Aims for the day were to win if we could [well, obviously], which would mean fending off relegation for at least another seven days. If not that to draw [again, duh!] and so back up last week’s win against March; we hadn’t managed to string two results together previously in the season, our longest unbeaten ‘run’ being a single game. If even that proved beyond us, to at least try and be competitive and to play the match with more than ten men, i.e. not to mimic the 2nds, who played in the 11.30am slot at Thomas Deacon the previous Saturday and had found the experience a bit trying. It wouldn’t have done to put Coops through Groundhog Day; he is much too nice a fella.

The initial assessment was good, as a whole eleven Southerners were on show at the first whistle. That positivity didn’t last for long though, as Peterborough took an early lead with what seemed suspicious ease. A player broke past two defenders on halfway, there was an overload at the back, the ball was moved neatly to leave a gentle push into an open net. Thoughts again drifted to the 2nds' scoreline seven days previously.

We were hard-pressed for a time after the concession of the goal, struggling to clear our lines when we got the ball as the Peterborough team harried and tried to turn us over deep in our zone. But the damage was kept to one through a combination of diligent defensive work from the whole team and key saves from Lino to break up more overload situations and also to keep a short corner flick out of his top corner. We even had a few chances of our own to equalise, with the Peterborough keeper first making a fine save to deny a trademark reverse stick sweep from Rob at the end of a flowing moved, and Jacob also coming close with a deflected shot that was sneaking inches inside the far post before a lunging leg from the keeper just about managed to nick it wide.

As the half wore on, we were getting more comfortable and pushing more bodies forward, which nearly went terribly wrong in the dying seconds of the half. A free hit was won inside the Peterborough 25, wide left. Stu took it, worked himself space for a cross and thumped it into the circle. Unfortunately straight into Dave’s ankle, a couple of yards away. It hit him beneath the shin-pad, and he went down poleaxed. Ice-packs and GP attention (both sides had one in their ranks, even if ours was the man responsible for the injury!) were of the opinion that it was more likely badly bruised than broken, but with Dave barely able to stand let alone run it looked like we would be playing the second half with ten men after all.

Efforts by the remaining ten were re-doubled in the early minutes of the second half, until the magic of the ice-pack meant that Dave was back upright and asking the Umps if he could rejoin the fray. He was still essentially working on one leg, so went to stand in the Peterborough circle, to at least make them decide whether to cover him or not. They opted not to, with one of their players overheard saying “They’ll never get it as far upfield as that!” [presumably someone with a poor short-term memory who had forgotten the chances we had had in the first half], a choice they would quickly come to regret. The equaliser started at right-back as Jan intercepted a Peterborough pass and then fed it up to Ali. He moved it on smartly to Rob on halfway, who was aware that Dave had been left on his tod so immediately put his stick through the ball and fired it in the direction of the circle. Dave hopped into position to take a first-time swing as it arrived, and connected beautifully, firing it under the keeper.

Peterborough were clearly galled by this, and also by not putting us away as easily as they had expected, as they proceeded to fluff their lines. They butchered at least four overload situations, with the ball often ending up trundling harmlessly out of play. One clear chance did come amongst the misplaced passes, and even this was somewhat fortuitous as a deflection off a South foot wrong-footed our last defender and Lino, falling nicely to a Peterborough player who seemingly had an open net. He controlled and pushed the chance goalwards, only for Lino to fly back in to view and make an outstanding diving stick save.

Our confidence was rising as the game progressed and this was manifested in more chances and attacking play. During one move, Stu tried to atone for injuring Dave by evening the score up; a Peterborough player nipped in to rob him of the ball, which left Stu (possibly now to be known as Dr Doom?) off balance and stumbling into the back of the player, causing him to fall and do something nasty looking to his knee. We hope it wasn’t too serious and he is back in action soon.

Just past the 60 minute mark and one of our counters set Rob up one-on-one with a Peterborough defender. He knocked it past/through, collected on the other side and looked like he had a clear route into the circle, where Dave awaited in support. However the defender clipped Rob’s heels as he tried to move away, resulting in Rob collapsing in a heap, managing a much louder yell than either of the two genuinely injured players had emitted [two LoM votes went his way on this basis, some way behind Neil's impressive total of seven]. The umpire ruled the foul deliberate and awarded a short, and from that Rob extracted full revenge with the greatest possible simplicity; a clean inject and stop giving him the time and space to thump a straight strike into the corner.

To say Peterborough looked rather shocked by this turn of events would be an understatement. They had come into the match on the back of a run of nine wins and just a single defeat in their previous twelve games, and that loss had come away at champions-elect Spalding. A home defeat against the division's bottom side was clearly not something they had even been contemplating. Hence them throwing the kitchen sink at us in the remaining time but doing so in a rather frantic and uncontrolled manner that did little to stretch our back line. Our defence even had time to play around and do things like beast the midfield in defending shorts by giving away further shorts. They obviously regarded the midfielders as not having had enough of a work-out and I’m sure they enjoyed their three fifty yard sprints within a minute. Joking aside, the third in succession generated a really dangerous situation as a block dropped for a Peterborough player near our left post with seemingly just a defender on the line to beat. He controlled and flicked for the top corner, only for Lino to once again make a late re-appearance and knock the ball away with a big left hand.

That was the last serious chance for the home side, so we had won, just as had happened when we visited Peterborough 6ths a couple of months ago. Maybe we should play all our games in Peterborough, we apparently like the place so much. These three points would later be confirmed as having lifted us off the foot of the table for the first time since early October.