When the wind blows hard and the sky is black - Ducks fly together! Ok so it's a week late, but more appropriate for this game than the previous one.

There's a famous locker room speech, in which the coach accuses his team of sinking to the opponents level, and for whatever reason this seems to resonate with the South 2's - sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes it's not. Maybe this was the case again, or maybe it was the bitter cold freezing wind after 90 minutes in a warm car and a couple of near death experiences; or maybe it was just not wanting to sit in the car on the way home having got nothing out of the game, that led to us sinking to the opponents level again. Thankfully this time, the opponents were top of the league, and the negative sync actually caused us to raise our game.

Typically, as has more often than not been the case we concede an early goal in either of the halves to completely ruin a pre game plan, or the half time team talk. It's pleasing to say we did it again, and we had a couple of warnings before the goal as well…. Coops however had already planned for this, nice work captain, by adjusting the team talk. "If we go a goal down, then don't panic, don't go all out to score, there's plenty of time left" great planning …. It's like he saw it coming!

Despite a couple of early saves from Matt in goal, we got hit on the counter, or gave the ball away in the middle of the pitch with some opposition players behind us, pass pass pass, pass past the keeper, one down.

It took a while to get into our stride, but some good runs by Spikey Mikey, and some completely out of control good runs from Danny at left back and some solid tackling by the Mann Paws Walsh combination in the middle of the park had some early complaining thrown in the direction of the umpires. An interesting body check resulted in the first green card of the game, and it enabled us to put on a bit more pressure. Just after their player returned we got our equaliser, a few quick passes had the ball on Mario's stick, who had the keeper make a couple of saves before Paws lifted it past him to tie the score.

Some reshuffling due to subs and we soon had the lead with again a quick passing move feeding Chalk in at the top of the D. Never one to shy away from trying a spinny move the opposition were obviously wise to this, and so he went reverse stick and bought a ticket. The keeper happily accepted, saving it under his arm when it was going wide, deflecting the ball into the goal. 2-1 just before half time.

The team talk was cold, and involved water bottles being thrown off the pitch to break, and confusion among the forwards who at this point in a frontline of 3 managed to have 2 subs….. No matter, we would be defending this half anyway.

Spalding started well again with the intensity being stepped up, and before long had their equaliser, a well worked goal which was met with as much of a roar as Sergio Aguero's Premier League winning goal for Manchester City a couple of years ago. After all, it was a sell out at Lincolnshire's Club of the Year 2014. Sensing blood, Spalding applied more pressure, became more physical and promptly had another player carded. Not to be outdone by this, Mario then got in on the act, possibly just wanting a breather on the sideline. Mann, fresh from getting presented with the only team shirt he's ever had with his name on the back (which wasn't even recorded in the lemon voting) was screaming for us to keep the ball.

Frankly that's just not our style. Nothing beats a good back to the wall defensive effort. A couple more green cards came; another for Spalding after a challenge deemed overly aggressive , followed shortly after by one for Anns who, unhappy with Spalding questioning the umpires, just after having said as much promptly complained. Both sides had their chances to win it, Matt making some good saves, and a couple of balls not ending up on South stick in the D meant the game ended all square which was probably a fair result, although we were probably the happier team.

Coops, not happy with what was looking to be a one-sided lemon vote, discovered he didn't have his towel with him, until he'd dried with a shirt packed his bag and found the towel hanging on the hooks. It wasn't enough though to take the award from citrus-specialist Anns.

Roll on St. Ives next weekend, maybe just maybe we'll not play at the level of the opposition for once, and maybe just maybe it might be a bit warmer!