Wales vBelgium - Brussels

13/15/16 July

 Following some ‘light’ training in Canterbury on the Wednesday morning, the squad set out for Brussels to play 3 Test matches against the Belgium national team. Armed with a European Map, an address and a sketch of Brussels we headed for the Concrete Palace (CP) – Belgium’s version to the WIS. Whilst some of the cars headed straight for the accommodation, some us managed to have a 2 hour look at the centre of Brussels, the ring road and also some of the surrounding villages. Brilliant. But we all arrived in one piece and looked forward to the matches ahead.

 Confusion over the location of the matches resulted in rushed preparation for the first match. Whilst we thought we were playing a short walk from the CP, actually we were due to play in Nivelle, a half hour car journey away. The squad dealt well with the ‘mishap’, and a few expletives and horn honks later, we were at the right location and ready for the game.

 The first 20 minutes of the match saw us vent our frustration at the Belgians. The game was fast and furious and we played some of our best hockey of the summer so far. However, the Belgians took the lead before half time with a goal from their short corner specialist (Crème) Brule. In the end, we lost the match 3 – 0, the opposition scoring 2 open play goals in the second half. There were strong performances from Swaino in defence and Ben Rogers on the right of our attack.

 Analysis of the game showed that we had our chances and territory and possession was fairly even. So it was a good performance against a team ranked in the top 15 in the world. However, we didn’t take our chances and paid the penalty for that.

 Friday saw some light training, and for some the opportunity to visit Brussels town centre during the free morning. Some bargain hunting and interesting shoe shopping saw Swaino purchase a pair of odd sized trainers and him and Orgy doing some full on sprint training from the train station, but it was ‘all for the team’ – the Puma brigade can vouch for that.

 In the evening, Cabbo’s number 1 seeding saw him victorious in le Grand Tournoi de Ping Pong despite strong performances from the keepers and the skipper, all of whom lost narrowly (?) in the first round.

 Game 2 saw us put in a more consistent performance. A goal from Simon “That is a goal” Organ saw us win the game one nil, but in truth we all felt we should have won by more. The pace of our forwards Matt and Olly, and also Orgy’s…erm…’pace’, always caused the Belgian defence trouble whilst we kept (Crème) Brule’s opportunities to a minimum. Simmo made some fine saves to keep a clean sheet and Andy Cornick was excellent on the left side of midfield.

 In the final match, the tiredness of both teams showed. The quality of the match was not as high as previous days, but our guts and determination saw us gain a 2 – 2 draw. The goals were scored by Ben Rogers, with a deflection from a Zak Jones pass and Orgy scored to cap an impressive set of performances to lay down his claim for a place in the squad for the Europeans.

All in all, we all felt the tour was a successful one. We competed well with a team ranked many places higher than us in the world and in the end could have won the series.

 In addition, we are continually moving forward as a group with the support team, led well by Mike, doing a great job to ensure we are as prepared as possible to perform. We still have much to learn, and we need to keep getting better but we can take great heart and confidence from these performances for the rest of the summer. Roll on the Celtic Cup!!

Rhys

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