IESII 3 Crane 2

NE14Hockey East Men's League

Division 4NE

IES II 3 Crane 2

CRANE were desperately poor against a strong IES side and deservedly lost ground at the top of the table.

The match started badly for Cranes when IES were allowed to easily score inside the opening minutes when a long ball was allowed through a static defence to be tapped in at the far post.

Cranes did then come to life getting into the game more through Craig Bloomfield and Nick Tiley-Nunn, creating several half chances that eventually lead to Paul Muchal winning a penalty stroke which Craig Bloomfield tucked away for the equaliser.

Crane were dominant for the rest of that half, however they failed to add to the tally, simply not getting the ball into the circle enough to cause problems.

The second half started well for Crane with Craig Bloomfield adding a second with the help of a deflection from his lifted shot but it was downhill from here. Too many errors in possession made it easy for IES to build play and they equalised through a cheaply conceded penalty corner before scoring a really low-end trickler the near post to wrap up the points.

A Tiley-Nunn drag flick drew an excellent save from the IES keeper in the final minute but it wasn't to be. With three games to go against strong opposition Crane will really need to raise their game to realise their promotion ambitions as too many players had an off day.