A DOMINANT opening to the first half paved the way for Bathurst Souths' 5-1 win over Orange Confederates in their women's Premier League Hockey match on Saturday.
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The match at Cooke Hockey Complex looked headed for a blow out after Souths scored three times within eight minutes, but the match became a much closer affair beyond that.
Even after taking the points from the match, Souths coach Damien Carter didn't hide his disappointment that his team couldn't play a consistent 70 minutes.
"You talk to the girls and you can see that they're frustrated. We started off on fire with three goals in 10 minutes and I thought it was going to be a big score," he said.
"When you play games like that against Confederates you come down to their level. We got out of our game plan and lost our way. We started off transferring the ball, nice easy passes, working for each other, but in the end I think we were just waiting for someone else to do something."
It took just two minutes for Souths to open their account, Ali Stanford pouncing on a poor clearance from Confederates.
Souths continued to pick apart an open Confederates midfield and Stanford had her second goal five minutes later. A penalty corner shot from Souths captain Tahnie Isedale was blocked but Stanford cleaned up the deflection.
A minute later off yet another penalty corner, Michelle Sommers fed the ball toward the right post and Ashleigh Corby turned it into the net for a 3-0 lead.
Stanford had her chance in to make it a hat-trick, with blocked shot from close range, but when Corby had her second it was clear Souths were headed for victory.
Confederates did give their rivals a scare on the stroke of half-time when Grace Evans tried to pick out an unmarked Tayla Middleton in the circle, but her pass was out of reach.
Eight minutes into what turned out to be a more even second half, Souths struck again as Emma Siejka found the mark from a penalty corner play.
It put the score at 5-0, but that was to be the last Souths goal.
A penalty corner for Confederates with 15 minutes to go finally saw them get on the board after spending the previous 10 minutes threatening.
Annie Pakinga received at the top of the circle and fired a shot through two oncoming defenders into the left corner of the goal.
"Girls were coming off saying 'What the hell is happening out there?' and I said 'That's what happens in these games'," Carter said.
"It was more a frustrating game today, they just have to get that out of their system."
Mark Pengilly thought his Confederates squad fared well, but a slow start made the going tough.
"We didn't turn up to play in that first half today. We let them dictate terms today and we haven't done that for the last couple of weeks and that put us on the back foot straight away," he said.
"We had a couple of players out today, so it makes it hard swapping players around into positions they're not used to."
BATHURST SOUTHS 5 (Ali Stanford 2, Ash Corby 2, Emma Siejka) def CONFEDERATES 1 (Annie Pakinga)
