Hockey: Tigers claim premiership over favourites

Tigers won their first premiership in 12 years with a thrilling victory over hot favourites Manypeaks in the Lower Great Southern Hockey Association men’s A-grade grand final on Saturday.

Picture by Laurie Benson

On a day when their women’s A and B-grade teams won their respective grand final deciders, Tigers stormed to a 5-4 win, ending Manypeaks’ reign of three straight flags.

With scores locked at 1-1 after the completion of normal time, both sides failed to break the deadlock in two periods of extra time.

The match was ultimately decided by penalty flicks where Robbie Stainton, Simon Philpott, Bryce Philpott and Andy Wright all slotted their shots past Manypeaks goalie Hayden Walker.

Despite Tim Pyle, Dharam Apanah and David Pyle making sure of their chances, the first and last flicks to Daniel Baker and Tim Metcalfe respectively were saved by Tigers hero Phil Stan-Bishop.

Peaks took control of the contest early but it was Tigers who had the first real opportunity to score when Bryce Philpott miss-hit from close range. He again drew the best out of Walker in the Peaks’ goals when he delivered a searing drag flick shortly after but Walker was up to the task.

Simon Philpott eventually opened the scoring with a clever finish, right on the half-time whistle but Fraser Bradbury levelled the scores just minutes into the second half with a lethal strike into the top-left corner.

Peaks continued to threaten as the game wore on, but Darcy Burcham, Stainton and Stan-Bishop failed to give Peaks anything on the last line of defence, enforcing a draw after full-time.

Player-coach Wright was delighted with the result, saying his team just fought tooth and nail until the death.

“(Penalty flicks) is an awful way to decide a game after the competition was so close,” he said. “It was scrappy, we just scrapped it out, waited for the final whistle and we were confident in the flicks.”

Wright spoke about the opening stages of the match, where he believed his side made a statement. “The tone was set in the first five minutes – Manypeaks came out very hard but we absorbed their pressure,” he said. “We managed to get a goal up and that really set the tone in the next five minutes.”

Peaks coach Richard Metcalfe was frustrated his side did not put Tigers away early in the game.

“The fact their goalie got the best-on-ground honours shows us just how many scoring opportunities we had,” he said. “You have got to apply scoreboard pressure and we did everything but score, and that has been our Achilles heel this season.”

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