So, to be blunt; I’m kind of hating this right now.

When your social timelines are clogged with the successes of Surbiton and then you have to write on how Holcombe didn’t quite manage to bring home a Championship, it’s not that fun.

On the one hand, it helps to quash some demons, take a step back and put things into context.

On the other, I just plain and simply don’t want to think about it all right now.

It takes time to come to terms with how your season ended if you haven’t won it all because that means that, by default, someone did it better than you.

You start your pre-season in June. You’re with your team in July. Your season starts in September. It finishes in March. You do it all for one 60-minute game in April. If that goes well you go again on Sunday. If it doesn’t then enjoy your off-season. Do better next year.

It’s all we care about really at this stage of the season.

For the club as a whole however it has been a really successful year. We competed in the European Hockey League for the first time in the club’s history. While we wait and see if we have done enough with our third placed finish to qualify again, the more important feat is that our Women have qualified for Europe for the first time in the club’s history after beating East Grinstead in their semi-final on Saturday.

It was a phenomenal effort from the girls. They’ve had some really tough run-ins with East Grinstead both indoors and out so to put all of that to bed in the manner that they did is a testament to how much the group have progressed this past year.

The prospect of playing in Europe is as exciting as it gets for club hockey on the continent and the girls are absolutely buzzing off the back of this weekend. They really did push Surbiton hard the Final but they’re (as of now) four-time reigning Champions for a reason. It’s going to take something really special to knock them off their perch.

Our girls did the club proud and achieved their goal from the start of the season; qualify for Europe.

For us, we were beaten by the eventual Champions. Everyone who knows the teams in the men’s league knows that there isn’t a lot to choose from between the top four. Both Semi-Finals were decided by a single goal and then the Final itself went to penalties.

We feel we didn’t do ourselves justice on Saturday. Surbiton are a quality outfit, worthy champions and will do very well in Europe I am sure. But we didn’t play like we are capable of and that’s left a bit of a bitter pill to swallow.

How much of that comes down to Surbiton playing well is a chicken-and-egg scenario but we’re better than we showed on Saturday.

It was said before the game but elite sport is all about performing on the right day, on the big stage. Everything we’ve done as a group and as individuals for the past 10 months was to give ourselves the opportunity to play that game. For the second season in a row it didn’t work for us and we fell at the final hurdle.

Fine margins. But tough to take nonetheless.

On Sunday, we played as we know we can and scored 7 against a fellow Playoff team. The performance came 24 hours late and although it’s helped to not go into such a lengthy break off the back of Saturday’s game, it still doesn’t solve what happened.

We’ve had 2 disappointing trips to the post-season in our two years in the Premier League. It’s another tough one to take and to think that 12 months must pass before we even have the possibility of another shot is difficult to think about.

Throughout the whole season however the one thing that has remained constant has been the fantastic support from the club. The number of messages we received throughout the year, the number of supporters that came out to the European Hockey league, National League and Cup fixtures throughout the season has been phenomenal.

Saturday. Sunday. Kent. Manchester. Men. Women. You’ll always find Holcombe support at every game and that means an awful lot to every player at the top end of the club.

The Holcombe support were there in force again this weekend and although we didn’t bring home a Championship to celebrate with you, second and third in the country hopefully goes some way towards thanking you for all that you’ve done for the two squads this year.

For now at least, that’s it.

We didn’t bring home a title but we have a side in Europe next season and that’s of monumental importance to the continued progression of the club as an entity.

The off-season has truly begun and the next thing on the agenda is some good hard running through July and August to get us ready for the new season. In the meantime, it’s most definitely time to take a break from hockey and put this post season behind us.

As far as I’m concerned, the league has just re-set, and everyone’s starting on zero.