SERVICES Workies delivered an early warning with a four-goal win over Kiwi Diggers to start their Tamworth men’s title defence yesterday.
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Isaac Farmilo and Chris Ninness both slotted doubles as the six-times defending champions opened their season account with an 8-4 win.
Grand final combatants Tudor Wests snuck home 3-2 over South United in the other game thanks to a late strike.
Adam McMahon scored the decisive goal with around five minutes on the clock to break a 2-all deadlock.
Workies then fired early with Ryan Martin scoring with virtually his first touch of the ball.
From there they quickly jumped out to a 3-nil lead.
Kiwis clawed back to 3-2 but Workies pulled away again.
They have high expectations for the season and coach Andrew Farmilo was pretty satisfied with how they played.
“It was pretty good,” Farmilo said.
“We ran out of legs the last 15 minutes in the first half.
“It caused us to turn over a bit of ball and they scored a couple of goals.”
But that’s to be expected. You can’t be “70 minute hockey fit” at this time of the season, he said.
“The second half was really good. We only conceded one (goal),” he said.
They still missed a fair few opportunities, but the attack generally functioned well and was constantly threatening.
“Once we started shifting the ball and playing as a team we were very hard to stop,” Farmilo said.
“We still went for the glory goal in the circle.”
Isaac was pretty threatening up front.
Chris Ninness and Blake Turner were other notable performers.
Harry Lewin was busy up front for Kiwis and bagged a double for his efforts.
Luke Wilson and Alex Taggart were also stepping up to first grade and played well, coach Hayden Lewin said.
He was happy with the way they “had a dig”.
They were under the pump from early in the game.
“We did well to come back from 3-nil.
“We got to 3-2 but they got away from us again,” he said.
They were “too strong”, and also superior in the fitness stakes.
“They are a very fit side and they ran over the top of us,” he said.
Services meanwhile knocked over defending premiers Olympians 7-6 to make it two from two to start the season.
Michelle Aslin led the goal charge for Services with four while Alice Arnott slotted three for Olympians, who had a late chance to level from a penalty corner but couldn’t convert.
Seven was the order of the day with Waratahs turning a 4-2 half-time lead into a 7-3 win over Flames on the back of four goals from Kate Rummery.
