Men's team end league season with heavy loss as Nottingham Trent secure promotion in style
Despite it being a possible 'promotion-decider', the men's team's final league match of the season was seen more of a warm-up for Varsity as they lost 11-1 to Nottingham Trent who ended their season with a perfect 100% record.
Staffordshire's only goal came from vice-captain David Drysdale in the second quarter, with a powerful drive from a Nathan Villiers pass.
This was a heavy loss for captain Dimitri Chambers to get to grips with. "A loss is always a good thing to take on board against a high level team like Trent, which can help us learn about the challengers that may present us in the game against keele."
It took till the second quarter for the visitors to get going. The hosts quickly capitalised in the opening few minutes and exposed Staffs' defence that did not seem to get going. The league leaders made the perfect and quickly took a comfortable lead. "I think that main reason is that they where more on the ball and where awake for the first two quarters and just out classed us from the start" said captain Dimitri Chambers.
After that poor start, the defence seemed more solid and gave Staffs a chance to make any sort of comeback. But Trent's tight marking stopped any chance of Staffs' attack from making any impact around goal. The visitors did manage to break their deadlock with a goal from Drysdale. After neat passing from the attack and a Villiers pass from behind the goal gave the Staffs vice-captain enough space to give the visitors something to shout about.
For the second half, the defence could do no more and it was riding on the attack to make it a nervous ending. Unfortunately that was not the case as Trent were double or even triple-teaming the player that was on the ball. So the attack could only muster that one goal in the second quarter.
With Nottingham Trent securing the title in style, all that is left for Staffs is the cup where they face Lincoln in the semi-final on Saturday. Captain Chambers will not be using this as an experiment for Varsity. "There will be no things tried within the team depending on the performace during the Lincoln game like starting the team of freshers seeing if they can set themselves up for the game and looking for individuals to stand out in all positions to help control the other players for the years still left for the freshers."
Even with this heavy loss, it has been by far their most successful season. After years of no league wins, this year they manage to win eight out of their ten league games. They finished second in the league and are likely to making a cup final. "The season has been far the best season I have had within my time at Staffs Uni. With it being a highly successful season, there has been many different people appear in the team showing true colours and determination with progressing themselves throughout the season. Just seeing the freshers take the game in hand and performing at a level that personaly could see them doing better when they take the sport and carry it on with a new club."