IT wasn't pretty, but it was effective.
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Bathurst City walked away with a 2-nil win over Orange Ex-Services in Saturday's women's Premier League Hockey fixture at the Cooke Hockey Complex.
A double to Andrea Seymour - a goal either side of half time - was enough for City to get by in a match riddled with missed opportunities and turnovers from both sides.
The win gives City a one-win buffer over fellow Bathurst side Souths as the race for the competition's second place heats up.
After a fairly even start Bathurst City earned the first penalty corner of the game on the seventh minute. From there the home side had majority of the possession but struggled to make inroads into the Ex-Services goal circle thanks in part to some good defence from Orange, plus poor passing options from City.
It turned out to be Ex-Services who got the best opportunity to go ahead nine minutes from the break when Kasey Byrne was open in the City goal circle. Unfortunately for her side she couldn't get on the end of a fast cross.
A nice stop from Ex-Services goalkeeper Erin Horan less than a minute later prevented another City penalty corner from going in.
It was only after eight penalty corners that City finally put the scoreboard to work when a Seymour shot deflected off an Ex-Services foot and into the goal just two minutes from the break.
The general tempo of the game lifted in the second half, with plenty of end-to-end hockey but few circle penetrations.
After 15 minutes Seymour converted from a penalty corner once again to double her side's advantage.
Scott Anderson said his team did lift slightly going into the back half of the game, but not to the level he expects
"I think it was a very slow and frustrating game. It's certainly not one of their better games by any means. I can't put it down to anything to be quite honest," he said.
"We spoke at half-time about how lethargic they were and how they were going, but then they certainly picked up the tempo a little bit.
"We tried to improve our attack. I asked them in the second half to put everyone up in attack except for our two fullbacks and just see what happens.
"This sort of performance wouldn't get us anywhere this season, so hopefully that's the worst one we put in for the rest of the year."
Ex Services coach Mitch Kennewell was upbeat after the game and said there was plenty in the game he'd like to see again from his team.
"We copped a bit of pressure most of the game down in our defensive half which wasn't the game plan obviously. We turned over the ball a bit easy in patches but I was pretty happy with the passages of play our girls did. They worked the ball out of the defence really well," he said.
BATHURST CITY 2 (Andrea Seymour 2) def ORANGE EX-SERVICES 0