Mink van der Weerden made an instant impact at Rot-Weiss Köln as his pair of goals helped them see off Crefelder HTC on Wednesday night as the German Bundesliga returned.
In front of 280 spectators, close to the mandated limit due to local hygiene regulations, the Dutch corner cannon added to a glorious opening goals from Christopher Rühr to build a 3-0 lead before Linus Michler cut the gap.
RWK trainer André Henning said of the outcome: “I thought it was a deserved victory! In the first quarter, you could feel the excitement. Although we still many games this season, it somehow felt very important to us.
“Then we improved every minute. The second and third quarters were very strong. We deservedly led 3-0. When we slowed down a bit, we conceded a goal from a corner – that can always happen.”
For new Crefeld coach Ronan Gormley, he was not dissatisfied despite the 3-1 loss, saying: “Overall, that was a good basis to start from. In the second quarter, we conceded goals to an individual action and a corner but, in the third quarter, we were not strong enough. In the last quarter, we returned to the good performance from the start of the game and reduced the gap.”
With the German league continuing from where it left off last November, Rot-Weiss moved into a three point lead at the top of the table with Uhlenhorst Mülheim second and Mannheimer HC third. Krefeld are fourth after 11 rounds of matches for each team.
Saturday and Sunday see rounds 12 and 13 of the league with 11 rounds to be played between now and October 31st.