Home defeat at the hands of Brooklands

A volley of early goals from the visitors set the pace of the game but a goal in reply from Chris Traynor was not enough to pull Whitley Bay back into the game, as their struggle in front of the goal continues.

There was only 2 minutes on the clock when Rowen Poots opened the scoring for the visitors. A rebounded save from Jordan Thompson caught a red foot in the Whitley Bay "D" and Poots was on hand to dispatch the resulting penalty corner, with a low drag flick.

2 minutes later and Steve Andrews had doubled the lead as Brooklands ran riot on the counter attack. Whitley Bay couldn't defend their flanks as Andrews snuck down the baseline and capped his fine run off with a dink between Thompson's legs.

If it wasn't bad enough for the home side things got even worse on 8 minutes when Matt Lakin-Hall it 0-3 as Brooklands hit a shell shocked Whitley Bay. A wild swing in the "D" brought another penalty corner and again Brooklands didn't disappoint. Lakin-Hall supplied the deflected finish from a straight flick down the middle, leaving Thompson in goal little chance.

Whitley Bay tried to fight their way back into the game. Chris Traynor pulled one back from a penalty corner of Whitley Bay's own; a drag flick high into the left corner of the goal. Then both Titmus and Fleming came close to making it 2-3 but both were not able to take advantages of a nearly open goal.

Whitley Bay went into half-time 1-3 down, a scenario which has plagued their season all too often. This was the 6th game out of 11 in which Whitley Bay have had to fight back from at least a 2 goal defecate. Last week they were able to achieve this against Wakefield however on Saturday it was too much of an up hill battle to overturn an inform Brooklands side.

Whitley started the 2nd half brightly with Hector Hall testing Jacob Van Bentum in goal and Ritchie Brown had a goal wrongly overturned as Chris Traynor was adjudged to have used the back of his stick before feeding Brown at the back post from a short corner.

This ruling cost Whitley Bay dearly as it was the spark they needed to heap pressure on a creaking Brooklands defence.

Whitley Bay won 5 more penalty corners but Van Bentum was equal to all. It was Brooklands who had the last say of the day with a penalty corner won in the dying seconds. Leo Watton stepped up for this one and dispatched a low flick to Thompson's right finishing the game 1-4 to Brooklands.

Whitley Bay end the 1st half of the season for Christmas at home to Formby as they fight to take back their 2nd place position.