The thing with the new(ish) two minute suspensions for green cards is that it makes it likely we will be forced to play with 10 men at some point this season. Therefore we had better get used to playing a man light in some less pressured situations, so that if we ever needed to do so with something on the line, we would have experience to fall back on. But how to effect this? A thought occurred. If I made the substitution scheme fiendish enough, we might end up with four confused M3s' players on the sidelines searching for an abacus app on their phones, whilst ten harried teammates tried to tame the Dragons! Yes, that was what we should do…

Despite operating a man light for no good reason, we still created the best chance in the first ten minutes to open the scoring; a nicely joined up counterattack feeding the ball to Simon, who rounded the Bourne Deeping keeper but then found the angle narrowing too rapidly and put his shot across the face of the empty net. That was against the run of play though, as the visitors made use of the overload in midfield to mostly push us back. If they had gone ahead in this period the game might have had a different outcome, but they foundered on some solid saves from Shahzad. The one time they had him beaten, with a short corner flick that was bound for the top corner, the skipper somewhat atoned for his numerical howler by deflecting over the bar with a shoulder high reverse stick (I knew the squash skills would come in handy some day!)

Once up to eleven, we gradually took charge with sweeper Dave spending more and more time in the Dragons' half. And sometimes in their twenty-fuve, those ventures forward not being solely for short corners. He was up there for those as well, of course, and it was from a PC that we got the opening goal. Dave’s first shot was a bit of a bobbler, the visitors' keeper mis-timing his clearing kick to put it straight back to the Monckasaurus. Shot number two was crisper and drew a good block from the stopper but this time it ran free to Rob, who found the corner.

Astonishingly enough the start of the second half saw a reprise of the ‘begin with ten men’ thing, though this time it only took us thirty seconds to work out we were playing with no left-winger. Maybe the M3s need to work on counting up to eleven in training this week? Once up to our full compliment (again!) we resumed the pattern of the latter part of the first half, dominating territory with Bourne Deeping only fitfully showing a counter-attacking threat. We needed a second, though, and it seemed certain to come when Tom fizzed a shot towards the top corner to end a flowing move, only for the Dragons' keeper to appear from nowhere and make a brilliant flying gloved save.

We wouldn’t have long to dwell on the disappointment as it was only a couple of minutes later when we did double our advantage. An initial thrust into the circle was broken up, with the ball running free towards Alex near the top of the circle. He first-timed a reverse stick sweep towards the corner, or towards the corner once Rob had leapt high enough to let the ball pass through his legs, rather than continuing on its original course towards somewhere more delicate.

The visitors were tiring as the game went on, which we exploited by adding two more. Will got the third, his first for the club, when he pounced to push home a loose ball following a broken down short corner. The fourth was easily the best of the game, stemming from Dave’s raking pass up to Rob. Rob drew his defender and then moved the ball on to Simon, who spun past the last man and slipped the ball past the advancing keeper and into the corner of the net.

Victory has us as the early leaders in Division 5NW, with 6 points from 6 and a +9 goal difference.