Hockey: Points not cups come first for Welton captain Green

FIONA GREEN, the captain of Welton, the only non-National League club remaining in the fifth round of the EHA Cup, described tomorrow's visit of holders Hightown as a crucial game, but insisted that Welton's first priority will be today's league fixture against Sheffield.

"The Sheffield game is a big six pointer," Green said. "We are equal on points, just one place off the bottom and the league is our priority."

The captain sees the Cup game against Hightown as being like "Man United v Stevenage and if we score first, who knows? We have been focusing on ourselves and it will not be all out defence".

Welton will be pinning their hopes for that early goal on the Hull University student Pip Hirst, who has been scoring regularly this season, in spite of Welton's lowly position. Even so the odds are that Beryl Hockey, their Canadian goalkeeper, will be in for a busy afternoon.

Club preparations for the weekend's double headers will not have been helped by the England's World Cup training camp at Lilleshall this week.

However, it seems unlikely that Clifton (league) or Leicester (cup) will do too much to dent Slough's ambitions of being the first club to take the indoor and outdoor leagues and the cup titles in the same season.

The highlight of the men's National League programme will be the visit of leaders Cannock to Reading. No doubt their respective coaches, Malcolm Wood and Jon Copp, have kept their plans under wraps, despite being room- mates at an England training camp at Bisham Abbey.