THEY were only a late promotion but New England looked far from out of place up in Division 2 at the State U15s Boys’ Hockey Championships played in Tamworth on the weekend.
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Spearheaded by State U15s reps Nathan Czinner and Jake McCann, the Lions finished fifth overall after beating Southern Highlands 2-1 in their play-off game on Sunday.
“We were a very young side,” coach Paul Eichorn said.
“We only had three U15s in it so it was a very good effort.”
Three of the side will go away with the 13s later in the year.
“The intent there was to give them a good run before their tournament,” he said.
After finishing runners-up in Division 3 last year, they thought they’d be playing there but they found themselves playing up a division.
Eichorn had been hoping to make into the semi-finals but was more than satisfied with fifth.
They finished with three wins from their five games and had good pool wins over Nepean (3-nil) and North West Sydney (2) (4-nil).
“Defensively, overall we were pretty good,” Eichorn said.
When they conceded goals they tended to leak a few but outside of those two games – against Central Coast on Friday night and Dubbo on Saturday night – they only conceded one goal.
“The really pleasing fact about that classification game (against Southern Highlands) was they played structurally very well,” he said.
They scored first and led 1-nil at half-time.
Southern Highlands levelled with about 10 to go but the Lions hit straight back to restore their one-goal advantage.
Czinner and McCann were, not surprisingly, among their best.
They performed well, Eichorn said, in what was a very good team performance.