South M3s and M4s gathered in the spring sunshine for some gentle exercise ahead of the serious business of the day – the consumption of copious amounts of India’s contribution to the culinary firmament. As with the hockey, there will be a friendly rivalry to the evening as the 24 men heading to The Curry Queen will be looking to out-eat the 22 Cambridge South ladies on the other side of Mill Road at The Golden Curry [wild stab in the dark – we will!]

Before that there was the little detail of chasing around of the accursed orb for seventy minutes. The 3rds had the lion’s share of possession and territory throughout but generally foundered on the 4ths' massed defence, especially in the opening half. Frustrated by this, Joe took matters into his own hands as he went on a dribble around the outside of the circle and then swept, reserve stick, at the goal. In it went via Shahzad’s pad and Joe was celebrating. Umpire Bhav was not having the wool pulled over his eyes by such uncouth behaviour and awarded a long corner, on the grounds that you have to actually get the ball into the circle before firing away. And a lemon was crowned [letting the 4ths and umpires vote on this sealed Joe’s fate].

It wasn’t long after when we were legitimately celebrating. It came from a shortie, slipped by Dave to Paul, who advanced past the runners and then flicked low into the exposed far corner. Very simple, very efficient. Enough to make one wonder why none of the other ~15 PCs we were awarded ever looked like finding the target? Maybe if we had aimed somewhere other than at Alan Radford’s feet, which must have been black and blue by the end…

Talk at the interval was that we needed to sharpen up considerably. The 4ths are a much improved outfit and their frontline of John G / Boris / Shahbaz have been amongst the goals in recent weeks. It would have been very much against the run of play if they had scored, but they do know where the goal is and between the sticks we had a rookie in Chris P [thanks for volunteering, mate!]. That said Chris looked assured on the few items he had to deal with.

The chatter was taken to heart as ball movement and patience in constructing attacks was markedly better after the interval. Our second put into operation all the elements we had talked about. First Neil went around the pressure rather than through it with a 20-yard square ball to Jan. Second Jan didn’t delay when a forward passing lane was open, but took one touch and fed it up to Paul in the circle. Third Joe wanted the ball the most, being first to the rebound after Shahzad had saved Paul’s initial effort.

It was three-nil moments later. The 4ths pushed forward from their centre pass, Douglas turned it over and transferred the ball upfield. It was worked out to Ollie on the flank and then to Joe, who got to the byline, drove into the circle and crossed for Tim to step in front of Shahzad and deflect home. And that, barring another half-dozen wasted short corners, was that. The 3rds will remain third in 5NW with three games to play. Next week? Newly-crowned champions Leadenham. We might have to step the intensity up somewhat for that…