The Liverpool Handball Club’s male and female teams faced off against Manchester and Loughborough this weekend in a rollercoaster day of Northern Premier League competition.
The women’s side beat Loughborough 29-20 after being down at half-time. Whilst the men’s side fell to a powerful Manchester outfit, 25-33.
Second-half heroes
Laura Black was the shining star for the women’s unit showing incredible speed, power, and precision to smoothly put away several goals for the home side.
She said: “The first half we started a little bit slow and we had a really good team talk at half time to work on our individual attacks and our team defence. I feel we really picked it up in the second half.”
Black praised Loughborough’s intensity on the counterattack after the green shirts of LHC mounted a comeback from a converted penalty at 18-18. She said: “The fast restarts were a little bit of a challenge, they’ve always been a quick team so in the second half we were definitely more aware of this.”
The women’s team have only lost one game this season from six and will hope to continue their form with Black admitting “I think we can win the rest of our games”.
VIDEO: Martha Tubacka converts a penalty to turn the game into LHC’s favour
More to work on after Manchester
The men’s team displayed a similar comeback-attitude but did not have the time to complete it.
The home side demonstrated resilience in the face of adversity by preventing a blowout victory with an array of creative shots.
Team captain and goalkeeper, Jack Booth said: “We never really got going, we had no momentum. We had a flying start but the levels just dropped, and I know I could’ve played better.”
A strong Manchester Handball Club squad imposed themselves physically on a smaller, faster LHC team. Booth said: “Obviously they’ve got big, tall guys, for us being a smaller team it’s a case of learning as you play, and we just didn’t do that in time.
“It just wasn’t our day.”
The women’s side will be hoping to continue their good form as they face Trafford Handball Club on 14 January, whilst the men return against Birmingham two weeks days later on the 28 January.
