The optimistic view is that we were competitive in this match, which hadn’t been the case in the last few weeks. We created enough chances to have taken something from the game and on another day would have done so.

The pessimistic view is that we lost again despite a competitive performance. A quarter of the season has now gone, and we remain firmly stuck on zero points. If we are to turn it around, we need points, be it one or three, from every game where we are in with a shout of them.

Our team for the game was assembled without having to dip into other squads for the first time during the league season (it would be nice if the same proves true at Spalding next week...). We even, shock-horror, had a substitute. At least for the first half until Neil had to scoot off.

So all good in advance. Then the start got delayed due to the key for the Astroturf and car-park not showing up until five minutes before push-back. This led to a very abbreviated warm-up, much to the skipper's annoyance as his plan to work on shorts had to be abandoned. The silver lining to the late start was that it allowed our Umpire and one of the players, rushing across town from the 1sts game, to arrive for push-back.

The next issue was the state of the Catz pitch. This generally suffers from an over-abundance of sand, but on this particular day heavy overnight rain had made this closer to mud. It was very slippery, almost but not quite to the point of being unplayable. At times it felt like we would be better shod in skates. Tom took this a touch too far by not bringing any Astro boots at all, ending up borrowing a pair from Joe who was in attendance as Umpiring cover. Tom somehow avoided getting our Lemon of the Match vote by keeping quiet about this within earshot of his teammates. Unfortunately for him, Joe had told all of the 4ths (watching from the sidelines as they prepared to play the 5ths), so Tom got their LoM instead!

As for the game, St. Ives took an early lead, the only aspect of the move that produced it to stick in my mind is their forward breaking unchallenged into the circle and slipping it past Lino. I do remember thinking something about shoddy defending contributing, but exactly what form of shoddy defending now passes me by. We had a good chance to equalise when some uncomplicated passing down the right (when you get it right, hockey can be such a simple game) ended with a cross to the back post that just eluded Ali’s stick. Soon after the Saints made it two, taking advantage of static defending to work a couple of neat triangles down our right, and then finding the net with an early taken shot.

The second half saw us creating chances and forcing shorts, but snatching the opportunities. The shorts, in particular, were pretty rubbish, making the missed warm-up opportunity all the more galling. One eventually worked, and even that was a flub, the inject being miss-directed but a left slip to Tom being improvised, and he flicked home at the ‘keepers near post. There were ten minutes or so to play at this point, and we threw ourselves into chasing every ball (literally in Paul’s case, though that had more to do with the state of the pitch). Half-chances came and went, the final one in the very last minute when Ali’s sweep went past the post. So the match finished 1-2.

Other results mean we are now 3 points adrift at the bottom, and 4 from safety. We need to start picking up points urgently if we want to get out of the mire.