After a relatively easy win on Saturday over HAC Lugano for the Swiss Cup a more interesting game was scheduled on Sunday, a game between the defending champions and the cupholder. Not surprisingly the current numbers one and two in the league. The more fanatic supporters know that our level of play in the championship has not been convincing so far with two tiny wins over HC Wettingen and Luzerner SC and a draw against Stade Lausanne last week. Bearing in mind that Rotweiss Wettingen had crushed Black Boys HC (1-7) last week in Geneva we knew we had to be at our very best to stand a fair chance against the favourites for this years championship.

Nevertheless, Rotweiss had studied our game against Stade Lausanne and played a defensive half court press waiting for us to make mistakes. By starting this way our opponent painfully exposed our weaknesses and was able to confront us with razor sharp counters resulting in three goals (penalty corner, field goal and penalty flicks) within the first 15 minutes. A monster score was in the air, but thanks to an excellent Julien Leblond the score did not reach six or seven before half time.

After 25 minutes actually Servette created its first chance, but unfortunately Matthieu Gisin saw his flick stopped by the Wettingen goalie. However, this first feat of arms was the start of a better period and just before half time it was Gareth McKeown who scored already his seventh goal of the season after a well executed penalty corner.

The second half was completely opposite to the first half. Servette played with more confidence, made less technical mistakes and created a better press on the Wettingen defense. Gareth’s second goal (also penalty corner) made us believe in a better result and only five minutes after that Servette equalized. Bertrand Peny found Gareth on the penalty spot who scored his third of the day with a reverse leaving Wettingen overwhelmed. A fourth Servette goal seemed just a matter of time when Wettingen took their second yellow card of the game. However, the one-way traffic did not result in another goal and based on the poor first half that would not have been a deserved win. Just like last week penalty flicks had to decide. Rotweiss obviously took notes last week and stopped three of our flicks giving them the extra point.

Main conclusion this weekend is that we still have a long way to go before we can dominate for 70 minutes, but when we improve our technical skills and keep working as a team I am sure we are able to claim a deserved win against a team like Wettingen in the future.

Maarten Pannekoek