South 3rds' first trip north of the wash this season produced three points after a decent, but not spectacular, performance.

The weather on the way up seemed emblematic; it began to spit soon after departing Cambridge and was tipping down most of the way across the fens. When the waitress in the Sutterton Little Chef*, the 3rds' traditional breakfast spot on trips to the Lincolnshire wilds, learned we were heading for Horncastle she warned that the roads we needed were particularly prone to flooding. 10 miles north and we came across a road closed sign. The spectre loomed of being stuck in the fens near Boston with a hockey match twenty miles away and no way of accessing it, like some very prosaic nightmare. Fortunately it was roadworks instead and all the cars made it before the scheduled start time of 14:00.

[* - Olympic breakfast’s consumed? Zero. Paul, JT, we need you back, guys. Especially as they have a new breakfast, bigger than the Olympic one. It’s called the Royal Breakfast. I await with interest reports of how little running a player does after consuming one of these.]

Having steeled ourselves to creep out into the downpour and play the match, our attack started fairly brightly. An early short, probably our first, saw us take the lead. The initial shot was blocked, but the intended clearance was intercepted by Rob. He found Rasmus, whose shot was well saved by the Horncastle keeper. Unfortunately for the stopper Simon was the quickest to the loose ball and had a simple finish from close range.

At the other end our defence wasn’t quite as quick to switch from car journey to match, with Horncastle causing some problems. This lead to an equaliser when a cross came in from the right, bobbled past two defensive sticks, and was squeezed home by the forward through a seemingly imperceptible gap between Jason’s kicker and his near post. A kicker malfunction had left a gap no larger than a hockey ball, so the Horncastle forwards shot must have been millimetre perfect inside the post otherwise it couldn’t have sneaked in. Credit where it is due and all that.

Stung by this, we were soon back ahead. A quick counter was saved but the loose ball was again picked up by South and shifted to Rob high left in the circle. He unleashed a cross-come-shot (i.e. he gave it a good whack into the danger area), the ball deflected off a defender's foot and went in.

A 2-1 lead is precarious, and we certainly had scares. Two stood out. One came when Horncastle’s young winger produced a spectacular rising shot. Jason got a big left hand up to save impressively. However, that wasn’t the end of the danger as the ball dropped at Jason's feet and he couldn't initially locate it. He avoided stepping on the ball and squirting it into his own net (a genuine danger in such situations), and also managed to spot the darned thing and kick clear just before the attacking sticks coming flying in could turn it home. The other clear threat to our lead occurred in the second half when a long ball bounced sneaked past our high defensive line and set the home forward through one-on-one. He got into the circle and shot, but Jason blocked and kicked away.

These threats were rarities as the balance of play was swinging more and more in our favour. A number of clear cut chances came and went with both Simon, from seemingly point blank range, and Rob, from not much further, contriving to miss open goals. There were also South sticks deflecting their team mates' goal-bound shots wide, shots off target from good positions, swings and misses in the circle. The whole gamut, really. We needed the third goal to calm nerves, and it came eventually. Dave and Neil swapped passes in defence. Eventually the Monckosaurus got bored by such frippery, roared and stamped, the ground shook and the ball zipped 60 yards up field from his stick onto Rob’s. Rob rolled his man and beat the home keeper at his near post with a reverse stick sweep [JT, stop rolling your eyes].

3-1 quickly became 4-1 with the goal of the game. James S passed out of defence up to Ian on halfway. Ian moved it on to Tom, who played Ras in down the left channel. Ras cut into the circle, drew the keeper and squared for Rob to tap into centre of unguarded net. For Rob to tap into centre of unguarded net [taps watch]. Get on with it Rob, or one of the defenders is going to have time to get back and chal... Ras squared to Rob who forced his finish through a defensive stick into corner of net.

There was a fair amount of time left, but that was the end of the scoring and most of the genuine chances. I think everyone agreed that we can play better than we did on the day, but the main thing when doing a two hundred mile round trip is the result. We left with three points, and that is good enough for now.