The Liverpool Handball Club’s male and female teams faced off against Manchester and Loughborough handball clubs respectively this weekend in a rollercoaster day of Northern Premier League competition.
The women’s side facing Loughborough won the game 29-20 after being down at half-time. While the men’s side fell to a powerful Manchester outfit 25-33.
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 provided analysis on her team’s performance:
“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.”
The green shirts of LHC mounted a comeback from a converted penalty at 18-18, Black praised Loughborough’s intensity on the counterattack: “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.
“I think we can win the rest of our games” said Black.
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 spoke on what needed to improve for his side: “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 physically imposed themselves on a smaller, faster LHC team. Booth acknowledged the challenge they had to overcome: “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.”
He added: “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 14th January, whilst the men return against Birmingham 14 days later on the 28th.
