The Real Mother of Invention

Gah .... Woeful turnout at nets last night. A whole 2 peoples. And the second only turned up as I was leaving. I think the end-of-season rot has well and truly set in. I remember this happened last year too, where for the last month everyone gave up nets and it was very difficult to get a team out (not that I'm complaining too much - it got me my debut on the 1sts ).

I was more surprised than usual last night though, as our first team have their cup final next Saturday, and I thought some of them would be down sharpening their skills. Unless they were hiding in the bushes waiting for me to leave I know the skipper was working late, but surely a couple of them would have still pitched up to get a bat in their hands to check if they still remember how to use it! Especially after the last 5 weeks of cancellations and a drubbing last weekend to dash our hopes of promotion.

I got to the park just before 6 to open the place up, and while I was waiting I got out the stump and a few hockey balls to have a bit of a hit myself. At home I've been bouncing a tennis ball off the wall and practising driving it, but I hadn't been able to find a suitable place to do this at the pitch. However yesterday, what with boredom being the mother of invention and all, I managed to circumvent such petty obstacles :)

Basically, I dragged the roller over in front of the door of the equipment container, stood about 10 feet away with the stump, and then pegged the ball at the curved surface of the roller. This worked surprisingly well, with the hockey balls pinging back to me at a reasonable clip (but not too fast), and the length gets a natural variation based on where on the roller the ball hits! Errant throws also weren't too bad, as the container behind the roller stopped the ball going too far.

I think this new method might keep me going for a while, I'll have to find something similar for the tennis courts near my house. It's coming into the time of year when they'll be empty more often, so I might be able to get down and use them myself.