Stunned coach can't excuse Dalefield `horror'

Dalefield coach Lance Hare is making no excuses for his team's 7-1 thumping by Harbour City-Tawa in their Wellington premier division men's hockey match on Saturday.
Hare said it was simply a case of Dalefield failing to stick to the game plan and suffering the consequences.
''We were running around like headless chooks, it was very average stuff,'' Hare said. ''We went out with a definite game plan but you wouldn't have thought so, we were all over the place. The wheels fell off in a big way.''
Adding to the frustrations for Hare was that this match was seen as being ''very winnable'' and a royal chance for Dalefield to quickly bounce back from their 4-2 loss to Northern United the previous weekend.
''No way are they [Harbour City-Tawa] six goals better than us, not by a long stretch,'' Hare said.
''They are actually a team we should beat so I guess that tells you how badly we played. As a coach a performance like that is indefensible, excuses don't run that far.''
Poor as the Dalefield effort was, however, it wasn't until the second half that Harbour City-Tawa took control with five of their goals coming during that period of play. ''Our first half was ordinary, our second half was horrible,'' Hare said.
The one positive from the huge loss for Dalefield was that it didn't necessarily end their hopes of making the top four playoffs later in the season but no one knows better than Hare that substantial improvement will be required for them to reach those lofty heights.
''Sometimes it takes a shocker to get teams back into top gear and hopefully that's what will happen for us,'' he said.