Harleston Magpies make positive start to Super 6s Championships with results against Repton and Bowdon Hightown
‘Harleston Magpies, who are they? I don’t know who they are’ said a woman on the sidelines, watching the Super 6s Championships at the weekend.
‘You do now’, thought the Ladies’ team manager John Adams, who stated he was ‘incredibly pleased’ with how his side performed on their return to the Premier Division for the first time since 2015.
The Magpies, whose indoor campaign is supported by Emirates Logistics, accumulated four points from their four games at the weekend which has left them sitting sixth (out of nine) in the table. Finishing in the illusive top four spots, that they are only two points off, would see them qualify for the Super 6s Finals Day on Sunday, January 28 at Derby Arena.
They got their indoor campaign off to a flying start on Saturday, defeating reigning champions Repton 5-2, and then followed this up with a thrilling 4-4 draw against Bowdon Hightown – which Adams admitted his side ‘dominated’ and were ‘very unfortunate not to get three points in’.
Sunday was tougher for Harleston as they lost 3-1 to top-of-the-table Buckingham, who boast a 100 per cent record in the league and will be England's representatives in the Womens' European Indoor Club Cup in Turkey next month, before they were edged out 3-2 by East Grinstead.
“I think the girls were absolutely brilliant to be quite honest. Unfortunately we didn’t quite get the results and points on the table that we deserved,” said Adams.
“When you think about who we were playing, ultimately we would have bitten anybody’s hand off for four points. Actually, we could have come away with nine.
“I’m incredibly pleased with how the girls performed. It’s all to play for next weekend.
I think the mood is incredibly positive. It was fairly daunting to be playing the teams we were on the first weekend so I’m sure there’s a real belief that having performed so well, we can do well this weekend.”
“Obviously we can still get relegated, we can set out to do what we wanted which was to stay in the league, we could end up mid-table or we could still sneak into fourth place and have a chance of finals day.
"If we play as well as we can and having had that experience over the weekend, probably better things are to come this weekend.
“It was interesting to hear some of the comments from people who came up to me, whether they were neutrals or from other teams, saying ‘you played so well’.”
As Adams alluded to, all options are still on the table, with finals day on the cards as well as potential relegation – which the bottom two sides will suffer.
They will face third-placed Slough (2.30pm) and bottom-of-the-table Leicester City (6.30pm) tomorrow, before taking on fourth-placed Surbiton (10.00am) and fifth-placed Guildford (4.00pm) on Sunday.