The Red Panthers finished their first Pro League session with a record of 7 points out of 12 and a goal average of +5. Two wins, one defeat, one draw and one shoot-out defeat.
Relativize
The comments in the media were flattering, especially after the great victory over the English. It is true that it was a pleasure to see them react after a rather slow first half. But we still have to put things into perspective because England presented themselves with a completely new team: 13 players out of the 20 committed had not yet played a single match in A and only 7 players had between 20 and 85 caps. The average age of this team made up of new T1 David Ralph, alongside whom we find Simon Letchford as assistant, is 21.6 years. England has indeed chosen to recompose its team and used the Pro League as a training ground.
More convincing is the victory of the Panthers against China. The latter is better than her current ranking and won bronze in Paris; it has become a great women’s hockey nation. As for the PCs, the results are as follows: Bel-Chine 2/4 v 2/3, Bel-Ang 1/8 v 1/2, Bel-Chine 1/2 v 1/6, Bel-Ang 6 /12 v 2/3; the Belgian stats are interesting except against the first match against England where we can really speak of disappointment, and not only at the PC level since this defeat against a brand new English team is clearly a poor performance.
Super Englebert
It will not surprise anyone to see Charlotte Englebert shine on the pitch. Against England, she outperformed her opponents, proving decisive. The only problem is this little injury to his knee which he will need to take care of as closely as possible to continue his career. Lisa Moors is a great discovery while the other attackers have proven their effectiveness.
A less positive point is the weakness at times of the Belgian defense which was surprised on a few occasions even though it was a strong point of the Belgian system. We will look forward to the debrief of this session by the staff, and the continuation of this Pro League with the Panthers’ trip to Argentina from February 19 to 24
3rd in ranking
Belgium remains 3rd in the FIH world rankings. She lost 35 points with her defeat against England (-72.13) and the draw against China (-33.70), but retained her place behind the Netherlands and Argentina, and ahead of Germany, Australia, China and England.
Match summaries of this Pro League session
England-Belgium 2-8
China-England 4-0
China-Belgium 1-2
Belgium-England 1-3
China-England 2-1
China-Belgium 2-2 so 4-1
Belgium
