Sports Update: Spring 2017 Week One
Director of Sport Andy Dalgleish reports on the first sporting week of the new calendar year:
“A new year, a new term and a new week in the sporting calendar for St Edward’s sport. Our teams and coaching staff had to find their feet quickly to establish playing squads and deliver their match preparation ahead of the weekend’s fixtures.
Saturday 14th January saw the first round of block fixtures completed, with the boys’ hockey up against the challenging competition of Abingdon School, the girls’ netball facing Pangbourne College, whilst the boys football teams took on Bromsgrove School.
In what was perhaps the result of the weekend, the girls’ U14As netball team recorded a hugely impressive victory, winning their fixture with a final score of 44-10. Regrettably, Pangbourne were forced to cancel several matches, but the remaining fixtures that did take place saw an excellent winning record for Teddies, with three quarters of the games won, including tough away wins for the First and Second VII’s.
In a fixture that has delivered some very tough opposition in recent years, Abingdon School again gave a strong showing on the hockey fields. Across the fixture card, there were close matches and tight scores, with a good win for the U15Cs and a thrilling game for the U16As, despite a 3-5 final score to Abingdon.
Over on the football pitches, Bromsgrove also gave us some tough games with the greater longevity of their experience in the sport perhaps the telling difference on this occasion. We have had some exciting developments on the training pitches though, with the addition of a new external coach coming from the professional game with some excellent junior coaching experience. I am sure the impact will lead to some rapid developments and encouraging performances in the coming weeks.
All of our teams will be focusing on developing some early momentum and setting key performance targets ahead of the next fixtures and I am confident of many positive results in the weeks ahead.”