THE SEARCH for a first league win of the 2015/16 season continues for Rugby & East Warwickshire after they tasted back-to-back defeats in the Midland Hockey League Premier Division.
A busy weekend started with a 6-4 home defeat to Belper and the hosts could not have got off to a worse start after falling 4-0 behind by half-time.
Rugby battled back in the second half and two open play goals from Liam Brown caught Belper off guard and got the hosts back into the match.
Szymon Oszyjczyk scored two clinical penalty corner drag flicks, roofing both, but Belper always had that the two-goal cushion.
On Sunday Rugby made the trip to Khalsa confident that they were going to come away with their first points of the season.
But Khalsa pinned Rugby back with lots of possession although some superb tackling kept them at bay.
Rich Major had a lot of joy getting behind their defence but he was unable to produce any quality in the final third.
Both of Khalsa’s first half goals came through penalty corners and you could see the relief after such sustained pressure.
In the second half Khalsa did not drop the high press and sheer aggressiveness and Rugby were lucky on three occasions to not give away a stroke.
A further penalty corner late on sealed a Khalsa victory and up next for Rugby is a trip to Barford Tigers.
The club’s second team also tasted a heavy defeat after finding themselves on the recieving end of a 6-0 thumping at Birmingham University.
Rugby were unlucky not to score after missing a penalty flick and the Birmingham keeper produced a fantastic save on the final whistle.
There was no success for the third team either after they lost 4-0 at home to Beeston. Despite the scoreline there were good performances from several youngsters but Rugby were unable to cope with Beeston’s effective counter attack.
The fourth team did managed to taste success after beating Harborne 5-4. Dave Renards pulled Rugby level after falling behind early on and the rest of the match saw both sides exchange goals.
There was however plenty of success for the women’s side with the first and second team winning.
Four goals from Nick Siarbawa helped the first team on their way to a 7-0 win over Long Buckby and the the second team won 6-3 at home to Olton.
The third team came away from Atherstone with a hard-earned point to cap off an undefeated weekend for the women.
