On Sunday, 11th December, Brentwood Handball Club travelled back up the M1 to Cranfield University to play the Warwick University Handball team.

This was the two teams first meeting of the season as Brentwood did not have enough players for the opening game of the season. This was definitely not the case for this match with Brentwood fielding 11 players – their largest squad of the season.

The team included Danny Sedano and Philippe Kouessan-Ettori making their first appearances this season. They were joined by Rob Grant, George Thorpe, Chris Baker, Dave Rimell, Ian Weir, Terry Ward, Sean Briscomb, Boris Pini and goalkeeper Mark Cory.

Like previous matches this season Brentwood started the game strongly with Rob scoring the first goal, the team going 3-1 up and still leading 3-2 after 10 minutes.

However, a combination of Brentwood losing focus, some good play by Warwick and some decisions by the referees reducing Brentwood to just 5 court players, saw Warwick edge back into the game and take a 8-3 lead after 20 minutes. A further 5 goals by Warwick with only 3 in reply from Brentwood saw Warwick lead 13-6 at half time.

A half-time team talk by coach Hans-Jörg Küller Rabaça saw Brentwood regain their focus scoring 4 goals in the first 10 minutes of the second half. However, the experience of Warwick saw them score 5 goals in reply to stretch their lead to 18-10. A further 5 goals by Warwick in the middle of the second half with only 2 in reply by Brentwood saw Warwick stretch their lead to 11 goals, leading 23-12 after 50 minutes.

Brentwood though, saved their best performance of the season for the last 10 minutes of the match scoring 9 goals to Warwick’s 4 goals making the final score Warwick 27 – Brentwood 21.

Top scorer in the match for Brentwood was Chris Baker with 8 goals, followed by Philippe and Rob with 5 goals each and 3 late goals by George adding to Brentwood’s total of 21 goals. There was also once again great saves by Mark Cory in goal plus good blocking in defence and some successful fast breaks.

Despite the loss this was a great performance by Brentwood who, at one stage, were 12 goals behind but reduced this at the end of the game to just 6 goals, and winning the second half by 15 goals to 14. Had it not been for the loss of concentration in the first half it could have been Brentwood’s day.

Coach Hans-Jörg was very pleased with the way the team responded in the second half saying “The team showed great determination and displayed the commitment and motivation that we are training for and is needed to win matches. The great team effort produced immediate results”.

This game was the 3rd game in Boris' 'The Everyman Olympian' handball challenge which you can read more about at: http://everymanolympian.blogspot.com/2011/11/handball-challenge-match-one-cranfield.html
Next game for Brentwood is on Saturday, 14th January 2012, once again away at the Cranfield University sports hall this time vs Cranfield University handball team.