Double figures for Inverleith
18 February 2012
EUROPEAN INDOOR CLUB TROPHY FRIDAY 17 FEBRUARY TO SUNDAY 19 FEBRUARY 2012 AT ENGAGE SPORTS CENTRE AT NAPIER UNIVERSITY IN EDINBURGH
Inverleith remain well established in second place behind French side Lille at the top of the pool in the European Indoor Club Trophy after sweeping aside Czech side HC 1972 Rakovnik 10-3, leaving promotion very much in the Edinburgh side`s own hands tomorrow when they play Kolos-Sekvoia Vinnitsa from Ukraine and finally Lille.
Inverleith simply showed no mercy to the Czechs in the first half, and it all started in the second minute with an Adam MacKenzie penalty corner strike that went low and hard past the keeper. Six minutes later the second went in, almost inevitably it was Derek Salmond who put the final touch with a close range tap in.
The goals continued to flow, Graham Moodie perhaps scored the goal of the day with a solo effort finished off with a brilliant reverse stick flick into the roof of the net. Mid-way through the half MacKenzie added another set piece with a direct shot past the Czech keeper, then Salmond grabbed his second with a goal from a yard out after Stephen Dick had done the space-work. Penalty corner expert MacKenzie collected his hat-trick just on the half-time hooter with another direct strike as the Czechs were still waiting for the switch, and Inverleith went in to the interval with a match-winning six goal lead.
The foot came off the gas a little in the second half and Rakovnik pulled one back through Petr Prochazka, but back came the Scots as John Harris picked up a loose ball at the edge of the circle and promptly made it 7-1. The Czechs made it 7-2 through a penalty corner conversion by Tomas Jahoda, then Moodie has to watch frustratingly as another reverse stick flick came back off a post to safety.
The Czechs gambled all by replacing their keeper with a "kicking back", but that only allowed Stephen Dick to make it 8-2. Prochazka did score another for 8-3, but that was soon cancelled out by another set piece from MacKenzie, his fourth of the game. In the final minute Salmond picked up the ball on the half-way line and waltzed up the pitch to claim his own hat-trick and double figures for Inverleith.
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