History has been made this academic year as our U18 Girls' Indoor Hockey team qualified for the Indoor Schools Nationals competition again.

This is no mean feat as only the finalists from the county and regionals rounds progressed. We showed our class at the Somerset County Round to qualify alongside Millfield. We progressed to Regionals where we topped our group, meaning that we faced Millfield in the semi-finals. We came into the half time team talk, three goals down to a very strong Millfield team, however we managed to stay positive and determined as we scored 3 goals in 10 minutes to make the scores level and force the game to go to penalty strokes. Alina made some outrageous saves and our stroke takers showed their levels of professionalism as they buried their strokes, projecting us into the final vs Dean Close and more importantly, affording us a place at nationals. The Dean Close match was again tightly contested, however the girls showed incredible levels of stamina and determination as the game again finished in a tie and us winning on strokes for a second time.

Fast forward to 2018 and we found ourselves at Bromsgrove for the Indoor Nationals. Having arrived early and watched the first game, the difference in standards between U16 and U18 level was stark. We knew that every team there on their own day had the potential to win it and there were therefore no easy games. We played a very well drilled Framlingham side in our first game; the game was very open with us missing a few chances. Framlingham were much more clinical, and buried every chance they had in our D, leading us into half time 3-1 down. Framlingham clearly thought the job was done as they went to a ¼ press and ‘parked the bus’, essentially not looking to create anything in attack but instead focus on defending their lead. They stuck to their game plan well and made it difficult for us to break them down, leading to the game finishing as a 5-2 loss. The girls picked themselves up well and after engaging in some video analysis developed a game plan against Bromsgrove. We stuck to the game plan well and tore a good Bromsgrove side apart winning 6-1. We went home feeling confident that evening and happy that we had given a performance we were proud of and spent the evening recovering amoungst massive ice cream sundaes at Brewers Fayre before waddling back to our rooms to get some well-deserved sleep.

The next morning saw us face Cranleigh at 9am and we knew we were the underdogs in this battle; Cranleigh had a team constructed of mostly international players. We fought hard throughout the 24 minutes but the constant threat of physicality and individual skill was something we had never played against before and led to a number of goals. Having now lost two of our group games we knew semi-final qualification was unlikely and it would have been very easy to let our heads drop. However, the girls showed incredible levels of maturity and prepared themselves for their last match at Nationals 2018. We played Queen Elizabeth School, again another strong side and dominated for the whole game but their goalkeeper was exceptional and we were unable to score. That is, until Olivia Hamilton stepped up to take a penalty stroke and calmly buried it to give the final score of 1-0.

Although we were disappointed to not make it out of the group this year, we learned a great deal and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Hopefully we can take all we have learned and use it to make another U18 Girls' Nationals next year. I would like to thank all of the team for their levels of maturity, commitment and professionalism on and off the pitch and thank all of the parents who came to support us.

Louis Corbin O’Grady - Hockey Professional