North Down 2nds 1\u20131 Kilkeel 2nds.\u00a0 North Down win 5-3 on penalties.<\/p>\n
North Down vs Kilkeel encounters at any level are never for the faint hearted. They\u2019re usually pretty bone-crunching affairs (literally if you take last year\u2019s blood bath \u2013 no names but it was up there with Rumble in the Jungle). Add \u201csemi-final\u201d to the mix and you\u2019ve got one spicy meatball.<\/p>\n
Hockey played second fiddle to the umpires in the first half as they spent the time locked in a titanic struggle for supremacy. Eagled-eyed Action Man\u00a0Jim Patterson<\/a>\u00a0peppering the opposite end of the pitch with whistle-propelled mortars. The Kilkeel ump leaving no act of Kilkeel brutality punished (for the Flying Spaghetti Monster\u2019s sake don\u2019t call him \u201cref\u201d \u2013 \u201cWHAT DID YOU CALL ME?!\u201d). And where Jimmy P\u2019s heightened sense of the sight can target a field mouse at 200 yards the Kilkeel whistle jockey\u2019s (ref!) sense of hearing seemed to be so dull that respected umpire critic\u00a0Andy Walls<\/a>\u00a0had to practically cup his hands over the blighter\u2019s ears to offer a frank assessment of his performance. Not taking up his option, in the strongest possible terms, to agree with Mr Walls the umpire attempts to send off the North Down captain for failing to control the bench. But I\u2019m on the bench! HA! What now Mr. Kilkeel Umpire (ref!). A quick Google and I\u2019m invited to rest someone of my choosing from the \u201con the pitch\u201d contingent. Another Google rules out my first pick \u2013 apparently it has to be a North Down player. Damn the connected world we live in today, it\u2019s the death of the Pub Argument. Unless it\u2019s Mockey of course, weight of evidence, consensus etc. mean nothing to the man. Anyway, I digress. Ok \u201csomeone of my choosing\u201d\u2026 and who should catch my eye?! Wee Adam Tate<\/a>\u00a0of course! Leaning on his stick like a Dickensian chimney sweep waif with consumption \u2013 off you come Tatey, two minute power nap buddy. Two weeks, two cards. He\u2019s a disciplinary time-bomb.<\/p>\n Luckily, with both teams heading towards mutually assured destruction, half time came giving all concerned a chance to reflect\u2026well, except for us of course as Mockey raised his usual half-time hysteria to new levels of nuttiness that threatened to redline the Barking-mad-o-meter. If we\u2019d listened to him we\u2019d have probably garrotted the first Mourne man that crossed our paths at the resumption.<\/p>\n With the umpires having gotten it all out of their systems the second half saw the hockey proper get underway. Mockey made good on his final reparations for last week\u2019s first half of traitorous goings on and had probably his best game of the season.\u00a0Scott Moore<\/a>\u00a0got lumps knocked out of him for the second week running as did\u00a0Andrew Boyd<\/a>‘s opposite number (fair play to the Kilkeel umpire (ref!) for letting him stay on the pitch after dishing out a tackle banned by international treaty).\u00a0Jordan Linter<\/a>\u00a0turned in this week\u2019s MOTM performance. Like a Weeble you can knock him but he doesn\u2019t fall down and unlike a Weeble he will bite when cornered. And flip me if Tatey didn\u2019t score the equaliser at the fag-end of normal time of the back of a ruck a meter out from the Kilkeel line! I hear he\u2019s got some sort of coaching badge recently \u2013 look forward to a new generation of louche hipsters lying around on the benches of North Down.<\/p>\n So, let\u2019s skip extra time (I can\u2019t remember a bloody thing about it other than it was \u201csilver\u201d) and get straight on to the dreaded stroke competition!<\/p>\n Stroke 1 \u2013<\/p>\n Kilkeel Man. Good stroke. \u2018Nuff said.<\/p>\n Buhda. Pure pants but managed to make it over the line while the keeper flapped around like a landed fish on the floor. Laughable (Dalzell claims it brought on a mild bout of incontinence), but nice celebration \u2013 patting the \u2018ol dickie ticker.<\/p>\n Stroke 2 \u2013<\/p>\n Kilkeel Man. Another good stroke.<\/p>\n The Milk Maestro. Slow ball to the top corner. Keeper reads the trajectory but not the pace, leaps kung-fu style to the top corner but the ball is going so slow that he\u2019s back on the ground before the ball lobs into the onion bag. Jammy.<\/p>\n Stroke 3 \u2013<\/p>\n Kilkeel Man. One word, \u201cTatey\u201d. The Kilkeel umpire (ref!) ducks for cover.<\/p>\n Little Beardy Dazzler. Pure power forces the keeper to take evasive action and leap out of the way. We\u2019re in front.<\/p>\n Stroke 4 \u2013<\/p>\n Kilkeel Man. Miyagi catch fly with chopstick!<\/p>\n Adgey. From the \u201cEyes closed and HOOF it!\u201d school. Off to the final boys!<\/p>\n The final! Next week apparently! Be there!<\/p>\n Report by Stevie Magee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" North Down 2nds 1\u20131 Kilkeel 2nds.\u00a0 North Down win 5-3 on penalties. North Down vs Kilkeel encounters at any level are never for the faint hearted. They\u2019re usually pretty bone-crunching affairs (literally if you take last year\u2019s blood bath \u2013 no names but it was up there with Rumble in the Jungle). Add \u201csemi-final\u201d to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-match-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3909\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/northdownhc.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}