Our U16 Boys squad held their second East District Development league fixture at home on Sunday 5th October. A fine Autumn afternoon at Kelso High School saw the boys face a very strong ESM side who had clearly travelled down the road with a point to prove.

Our young side found the going tough right from the first minute as an older and more experienced ESM team took a firm grip of the game and dominated possession. Whilst the first quarter remained goalless we knew we were in for a long afternoon!

This season will be the first for many of our boys to play regular 11-a-side, full pitch hockey and there is a lot to learn given the pitch has doubled in size for many of them. Unfortunately we kept turning the ball over and playing through the middle of the pitch which ESM gladly took advantage of and were 2-0 to the good at half time.

Our strengths last time out were to play wide and send our forwards attacking the channels and running at defenders. So we looked to encourage that style of play after the half time break with some success. However, the ESM side were technically very strong and picked up from where they left off to run in two further scores to take themselves out to 4-0 by the end of the third quarter.

We emphasised the importance of staying in the game, being committed and resilient when the going got tough. It was great to see that all the squad responded and played a gritted final quarter and made the ESM team earn their final two goals, who ran out as 6-0 winners at the final whistle.

We will not be successful in every game we play, some will be tough to weather but this young side will develop over the next few seasons and take something away from every game we play - we win together and we lose together!

KHC U16 Boys Team vs ESM: C. Alton; M. Banks (GK); M Banks; R. Fleming; T. Grant; F. Gray (GK); F. Hardie; A. Little; O. McIntyre; J. Moir; R. Patterson; F. Pennington; R. Poe; A. Pollhammer; A. Scott; J. Wilson (Capt.).