South's longest away trip of the season, to marginally short of the Arctic Circle, was rewarded by a third successive victory in which a dispirited-looking Alford were completely outplayed from start to finish.

Despite missing the considerable presences of Messrs Graveling, Sprawson and Readman, South were strong in all areas, with replacements John Benedikz and Keith Simpson giving a solid account of themselves and playing a full part in South's countless attacking moves. Benedikz was soon in the action as he, Jonny Tostevin and John Taylor interpassed neatly up the right flank, and the left side was no less productive as Chris Massey and Sanjay Agarwala repeat­edly tantalised the overworked defence.

Although Alford had great difficulty break­ing out of their own twenty-five, largely thanks to South's much-improved ringing of sixteens and free hits, it was not until the twenty minute mark that the visitors found the back of the net, when birthday boy John Taylor decisively put away a rebound from South's third short corner after Rick Erlebach had switched neatly to Rob Barton. Both Barton and Erlebach then had shots cleared off the line as the one-way traffic continued and the half closed with South's sixth short after an amusing melee in front of goal where at least five visiting attackers hacked unavailingly at the ball as the Alford keeper bravely tried to clear.

After the interval, South continued to press hard, with midfield dynamo Erlebach in superlative form, distributing the ball with vision and purpose and suffocating any attempt at an Alford breakout. South's constant possession finally told in the thirty-seventh minute when Erlebach again switched to Barton at a short for the latter to rip one through the goalie's pads. Driven on by a watchful Jim Thorpe, whose magisterial pronouncement that "the level of hockey has dropped considera­bly" obviously had some effect, South won their eleventh penalty corner five minutes later and Erlebach gained his just reward by firing home off a defender's stick.

The home side then went four down when Peter Carey, manfully holding off a defender to the right of the D, slipped a pass back into the centre for a tenacious Benedikz to sur­prise everyone but himself with a sweetly-timed shot through his own, and the goalie's, legs. After a rare Alford attack had been calmly hoovered up by Thorpe and Simpson, Barton converted from Erlebach to make it 5-0 and the game was closed out with a further burst of shorts to bring South's tally for the match to fifteen.

A deflating afternoon for the home side was rescued only by a gutsy performance from their keeper, who had earlier vied with Agarwala, Barton & co. to see who could arrive at the ground latest. South skipper Steve Parker, whose most significant intervention of the day was to win the toss, said the team could have done with a tougher work-out in the lead-up to the crucial Spalding match but was nonetheless delighted with the way his revamped team had dismissed the opposition.