Manenschijn looks defeated in the Schaerweijde clubhouse. It is about twenty minutes after the match against HDM. A match that Schaerweijde would like to forget as quickly as possible. One moment the team from Zeist was heading for a wonderful party in front of its own audience in ‘De Kuil’, the first victory of the season. A moment later, the players from the bottom of the Tulp Hoofdklasse Men lay defeated on the ground, after HDM not only scored the 3-3, but also the 3-4.
The former assistant national coach of the Dutch national team has mixed feelings so soon after the match. On the one hand, he’s bummed. Based on the firm reaction of his players, he concludes that just before the 3-4 the ball must have crossed the back line. And that the penalty corner from which HDM scored the winning goal should never have been given.
But he also realizes that pointing fingers at the arbitration is pointless and that Schaerweijde should look in the mirror. His team should never have given away the 3-1 lead. Neither did the 2-0 lead. ‘This was an important match for us in the battle for the bottom four places. The fact that we did not take this opportunity is mainly due to our weak second half. We didn’t play well enough to win this match.’
Schaerweijde had a dream start on Sunday
Schaerweijde, maintained last season through play-outs, is bottom of the Tulp Hoofdklasse with zero points from four games. The club from Zeist started the season poorly with a 7-1 defeat against Bloemendaal. A week later the numbers at home against Kampong were even more painful: 0-7. Then it was overturned at Den Bosch, 5-0. The home match with HDM was the perfect opportunity to finally get away from scratch after a bad start.
In that respect, Schaerweijde had a dream start on Sunday afternoon. After three minutes it was already 1-0 ahead. Thur Stadelmaier scored from the rebound of a penalty corner. Three minutes later Daan Troost made it 2-0. Manenschijn: ‘As a coach you are looking for things that are going well in this phase. Things you can hold on to. I really saw a lot of that in the first half.’
The fact that Pepijn Leenhouts made it 3-1 from a penalty corner before half time was also a boost for the home team. A year ago, the penalty corner was a concern. Malaysian Bin Saari started last season as the first corner taker, but only scored once in the first six months. He did not return after the winter break. Manenschijn: ‘Our penalty corner seems better this season than last year. Now we make two at once. One direct and one from a rebound. But until this match we had only had one corner this season. So it cannot really be concluded yet how much better we have become.’
Last place
Manenschijn knows that it will be a tough season anyway. ‘The automatisms are still missing. Our communication also needs to improve. We still have some things to do. Above all, we must now have the attitude not to come last. We don’t have to look much further than that now.’
by Hockey.nl
