Having lost against this team in the first half of the season the 2s travelled up to Rutland to exact their revenge on the youngsters. The 2s had struggled all week to muster 11 players, and once a team had been rallied there was then the problem of sorting out how everyone was going to get up there. However, this was resolved on Friday night after a record breaking amount of emails (my hotmail has crashed) and team changes.

Upon arrival at the ground the team discovered the public school facilities were awesome. The heated floor in the changing room delayed the warm up. If Ron would have been present there would have been a lot of swearing on his part to get us out and warming up with his 'Pepperpot' exercise, which is good, apart from the name of it, and surprisingly very confusing for people that have never used it before, such as Dave Monck and Andrew Fraser.

Dom had created a team formation, so the IPad was produced to explain where everyone was playing. Quite fittingly it was a Christmas tree shaped formation. With 3 sweepers on the field, and a back four that wouldn't have looked out of place outside a nightclub entrance, it appeared that the youngsters would have trouble getting anywhere near our goal.

Unfortunately that didn't prove to be the case. The first half was a well fought out match where south didn't produce any real good chances on goal, and the Rutland team were well composed, passing it around well. The first goal was scored from a conceded short corner, from a controversial stick tackle by Dom. South were clumsy and the umpires were tiring of our countless stick tackles and foot fouls.

At the half time break the formation changed from a Christmas tree shape to a Christmas sledge type of thing. We stepped it up a little and used the width a bit more which created some positive runs but yielded little in the way of good chances. However, South were still being clumsy in the wrong areas and more shorts had to be defended. The Rutland team were well practised in this department and it inevitably resulted in more goals.

The second half efforts did provide some goal scoring chances. The best of all resulted in a Nick Venner classic, a 'take it round the goalie and pass it in' shot, this came from a superb lob pass from Tom Howell that travelled a great distance to successfully reach its intended target.

Some decisions by the umpires were taking their toll on the south players. Bhav received a yellow for contesting a stick challenge, and Dom became increasingly infuriated, resulting in a display of aggression on himself on the floor. His hand bore the brunt and this resulted in not being able to pass to his right for the rest of the game. Surprisingly his stick, goal and dug out came away unscathed.

The last move of the game was an 'execution' style short corner by Rutland that sent the South team away with lessons to be learnt in composure, team play and clumsiness. It was obvious the Rutland schoolboys practice and play a lot of hockey together, with a consistent 11, resulting in an excellent display of 'Barcelona style' hockey, that we were no match for.

The 2s are going to have to work very hard to get out of the relegation zone they have found themselves in, going into the 5 week break.