This report shall follow the M3s’ naming conventions as laid down by Dom in the St Neots match report – first names only, no quarter given to the reader in telling between the various Matts, Alexs and Doms in the M3s squad. You are on your own!

The game opened explosively, as within the first few minutes Dom had put us ahead and Dom had got himself green carded.

The opening goal was actually inside twenty seconds. And for the first fifteen of those the ball was in Nomads’ possession after they had taken the opening centre-pass… They went backwards and then attempted to shift it across their backline. Simon intercepted this and immediately fed the ball into the circle, where Dom lunged to get a faint touch which beat the stunned keeper. Cue our subs on the sideline, distracted by sorting out water bottles, stop watches and the like, turning around asking “What just happened? Did we score?”

Maybe this was all too easy, as the side it seemed to settle most was Nomads! They pressed us very hard for the following fifteen minutes. We struggled to clear halfway or even our own 23 at times during this time, as the pace the hosts were playing the game at was proving too intense for us to cope with. An early sign of this pressure came with a free hit given against Dom, much to his annoyance. He complained to the ump as it was given and then complained again after the subsequent move had broken down. The ump saw this as lime-worthy and we had our lemon for the day, and that despite stiff competition later in the match.

As the half wore on we adapted to the speed of the game and begun to threaten ourselves, with the Nomads keeper pulling off a very good save to deny Alex (fed by Joe, who may in turn have received the ball from Alex or Alex) and keep the gap at one. So it was somewhat frustrating that this was the point when our hosts equalised. Two missed tackles were the root cause, allowing an overload that Nomads worked efficiently.

Though this was clearly deserved given the prior pressure we had been under, by the time of the goal the balance of play had already started to shift, and the half culminated with play mostly at the Nomads end of the pitch. That continued to be the case throughout the second period as we were the side looking much the more likely to claim the three points. At one point some players remarked that it felt like we now had significantly more space to work. That probably had something to do with our opponents being down to nine men at the time of this observation, after a yellow was quickly followed by another Nomad seeing green.

Whilst we didn’t really make the most of our numerical advantage, half-chances in the Nomads' D were coming, shorts were being won and, from those, shots were zeroing in on goal. The most notable were two flicked efforts by Dom that the keeper padded and kicked wide. We were pushing for the winner. Well, most of us. Neil appeared happy with one-one, as he held the ball in the far right corner with still a good five minutes on the clock. Twist, turn, dribble; he wasn’t going anywhere or even trying to, but getting the ball off him was proving difficult as five times Nomads jabbed it away but over the sideline, leading to repeat performances. The home defenders were getting visibly frustrated at this, which eventually induced one of them to not retreat five from the next sideline and give away a short. Neil suggested after the game that this had been his plan all along. Hmm. Such play was deemed worthy of a lemon vote (and also a MoM vote) on account of ball hogging.

Maybe Neil was right that it was safest on his stick, if Joe’s tomahawk attempt in the closing minutes was anything to go by. Joe had jinked well to give himself space to pirouette and fire, but the shot that followed had a trajectory better suited to a rocket launch. Around the same time, a Russian spy satellite that was above Britain mysteriously ceased communicating with its controllers [don’t worry Joe, I’m sure Theresa May will take the blame – this is a woman who can be taken by surprise by a General Election that she called. She surely can persuaded that she ordered the use of a highly secret new weapon and has simply forgotten about it]. Joe subsequently claimed that his success rate with such attempts would be around one in three (shots at goal that is, not clandestine warfare). Highly dubious. And yet even this couldn’t quite displace the Hulk…

Once a new orb had been sourced, the remaining time could be played out for the draw. It means we have four points from our first two games, and currently sit third in the table, one of just three unbeaten teams left in this league after two rounds of matches. Encouraging is the word, I think. We will look to maintain that start next week when Alford 1sts visit Long Road.