Just to keep everyone happy, here’s the SKA development league table following our latest result; a six-all draw away at St. Andrews 2. The match was a very strange affair. Most notable from our point of view were two (stunning!) first-time goals by Alan & Fiona. A full(ish) match report follows the table.

St. Andrews 2 6 – 6 Dundee KC
Sunday, March 11, 5pm, St. Andrews

A game of three halves?

This was definitely the most unusual game we’ve played in so far. Unusual because we actually had a full team, with both male and female subs to spare; unusual because the court was really weird (different lines on each side of the pitch, no korfball markings, and possibly even posts that weren’t half way across the width of the court? It was definitely weird anyway – believe me!); and finally, unusual because there were three referrees – or none, depending on how and when you counted them.

Prelude

St. Andrews 2 were a bit short-handed at the start of the game, as most of their more experienced club-mates were off to play or support their first team at the student nationals* in Manchester. So, given the depth of our squad, we agreed to supply three referees for a 3 x 20 minute game (meaning that none if us would miss out on any game time).

* The Saints first team did brilliantly down in Manchester, ending up coming second only to Nottingham University. Well done St. Andrews! Ed. Uni finished in 6th place (out of 16) as well – so two very good results for Scottish korfball.

Part 1, in which Rosie scores a goal

Mary refereed the first third (20 minutes) of our game, which was a somewhat chaotic and very low-scoring affair. None of us seemed to have much clue what we were doing, or which lines we were playing to, and none of us (or them) seemed to be able to score. Thank goodness that we had Rosie on our side then, cos after about 12 minutes she finally remembered where the ball was supposed to go and put us 1-0 up with a beautifully executed long shot! So, the one-third time score was 1-0 to us.

Part 2, in which we go behind

Nigel’s turn to referee now, and suddenly people started to shoot at the hole in the baskets! They also started to foul one-another much more regularly too, which is weird (I honestly don’t think that there was much difference in the referreeing – maybe everyone was just starting to get frustrated at the dismally low score). Both Ross and Alan joined Rosie in scoring for us, Ross with a sweet little one-handed long shot, Alan with a very cool rebound shot following his own penalty, and Rosie with another trade-mark long shot. But St. Andrews were also beginning to find their distance and eventually overtook us on the score-sheet, to go in 5-4 ahead at two-thirds time.

Part 3, in which Fiona saves the day

With Rosie refereeing the final third of the game, we struggled to make (or finish) many scoring opportunities once again. Mary sank a really nice running in shot to keep us within touching distance of the Saints, but with 3 minutes left we were still trailing by one goal (I can’t remember how St. Andrews scored, which probably means it was me that gave the goal away!). But roll on our super-sub Fiona, making her debut competitive appearance (in two thirds of the game) and cool-ly slotting the ball home from 2 metres to the side of the post with just 2 minutes left to play.

Special mentions to Tanjeel, also making his debut appearance; Amy, who played the whole hour and must be wondering if this was the same sport that she played a couple of weeks ago; and Shane, who must be wondering if this is a real sport at all (sadly, we injured Shane during her first training session – but she still came along to support us, so we can’t have offended her senses too badly yet). Caroline was also a bit unlucky to have a great shot disallowed towards the end of the game (it was well defended though – the ref was right), and I was quite proud of myself for actually “scoring” from a free pass (even though this too was rightfully disallowed). I just love it when the ball goes through the basket – legally or not!

Match stats:

St. Andrews 2 6 – 6 Dundee KC: Caroline, Fiona (1), Amy, Rosie (2), Mary (1); Steven, Nigel, Alan (1), Tanjeel, Ross (1).
MVP: Rosie