This seems to be a recurring theme for the L3s over the short period I have played for them. Meeting all the teams fighting it out for the top of the table over the last month, the Thirds have raised their game to match, denying several "supposedly assured" walk-overs of them by such teams. Today probably being our best game yet!

The inclement frost and ice that prevented the originally scheduled game on 19th November from happening transformed itself to persistent drizzle for the festive Santas versus Elves playing after us this weekend.

The first half, I think South surprised ourselves with how evenly contested the game was. For every attacking drive Nomads created, we were also breaking back up the pitch. We had not one, but two, spectacular chances in this half to go one up against the team currently sat second in the league (while we sit in second-last, a.k.a. thirteenth!) The first of these, Pip, on a speedy drive, breaks into their D, dummies their goalie into diving on the floor before going the opposite way round her prone body, to shoot at an empty goal, sadly putting it just wide of the right post to loud groans from our large entourage of supporters & much-appreciated coaches [Constructive commentary from Matt, Tom, Ali, Jack and Colin generally being very helpful, aside from when a Nomads player foolishly mistook Colin's authoritative voice to be the umpire directing her to do the exact opposite of Steve's (actual umpire) direction… Who would seriously let Colin umpire?!? I digress…]

Back to the excitement of Pip's second opportunity to score. On this occasion the ball came down the wing (I think…) via Rosie, to be taken along the baseline and slingshotted around the keeper to near the flick spot. Pip was alone amid a sea of panicking Nomad defenders, after their keeper had been removed from the equation a second time… The ball escaped tantalisingly close to a post once again.

Clearly not rattled by this, Nomads succeeded in overloading our defensive D yet again. Their first shot was halted by goalie Lydia's stick. Sadly, despite Anouschka and others' best efforts, we weren't able to clear it before Nomads' persistent centre forward swept it into the goal.

Our new training regime was paying off with lots of nice short passing in triangles generating another opportunity, with a loose ball near the top of Nomads' D, Catriona only just being beaten to the goal opportunity by some fierce Nomads defence. A very promising first half finished one-nil to Nomads.

At the start of the game we had rather more players than anticipated, so our gallant captain Laura nobly chose to play the friendly game afterwards to allow others the opportunity to play the league game, which left us in the jellybaby-less hands of Liz and Lou at halftime… Fortunately lack of supplementary sugar was not sufficient to thwart this team's determination!

The second half sadly felt slightly less evenly contested, with Nomads maintaining "seemingly consistent" pressure on our defensive D. Teamwork between Laurie's reverse stick, running one, diverting the short striker's slip, allowed no. 2 runner Sarah to safely clear the first of many short corners we were to face in this half.

While Polly had been Sarah's main route out in the first half from sixteens, consistent movement from Lou (11/10 for workrate throughout the game - managing to be everywhere!) allowed many successful sixteens to break through to either Liz or Ash up front or on the wings, giving the defence a brief respite between the Nomadic onslaught of attacks.

Ask anyone who watched the concluding ten minutes of the game and they will verify that a dizzying number of Nomads attacking long and short corners were won; I estimate in the region of ten of the latter. During this time, we were all very grateful Ani-"maybe-I'll-play-maybe-I-won't" did decide to bring her visiting friend along to watch, after she thwarted many of Nomads' attacks coming into the right of our D. Great work in our midfield from Nicole and Saskia helped both support the defence as well as offer us routes out for the ball too.

I myself (after a minor misunderstanding regarding subbing strategies) was both surprised and elated to hear the full time whistle blown with the score remaining only one-nil to Nomads. We kept them to that incredibly modest score!

The excellent all-round team effort it took to achieve this feat, was reflected in the ten individuals nominated for MOM. The joint winners, with two votes each, being Harriet and Ania Harriet seemed to have found her preferred position, acting as lynchpin, linking our defensive-mids to our attacking-inners in the centre of the pitch, clearly having taken on board Jack's reverse stick slap coaching to great effect! Ania being a consistent, impenetrable force in defence, maintaining the pace running one on the numerous shorts to prevent Nomads ever really getting a clean strike at goal right up to the final whistle!

Lemon however was rather less closely contented event, with Liz as the runaway victor after a stick throwing tantrum midway through the game! Honorable mentions also go to Ash for falling over twice, and to the demure Saskia for 'taking out' a Nomads forward without actually touching her…

Overall a fantastic result for the L3s! Please do compare this result with that of our L2s versus the same team at the start of the season - bodes well for the Long Road derby day in January… Following the derby, the now established L3s get the chance to rotate round to play all the teams nearer our own position in the league again - if the L3s can play like we did in this match, surely that elusive victory is potentially in our grasp!