Determined to make an early start to the fabled post-Christmas M2s fight-back, it was a strong team that rolled up for the long-ish away game to Long Sutton, despite some dubious navigational decisions and highly illegal joint driving efforts from JT Venner. Building on insights from our last game, the plan was to play 4-3-3, work as a team and - to quote big Tom - "maverickicity" (them teachers. Always with the posh words. A beer for the first person that can tell me what he meant).

It's safe to say that 4-3-3 suited us well, especially when we remembered that not all passes should go forward. In the first half we kept up with Long Sutton fairly well - admittedly, they got 2 goals, but one of those was a strike into the top-corner that nobody could've stopped. On the other end of the pitch, it was only bad luck to kept Tom C and Dave from getting our own goals in.

Having reinforced the need to keep the ball, pass early and not always go forward, we came out flying in the second half and took the game to LS. I have never seen M2s play the ball around the back that often. Or post up for a pass that well. Or distribute the ball to the wings that much. So what do you think happened? Wrong - it was us that got the goal. Two of 'em, in fact. With about 10 minutes to go, it was 2-2 and Long Sutton seemed ready to crack. And then... well - I have to call it our tempus horribilis. Maybe we were afraid we might actually go ahead and win this game. Maybe we got complacent. Or maybe we pissed off some god of hockey. Bottom line is, in 5 minutes Long Sutton put 4 goals past us and a fat lady sang a sorrowful tune.

Truly, this scoreline does not reflect the game! This was undoubtedly the best performance that M2s has shown this season, with loads of promising signs. If there's one thing we need to improve, it's to maintain our composure and work rate for 70 minutes. But the hockey we played today will give us results against plenty of teams in this league - so let's keep this up and start taking home some points!