We arrived at a very windy Long Road for our midday match versus Spalding 2s, who were sitting comfortably in fifth in the league table. Looking at Spalding's last few results we knew they had upped their game from the last time we met but South were feeling confident and maybe rather cocky after another great win the week before.

Our game plan we were told by the Boss; big three minutes, goal in the first ten, lots of pressure. Easy? Yeah…we thought so too.

However, the game plan didn't quite go to plan. We had a slow and shaky first fifteen minutes but we had a lot of possession and crucially we didn't concede. Spalding were playing well and we could see why they had beaten the likes of Pelicans: strong and physical, and we had to really work hard during our attack phases. Spalding stacked the central channel and, with Kim being man-marked from the first whistle (but anyone who knows Kim knows that being man-marked wouldn't stop her from playing out of her skin to get the ball), we used our defence to transfer the ball down both channels up to the mids and forwards, who played some lovely purple-to-purple hockey. We were finally finding our rhythm, resulting in us winning several penalty corners. Even though we didn't convert, we kept putting the pressure on. Halfway through the first half, and after dominating in the D, Kim managed to push the ball into the bottom left hand corner, past the keeper and boom, we were one-nil up.

For a team who haven't had to do a lot of defending this season, we were certainly tested. Spalding had their chances: they attacked at pace but most of their efforts were held up by a united defensive South. Roisin was battling hard in midfield with great ball skills until she stood on the ball and nearly fell over (this warranted her getting LOM). It was during another one of Spalding's attacks that they earned themselves a long corner. I wasn't too thrilled about this, so without looking I hit the ball over toward an unsuspecting Kim who was smacked right on the foot…(sorry Kim!) earning me, for the first time ever, Lemon. After sustaining a few more attacks, we couldn't hold them up for ever: finally one of their attacks prevailed and the score was one-all.

After a regroup at half time we were ready for a strong first ten minutes, it didn't quite go like that but we'll focus on the positives. The next twenty minutess we had all the possession, South grew in strength up the pitch and continued to press hard. Spalding, however, weren't giving up without a fight. They managed to break through our press but Ellie, Lou and Emma ran in unison to channel this Spalding player down into the bottom corner of the pitch, somehow winning us a free hit. More attacking from South, and all our hard work paid off with only a couple of minutes left before the end of the game, a great accurate ball through from Kim at the top of the D to Alison, who was on the post, and boom, it was two-one to South!

Everyone busted a gut to make sure we held off any more attacks before the final whistle blew. Another victory for South, maintaining our winning streak and three points to add to the board.

"We are top of the league, I said we are top of the league.”

We were missing some of our regular players, so a massive thank you to everyone who played out of position and in every position this week. Also a big thank you to all the supporters who came and watched and one final shout out to Robyn Murray, who is our new manager due to her being out for the rest of the season with a broken thumb because of a horrible stick tackle the week before…