Men's 1st Team v Stockport

After some very close games with Brooklands, Mellor and Heaton Mersey the feeling amongst the team was the Stockport were there for the taking. This positivity seemed to be reflected in the opening minutes of the game. Timperley's James Bates fort doggedly on the face-offs and came up with the ball time and time again giving the team a strong advantage. Some fastball movement and intelligent play lead to Mike Armstrong opening the scoring, quickly followed by a brilliant individual goal from Bates. An good performance from goalkeeper Tim Blower made life even more difficult for the visiting team. Blower made several very impressive saves and team worked well together to clear the ball quickly. All in all, it looked like a promising start from Timperley. The 1st quarter ended 2-1 to the home side.

The 2nd quarter saw Stockport bounced back though. They started to work the ball and the game became more and more physical. It took them time to break down the defence but they eventually scored the next 4 goals giving them the lead for the first time in the game. The change of momentum become more evident as the home side started to become very wasteful with possession. Jack Brook kept Timperley in the fight, netting twice leaving a half time score go 4-5 to Stockport.

The half time break seemed to only embolden Stockport further as they came out fighting hard. Timperley, unfortunately did quite the opposite. The home side seemed flat and static. There was very little that could be described as “team lacrosse”. From the defence being quiet and passive, to a midfield and attack that threw the ball away cheaply, the team performance has gone. Stockport capitalised by scoring 5 more goals. One of Timperleys only flashes of brilliance came in the form of a well worked fast break that saw Will Greaves find the back of the goal. The score going into the final quarter was 5-10, leaving Timperley with an uphill battle.

This isn’t the first time this season that Timperley has had to battle back into a game from 4 or 5 goals down and the team has a good record of fighting back, pulling together and putting on a good 4th quarter performance. However on this occasion it wasn’t to be. The wind had quite clearly been knocked out of the teams sails; ground balls seemed to be dominated by Stockport, the fast tempo, attractive attacking lacrosse we’ve seen in recent weeks was non-existent and the defence remained flat. Timperley managed to get 3 goals though it can’t be denied that they were ultimately very individual efforts. Stockport won the quarter 4-3 taking the final score for the day to 8-14 to Stockport.

Timperley's first game of 2020 will be the return leg against Stockport. They will know it is a game that can be won with the correct application.

Goal scorers:
Jack Brook - 3
Mike Armstrong - 2
Will Greaves - 1
James Bates - 1
Greg Sandy - 1