TACKING Point Thunder were simply no match for a rampant Chatham Wolves in their Manning men’s division one hockey grand final on Saturday.
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And Thunder captain Jarrod Smith had no issues in admitting Wolves – the nine-time champions – were far too good in a 5-1 win.
“They are better than we are; they’re a strong, experienced, quality team who were playing in their ninth grand final,” Smith said.
“They went to a different level in the first half and the first 10 minutes of the second half; a level I haven’t seen all season and we couldn’t go with them.”
Thunder only trailed 2-0 at the break and would have fancied their chances of sparking a revival, but it wasn’t to be.
“We felt we had a chance if we could wrestle back some control early in the second half,” Smith said.
In the end, it was a four-goal performance from Chatham’s Australian Schoolboy representative Wade Harry that was the difference.
“Wade is literally a superstar,” Smith said.
“He’s a class above everyone else and then you add those other players with that big game experience and it makes things really tough.”
The Thunder skipper remained proud of his youthful side – half of which were teenagers.
“We had a 13-year-old, a 14-year-old, two 15-year-old’s and a 16-year-old, so we had five players 16 or younger playing in a first grade competition,” Smith said.
They went to a different level in the first half and the first 10 minutes of the second half; a level I haven’t seen all season and we couldn’t go with them.
- Jarrod Smith
“But they were valiant and had a crack.”
Chatham opened the scoring through Luke Hough with a tight angle shot on his back stick inside the first five minutes.
It stunned the young Thunder side and they didn’t recover.
Chatham continued on the attack and were relentless, suffocating Thunder’s midfield.
The press caused Thunder to cough up the ball in the middle of the pitch. From there Chatham moved with speed down the right edge in behind Thunder's defenders.
Harry came to the fore at the top of the circle, scoring with a tracer bullet of a drag flick from the penalty corner battery to make it 2-0 at the 15 minute mark.
In the second half, Thunder started with a move down Chatham's left, only to be snuffed out by the Wolves.
Off this turnover Chatham broke out on a counter attack and raced deep into Thunder's circle on the baseline.
Here Harry hit a tomahawk shot that blasted in to extend the lead to 3-0 before he added another shortly after and the match was over at 4-0.
Ryan Payne finally scored a late goal for Thunder from a well executed plenty corner to make it 4-1.
With 10 to go Chatham marched forward winning another penalty corner. Harry finished off any Thunder comeback with a rocket of a drag flick and his fourth to make it 5-1.
Matt Doherty was outstanding in the middle for the Wolves in closing down the dangerous Bryce Philpott. Sam Ferguson, Daniel Sewell, Keegan Jobson all had strong games while Harry of course was the star of the show.