Sevenoaks put in a much improved display this week, after the humiliation away at Canterbury the previous week, but the set pieces of Beeston were the difference over the 70 minutes.
After a relatively positive start, Oaks conceded a penalty corner after ten minutes and GB international Mark Gleghorne showed his class with a flick high into the top right hand corner to make it 1-0 to Beeston. Unperturbed by going a goal down, Oaks played some excellent hockey without testing the Beeston keeper, whilst defending valiantly to stay within one goal. A penalty corner awarded to Oaks gave Andrew Ross a chance to level the scores but the defender charged down his effort. Richard Potton in the Oaks goal made a couple of outstanding saves to deny Beeston a second goal and on the half hour mark Sevenoaks were rewarded for their hard work when Australian overseas import Brandon Gibbs carried the ball into the right hand side of the D and pushed the ball across goal where Mike Barber bundled it over the line to make it 1-1, and that was how it remained until half time.
Shortly after the break Beeston were awarded a dubious penalty corner which enabled them to take the lead when GB international Sam Ward’s initial effort was half-saved by Potton but the spin on the ball took it just over the line to make it 2-1. Oaks remained positive and continued to match their opponents for large parts of the game. Unfortunately some harsh umpiring saw Oaks receive a number of cautions, seeing them play much of the second half with ten men with multiple sin-bins. Whilst they didn’t concede when playing with reduced numbers, the effort of playing a man down took its toll, and despite the heroic efforts of man of the match Chris Barker Oaks conceded a number of penalty corners. From one of these the ball struck the post and then the foot of a defender and a penalty stroke was awarded that was converted to make it 3-1. Oaks had two opportunities to reduce the deficit but on both occasions fine work by Ali Taylor was finished with a shot over the crossbar. With three minutes remaining another controversial penalty stroke was awarded to Beeston which was again converted to make the score 4-1. Oaks carried on fighting to the end and won a penalty corner on the final whistle that was excellently put away by Ross after fine work by Duncan Parnis to make the final score 4-2.
Oaks could feel hard done by that decisions didn’t go their way, but heartened that they prevented one of the top sides in the country from scoring from open play, and for large parts of the game were the equals of the visitors. Next week they travel to Hampstead and Westminster on Saturday at 1.30pm.
