South 3rds led this game for about one second. Fortunately it was exactly the right second.

Certain of the seconds during the opening fifteen minutes were very wrong. The nadir (see Lemon) was a sideline pass by Jan that wrong-footed Dave, who slipped in trying to reach it, and then got past Jason as he rushing out to alleviate the danger and stumbled. The ball ran free to the March centre forward, who presumably couldn’t believe his luck as he hammered the ball into an empty net.

That goal had made the score 2-0, as March were already ahead via the same player. It didn’t really feel a fair reflection on the game to that point, as we had had our chances and a significant chunk of territory and possession. But if you will insist on taking a 12-bore to your own feet…

Talk at the interval was to keep going as the visitors, skilful though they were, were not young. They were visibly tiring and had no subs to do anything about this. They did remain strong in the tackle however, so the key was to play around, not through, them. Early in the second half we got it right: Chris took a quick free hit, wide on the left, and played it square to Nathan. Nath threaded a marvellous pass to Tim, bursting in from the right touchline. Tim crossed, the keeper saved, and the ball broke free for Joe to smack into the unguarded goal.

We made it 2-2 nearly straight from the push-back, as Nathan broke up March’s attempt to pass amongst their defenders, rode through some heavy tackles and put a reverse stick ball across the circle. This looked like a cross, but since it travelled untouched into the far corner of the goal let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and say ‘pinpoint shot’.

We kept pushing forward, and were winning short corners. The next goal stemmed from one of these. Not for us though. Our routine broke down and all our players stopped, clearly expecting a whistle. It never came and March countered, leaving the defence three-on-about-seven as our forwards chose to wave their arms around in frustration rather than get back and help. A few seconds later this culminated in an unmarked March player flicking the ball past a completely exposed Jason.

This goal was greeted by a hail storm, as if the gods themselves were expressing their displeasure (the sun had been out when we were scoring!) However, the good thing about having deities on your side is they can work obliquely in your favour. Take our penalty corner equaliser, for example. Normally it would be Dave as the go-to guy but he was off injured at this stage, having landed heavily on his wrist after stretching in an attempt to connect with the previous PC. That meant it was a bit of a free-for-all, which explains Joe nominating himself to the role. Good idea as it turns out, because Joe’s shot found the far corner, with the possible aid of a deflection along the way.

March had come into the game third in the table, so they needed to win to sustain their promotion prospects. They therefore threw bodies forward from the restart, which gave holes for us to exploit on the counter. Rob moved into one of these wide left, received the ball and headed towards the circle. The angle was narrow and Rob was being closed down by scrambling defenders, but he still let fly. This time there was no doubt about the deflection, the ball rising up sharply from a defensive stick and flying into the opposite top corner. 4-3! Before anyone had really had time to process what had just occurred, there was the final whistle to confirm that we had finally got the breaks, and the win, in a match against one of the leading sides in the division.