Convincing win for Gibraltar hockey in friendly against Malta
A very composed first half by Gibraltar hockey put them ahead 2-0 against a Maltese side that will also be playing in the Eurohockey Championship III this week.
Although not having played much prior to this weekend’s tournament the hockey senior national side played well as a unit.
There was some strong defending in the first half with some confident keeping.
Youngsters such as Clinton also showed why they were in the set up producing some confident display.
At 2-0 Gibraltar was able to walk into the final stage of the warmup match looking to enjoy themselves and test themselves.
It didn’t take them long to go further ahead as they smashed a short corner in within minutes of the restart.
The umpires were put to the test also by a Maltese who reacted quite angrily at some calls. At one time tensions got hot and required cooler heads on the field to split players apart. The match highlighted the high tension among teams as they approach the start of the tournament.
As tensions rose the umpire made a rare call to stop the match to speak to coaches as a friendly started getting overly heated. Things settled down with both teams focusing on the game.
This allowed Gibraltar to settle back into the match to score their fourth with three minutes of match left. It should have been five just a minute later but good intervention by Maltese defender and later their keeper saw prevented them from adding to the score until the last second.
Gibraltar finishing 5-0 in the end.