Hockey: No rest for Allan's CALA Edinburgh hockey heroes

NEIL ALLAN today saluted his CALA Edinburgh squad for winning promotion to the elite of Scottish indoor hockey after a hard-fought 5-3 victory over Hillhead in Perth last night.

Now the coach is ordering his men to focus hard on winning promotion from Division Two outdoors by beating rock-bottom Motherwell in Edinburgh on Saturday (3.30pm) at Meggetland.

Hillhead, who finished bottom of Division One, led 1-0 but were locked at 3-3 at half-time against the Edinburgh side who were second in Division Two.

Wei Adams, the former Grange player, and a double from Andy Holden scored for Hillhead in the first 20 minutes.

Edinburgh countered with strikes from Phil Rae, defender Kevin Miller - his first goal indoors and outdoors this season - and Steven Glass.

But second-half goals from Scott Sutherland midway through the period and Steven Waugh with five minutes remaining saw the Capital combine home.

Allan added: "It was a tight game, closer than we would have liked, but we were always comfortable. They counted from two of three corners and they played well.

"Saturday is a different focus. We know what we have to do and the guys will be buoyed from what happened last night.

"Promotion was our goal indoors and we have the same target outdoors. We were very professional about the way we went about the win last night and we'll have to be the same again on Saturday."