YATE travelled to Cardiff to open their league season with high hopes after a positive pre-season build up.

Cardiff Met C were boosted by a number of their second team being unable to travel to their away game on the South Coast so on paper it looked like it would be a very competitive game.

The match started at a furious pace and Yate worked hard to contain their hosts who pushed for an early goal.

Michael Edwards was at his sharpest in goal to deny a number of direct attacks and Yate eventually settled into their own passing game and had several attacks of their own. Dom Chambers passing opened a number of opportunities through the hardworking midfield of Dan Pearce, Matt Child and Sam Patton but the Cardiff defence were resolute.

The first half ended scoreless with Cardiff having the better chances.

Yate now started playing their best hockey and several strong attacks were only just kept out by Cardiff. However, after 60 minutes of the game Cardiff broke away and a lucky miss-hit looped over the Yate defence only for a surprised Cardiff forward to poke the ball home to open the scoring. Yate then attacked furiously to try and get something from the game. Their second penalty corner was expertly worked around and Matt Child was handed a great scoring chance only to see his shot skim just wide. As Yate pushed to create further chances the game opened out and Cardiff scored two late break away goals and the game ended at 3 to 0, which flattered the home team and didn’t properly reflect the effort and possession of the match. Yate left Cardiff in positive mood having played very well for long periods of the game and are very optimistic for the forthcoming season.

The men's 2nd team, buoyed by a number of promising juniors won 2-0 at home against Shepton Mallet.

Within the ladies side of the club the Ladies 1st team secured a 1-1 draw against Bristol University, a very good result against a team that finished much higher than Yate in the the Premier Division 1 last season.

The Ladies 2nd team had an early start to play Blockley away at Chipping Campden. Yate went 1-0 down very early on and Blockley took advantage of having rattled the Yate side scoring, scoring two more goals.

Vicki Haigh's superb save from a drag flick kept us in the game and Yate soon scored 1 of our own, but Blockley added another to their total.

Starting the second half 4-1 down, Yate soon got into their stride. Billie's strike from a short gave the team heart and Sian Morgan added a 3rd soon after.

Vix again made an excellent save - world class reactions to a 2nd drag flick - the ball knicking the edge of her stick to go wide.

The comeback was complete when Sharron opened her account from a well worked short (and Alaina Herbert's second assist of the match).

The ladies 3rd team faced local side Dursley in their first league game of the season. Dursley were strong from the beginning, putting Yate under a lot of pressure.

A combined defence including Emma Smith, Pip Crabtree and Sarah Willis (in goal) kept Yate in the game.It remained 0-0 at half time and Yate put more pressure on Dursley in the second half but unfortunately, were not able to put the Dursley goal keeper under much pressure.After a well played game, with each team playing good hockey, Dursley managed to get the all important goal in the dying minutes of the match and came away with the points.

In the junior section, the next generation of Yate Hockey Club began their U10s Avon League campaign today down at YOSC.

Many of the players have been with us in U8s but we also welcomed some of our new members to the team, making this the first time they had played a competitive match together.

All players worked really hard on putting what they have been doing in training in to practice and they grew in both confidence and performance with every game.

Scores were irrelevant today (although importantly the team should be proud the margins were very close) it was all about learning through play.

All players represented the club admirably with some lovely hockey in both attack and defence. Some standout goalkeeping by James Smith should be mentioned with great support from the outfield players putting in tackles and playing some great hockey throughout.