Girls TA team unbeaten in open play at TA Festival

After an amazing first season as a Talent Academy Squad, EG TA girls on the England Hockey pathway for high-potential players across the country, competed this weekend in the England Hockey Talent Academy Festival in Nottingham.  

As identified at the beginning of last season, 25 high-potential girls from clubs & schools across the Sussex, East Surrey and West Kent areas have been training & playing as the East Grinstead Talent Academy Squad for the last 9 months.

18 of these girls were selected to travel to Nottingham to take part in this national level festival of high-performance junior hockey. They faced 3 days and 3 full 60-minute matches against other TA's from right across the country. They stayed on campus and each day involved not only matches, but video analysis, coaching and educational programs on tactics and personal development.

Saturday's first game saw the girls taking on Bath Buccaneers TA. The match was well balanced with both sides having classy moments of playing hockey and a few moments nervs showed through. EGTA players showed strong character though, going in to the second half trailing 1-0 their determination paid off with a goal from a PC in the 50^th minute. Despite owning the last 10 minutes of possessional play, the girls couldn't make the final breakthrough and open play ended in a draw. Shuffles decided that game in Bath's favour but a strong first showing from the girls set them up nicely for the rest of the festival.

The girls second game on Sunday was a different story. Playing much more to plan and with confidence, the girls went in at halftime with a two goal lead. Confident after their first half showing they dominated big periods of the match, playing against their plan and confidently in possession. A flurry of attacking pressure in the third quarter earned 3 goals in quick succession including a corner and a flick and they ended up with a comfortable and confidence building 5-0 victory.

Going into Monday's game the girls were confident and comfortable with their in & out of possession roles. In a closer game with the Reading TA the EGTA girls had to work hard against a good side, with both teams having many attacking chances. EG had two good field goals in the first half to the one Reading penalty, and with EG scoring early in the second half they had the game under control and the match ended with a 3-1 victory.

Having had some challenging matches with local TA during the in-season match play, the girls might have gone to the festival with things to prove. And a result of 1 draw and 2 convincing victories, they have to be hugely proud of their effort and overall progress as players and as a unit during the season. Well done girls, very impressive that you are comfortably in the top half of all the TA's in the country.

A massive thanks to all the clubs and schools in our amazing area who have supported the first year of the TA. A huge thanks to Hurstpierpoint College for their amazing support, as well as the great coaching team who have worked tirelessly with the girls, Will Heywood, JoJo David and of course the overall TA Director, Mary Booth.

Huge thanks also to the parents of all players. Those who travelled to Nottingham, stayed for multiple nights away from home and all those who for a year have delivered their youngster to Hurstpierpoint for training and taken them to far-flung places for matches. Thank you.

Girls in the festival squad AND the few who didn't make it to the tournament but have been so engaged in all the training, should be very proud of themselves. They have all shown a great example for themselves, their clubs, schools and the Talent Academy.

Well done.