stayed ahead they had a bad period in the second half when they lost a couple of goals and looked in danger of losing the match; but, with some good goal keeping and a late goal, they just stayed in front to win 5-4. With the game almost slipping from their grasp, there was quite a lot of soul searching in the post match discussion.
Standings
HKFC-A remain top of the standings on 21 points, Punjab-A are second on 19 and Khalsa-A are on 17.
Valley join SSSC-A on 15 points jumping ahead of Shaheen who remain on 13.
The bottom half of the table shows KCC-A, SSSC-B and HKFC-B all on 6 points, KNS-A and Pak-A are on 3 and Elite-A are still struggling to record a point.
Next Matches
The big matches of this coming weekend Sunday Dec 1 are the clashes between HKFC-A and Punjab-A, and Khalsa-A against SSSC-A.
