ORANGE Wanderers will face a nervous wait following their 3-all draw with Bathurst Souths after the two blues lodged a formal complaint to the Premier League Hockey powers after Saturday’s draw at the Orange Hockey Complex.
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Souths’ plea comes after an interchange bungle Wanderers co-coach Andrew Reddan labelled “a technical official’s stuff-up”, and the two blues will be protesting the hosts had 11 players on the field when they were only entitled to have 10.
The Orange men’s PLH outfit was down a man after Hayden Dillon was handed a yellow card in the second half, and when it came time for the young inner to re-enter play, Wanderers officials wanted to run a substitute on instead of Dillon.
But the Orange technical officials believe the substitute player entered the field of play three seconds before he was entitled to and subsequently was also forced to sit out five minutes as a penalty, leaving Wanderers down a man for 10 minutes in the second term.
Souths’ protest is over the interchange gaffe.
Leading 3-1 at the time and with just over 15 minutes to play, Wanderers held firm until goals to Andrew Cranston and Bryce Hitchcock drew Souths level.
Cranston’s goal came when Wanderers were down to 10 men.
With a Souths appeal pending, Reddan said if push came to shove it’d be his side with the right to protest the result.
“The technical officials stuffed up, and Souths scored when we were down in that time. It’s a big problem,” Reddan fired following the clash, a typically fiery one between Wanderers and Souths.
“There’s a lot of history there, back to Bloomfield too. We could have lost that game in the past. Souths are a team with a lot of hot heads who like to stir the pot, and we tend to get caught up in the crap that goes on.”
Still, for Wanderers, it’s four competition points that went begging.
The home side started brilliantly, bagging first half goals to Keegan Brooke, Michael Dillon and Rowan Baker to lead Souths 3-1 at the break, with only a Chris Stafford goal giving the visitors any glimmer of hope.
But the second half debacle cruelled Wanderers’ hopes of victory.
“It’s one that got away,” Reddan said.
“We played really up-tempo hockey but they drilled two passes into the circle and got a feather touch on both ... we were a bit unlucky. It’s probably the best we’ve played all season, which is brilliant signs for us.
“The pleasing thing is we were able to play a tempo of hockey that blew them off the park.”
ORANGE WANDERERS 3 (Michael Dillon, Keegan Brooke, Rowan Baker) drew with BATHURST SOUTHS 3 (Andrew Cranston, Bryce Hitchcock, Chris Stafford)
